Hollywood Priest : Outspoken Father Ellwood Kieser Spreads the Word by Making Movies

At times when he mentions God, Father Bud Kieser describes a lovable but quirky sounding guy with whom Kieser is on familiar but exasperating terms: A demanding sort who orders him to be a priest, tells him “no go” and would not be above slipping a banana peel under Kieser’s ego.

On other occasions, Kieser describes an omniscient Supreme Being whose essence is existence and whose existence is felt both in the exterior universe and deeply within Kieser himself.

“Both are a part of me,” he says. “Awe is a part of (God) and so is the familiar. He’s transcendent but also my best friend who says, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ ”

The 62-year-old Catholic priest has written his autobiography, “Hollywood Priest,” which tells his story as a clergyman and television-movie producer.

Kieser produced “Insight,” the public-service television series that earned six Emmys during a 23-year run that ended in 1983, and then moved into prime time with specials like “The Fourth Wise Man” and “We Are the Children.”

He has produced one feature--”Romero,” about the life of the assassinated Salvadoran archbishop, Oscar Romero--and has begun work on another, about Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker social action movement.

He talks of television as a vehicle for “spiritual enrichment” and gives out awards--the Humanitas Prizes--for television writing that “projects human values and brings the insights of the Judaic-Christian vision of man to bear on our contemporary situation.” In an age of cynicism, irony and self-deprecation, Kieser does not hesitate to use lofty words and high concepts. He has subtitled his life’s story “a spiritual struggle” and has dedicated it “to those who seek the truth with passion.” He considers priests “transcendent symbols” and says his struggle has been to “find the best way to give myself to God as He lives in other people.”

But Kieser also counts the glamorous among his friends and acquaintances, takes meetings and is no stranger to screenings, power breakfasts, lights-cameras-and-action. He’s traveled the talk-show circuit and openly admits that he likes being in the limelight. Yet he says he wants his life’s story to be seen as a book not about glitz but about spiritual struggle.

Is this guy for real?

Apparently so.

Up front, in his book’s introduction, Kieser recounts a 1967 conversation with the late Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes of the Los Angeles archdiocese. Kieser quotes the arch-conservative Hawkes’ castigation of Kieser’s seeming liberalism: “You guys are all the same. You start out playing around with the liturgy. Next you question church doctrine. You end up dating nuns.”

Writes Kieser: “I was furious; partially, I guess, because I was doing all three.”

He goes on to devote a chapter to his unconsummated love-affair with a nun who, in the course of their involvement, left the convent and urged Kieser to consider marriage. He says he wrestled with the idea of having sexual relations with her, leaving the priesthood and marrying. He opted against all three.

Such candor, from a priest writing while still in the priesthood, is rare, if not unheard of. As are his descriptions of two years of psychotherapy, of minor dabblings in New Age phenomena, of descriptions of the political climate of the church.

Kieser says he was motivated, in part, by the fact that “a priest had not written an autobiography who stayed (in the priesthood).

“In college, I knew I’d write the book. I saved my themes. (And over the years) my love letters, 35 years worth of sermons. There’s something arrogant about saying my life is that significant, but--arrogant or not. . . . “

Indeed, several friends and acquaintances at times describe Kieser with phrases such as “full of himself.” But those same people invariably call him sincere and say “he delivers” good work.

Father Ellwood E. Kieser works out of a grand old building across the street from the ocean on Pacific Coast Highway. Fading splendor and encroaching funk vie for possession of the Paulist Productions offices, a former restaurant and cabaret owned by Lola Lane. Spanish tile and graceful arches provide a backdrop for molding velvet upholstery, thrift-shop office furniture and shag carpets.

Numerous framed photographs of actors who have worked with Kieser and posters of Paulist Productions line the walls. Halfway up the grand staircase, a red neon signs hangs on the landing, proclaiming “Ole Jesus.”

Emerging from his large cluttered office in back, Kieser comes on like a 6-foot-6 kid, his brimming enthusiasm and goodwill leaving little wonder why his childhood nickname, Bud, has stuck. The safari jacket he wears over his Roman collar is apt; he carries the air of someone on an successful expedition, his zest for the adventure of it all is palpable.

Kieser has been traveling and is home on a brief pit stop, catching up with the business at hand at Paulist Productions. Kieser is a Paulist Father--an order of Catholic priests dedicated to the service of the larger, non-Catholic community. He formed the nonprofit production corporation in 1968 and is its executive producer.

In 1984, the company moved from public-service programming to prime time. Currently, Kieser says, Paulist Productions has a couple of TV movies, the Dorothy Day feature film and a situation comedy in the works. “Romero,” which starred Raul Julia, received good critical notices and was a moderate financial success. Recently it aired on CBS and, Kieser says, videocassette sales and rentals are doing well.

Kieser recently returned from the Sudan, where he filmed for five days. He has been on television, showing the footage and talking about the plight of Sudanese imperiled by the combined curses of politics, war and famine.

He explains the trip by saying that a 1978 trip to India, during a dark time when he felt burned out and directionless, made him “fall in love with the Third World. It blew me out of my self-pity.”

Since then, Kieser says, he has committed himself to one month each year in Third World countries, “being a voice for the voiceless, talking for those who really can’t speak for themselves. The Third World is really a very important hobby of mine. I need that month to balance Hollywood.”

Kieser is capable of some pretty heady thoughts. Does he actually see himself as a voice for the voiceless? Does he really walk around thinking he is a transcendent symbol?

“You’d better have your nose rubbed in your own frailty if you’re going to do that,” he grins. Therapy was good for him, he says, because it made him accept his own human failings: “The more human you are, the more effective you can be as a transcendent symbol.”

And is he a kindred soul with those to whom he dedicates his book--passionate seekers of truth?

“I think of myself as a passionate human being. I tend to jump in with both feet and to be an enthusiast. I don’t go halfway. I’m a natural crusader: ‘Hold up the banner and let’s march.’ And a lot have said, ‘We’ll march with you.’ ”

Born in Philadelphia in 1929, Kieser was ordained in 1956 in New York but transferred almost immediately to St. Paul’s Church in Westwood. He has lived there since with the Paulist community, which numbers about 10.

His television career was an outgrowth of adult classes in theology that he offered to the public at St. Paul’s. He launched them in 1958, he says, fearing that only a handful of people would show up. One hundred came. He continued directing these “Inquiry” courses--more than half of the 8,500 who enrolled were non-Catholics--until 1964.

Kieser sees himself as an evangelist, and television was the next step in reaching the public. Unlike the televangelists of recent fame and scandals, however, he has never used the airwaves as a way to solicit money. Rather, he used them only to deliver his message--a message that has never been very doctrinaire or specific but that always involves issues and values that relate to the Gospels.

“I live in the church and work in the world. Show biz is in the world. I like it,” he says. “I feel they’re the people who need me.”

Does he need them?

“Yeah, it’s stimulating,” he says readily. “They challenge me. I listen to them and I hope I’m a better Christian because of it.”

Kieser says he is more comfortable financing his projects in corporate boardrooms than coaxing contributions out of sweet old wealthy souls. He pitches his projects in bottom-line terms: “I can give you more for your charitable buck.”

Although his book tells about his personal choices--about celibacy, his faith, his reactions to certain political issues--he does not comment in general about church policies.

For example, Kieser has chosen celibacy and paid what he says is the price of loneliness. But what does he think about celibacy and the clergy?

“I’m damn glad I’m not the Pope and have to make that decision.”

He would find it a difficult decision, Kieser says, calling the question of celibacy more a pragmatic problem than a theological one: “Just to say ‘Let’s ordain married guys’--one thing we’d lose is the priest as a transcendent symbol. Celibacy is part of the transcendence.”

Kieser seems without axes to grind.

Looking momentarily bemused about that, he tried an explanation, as much for himself as anyone else: “Maybe I don’t have that much anger. I’m not an angry person.”

And although his book’s introduction says that the poverty of Third World taught him that “living out the Gospel in the latter part of the 20th Century necessitated sustained political involvement,” the book contains no political statements.

“I don’t call myself apolitical. I’m a humanistic activist, not a political activist. I’m more interested in evangelizing than politicizing,” he says. He cites “Romero,” a film that implicitly criticized the Reagan Administration’s military aid to El Salvador and resulted in the resignations of several Paulist Productions board members.

“I spoke against the arms race, but is it best to put it into an article or television show or to go to Nevada (nuclear test site) and get arrested?” he asks, saying there is a place for such actions, but not for him. That would be too easy, Kieser says, and he is wont to do things his way:

“I’m a man comfortable with my virility. I can stand up to people; I have guts. . . . I do not have to prove myself by defying authority or sleeping with a woman.”