{"id":112,"date":"2010-05-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html"},"modified":"2010-05-07T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-07T07:00:00","slug":"fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s Career Steered by Family Priest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The most entertaining religion story of the week was the speculation over the role that Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s religious mentor, the Rev.&nbsp;James Flavin,&nbsp;has had in helping him choose roles&nbsp;&#8212; steering him away from&nbsp;playing one of the gay cowboys in &#8220;Brokeback Mountain&#8221; (RIP Heath Ledger), for example. <\/p>\n<p>The news, which I&nbsp;learned about from<a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/index.php?\/rnsblog\/wahlberg_knew_how_to_quit_brockback_mountain\/#When:21:17:00Z\"> a Religion News Service blog post<\/a>&nbsp;by my editor Kevin Eckstrom&nbsp;(who&nbsp;happens to know the priest in question),&nbsp;comes from&nbsp;a&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalenquirer.com\/celebrity\/68563?cid=RSS\">National Enquirer story <\/a>(not such a dubious source these days, given the tabloid&#8217;s&nbsp;recent Pulitzer Prize nomination for breaking the John Edwards\/Rielle Hunter affair). The RNS blog notes that it&#8217;s questionable whether the Catholic priest would have approved of Wahlberg&#8217;s career-making turn as porn star Dirk Diggler&nbsp;in &#8220;Boogie Nights,&#8221; however.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I wrote this post on Wednesday, because I&#8217;m now&nbsp;traveling until May 16, and I&nbsp;felt&nbsp;confident that this was a safe bet for the most entertaining religion news of the week. Feel free to correct me in the Comments section, if this turns out to have been outdone by some other&nbsp;news in the meantime &#8212; perhaps <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2010\/04\/sandra-bullocks-baby-bombshell.html\">Sandra Bullock&#8217;s baby adoption glow <\/a>has prompted Jesse James to get saved?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most entertaining religion story of the week was the speculation over the role that Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s religious mentor, the Rev.&nbsp;James Flavin,&nbsp;has had in helping him choose roles&nbsp;&#8212; steering him away from&nbsp;playing one of the gay cowboys in &#8220;Brokeback Mountain&#8221; (RIP Heath Ledger), for example. The news, which I&nbsp;learned about from a Religion News Service&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg&#039;s Career Steered by Family Priest - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg&#039;s Career Steered by Family Priest - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The most entertaining religion story of the week was the speculation over the role that Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s religious mentor, the Rev.&nbsp;James Flavin,&nbsp;has had in helping him choose roles&nbsp;&#8212; steering him away from&nbsp;playing one of the gay cowboys in &#8220;Brokeback Mountain&#8221; (RIP Heath Ledger), for example. The news, which I&nbsp;learned about from a Religion News Service&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-07T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg's Career Steered by Family Priest - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg's Career Steered by Family Priest - Belief Beat","og_description":"The most entertaining religion story of the week was the speculation over the role that Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s religious mentor, the Rev.&nbsp;James Flavin,&nbsp;has had in helping him choose roles&nbsp;&#8212; steering him away from&nbsp;playing one of the gay cowboys in &#8220;Brokeback Mountain&#8221; (RIP Heath Ledger), for example. The news, which I&nbsp;learned about from a Religion News Service&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-05-07T07:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html","name":"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg's Career Steered by Family Priest - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-05-07T07:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-07T07:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/05\/fun-friday-marky-mark-wahlbergs-career-steered-by-family-priest.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fun Friday: Marky Mark Wahlberg&#8217;s Career Steered by Family Priest"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}