The pope had some warm words recently for a TV film about one of his favorite saints:

Pope Benedict XVI praised a made-for-television movie dedicated to St. Augustine, saying the two-part miniseries “represents every aspect of the human life experience with all of its problems, sorrows and failures.”

Furthermore, the movie shows how “in the end truth is stronger than any obstacle,” he said Sept. 2 after viewing a shortened version of the more than three-hour-long film.

“This is the great hope that it ends up with: We cannot find truth by ourselves, but the truth, which is a person (Christ), finds us,” he said.

The movie, called “St. Augustine,” was directed by the award-winning Canadian director Christian Duguay, and was co-produced by Italian, German and Polish television companies.

Promotional materials said the miniseries was one of a number of made-for-television movies being produced, which were also to focus on Roman Emperor Nero, St. Peter and Ben Hur.

The pope said St. Augustine’s life seemed to end tragically because the city of Hippo, “the world for which and in which he lived, ends and is destroyed.”

“But as it has been shown here, his message has remained and, even as the world changes, that message lives on because it is based on truth and guides charity, which is our common destiny,” he said.

The pope has often said his own thinking has been greatly inspired by the fourth-century theologian. When he was a young priest in 1953, the pope wrote his doctoral thesis on St. Augustine’s teachings, and his encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est” (“God Is Love”), owes much to the thought of this saint.

There’s more at the CNS link.