Animated “David” Film: Naturalistic Reduction of Sacred History
Catholic News Agency portal (December 19, 2025) reports on an animated film titled “David” produced by Sunrise Animation Studios, which purports to depict the biblical King David’s life “from his humble beginnings as a shepherd boy to his battle against Goliath.” The film, released December 19, features voices of Protestant singers Phil Wickham and Lauren Daigle and claims to “tell the story authentically” while making it “accessible” for families. Director Brent Dawes asserts the film avoids an explicit Christian message to avoid “alienating people who don’t believe,” framing David’s faith as a subjective historical curiosity rather than a witness to divine revelation.
Sacred History Reduced to Harmless Entertainment
The film’s deliberate omission of David’s grave sins—adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah (2 Samuel 11)—exposes its naturalistic distortion of Scripture. Dawes admits sanitizing the narrative to make it “PG-friendly,” reducing the divinely inspired record of God’s justice and mercy (Psalm 50[51]) to a moralistic fable. This aligns with Pius X’s condemnation in Lamentabili (1907): “The Gospels do not prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but it is a dogma which Christian consciousness has derived from the concept of the Messiah” (Proposition 27). By erasing David’s repentance, the film denies the very heart of his witness: “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 50:19).
Relativism Masquerading as “Accessibility”
Dawes’ claim that the film allows viewers to engage with David’s beliefs “however you want” epitomizes the indifferentism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors: “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation” (Proposition 16). Contrast this with Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925): “The entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ”, for “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The film’s refusal to proclaim David as a type of Christ—the Messianic King foreshadowing the eternal reign of God—reduces biblical history to secular heroism.
Protestantization of Catholic Art
Collaboration with Protestant musicians Wickham and Daigle underscores the film’s ecumenical syncretism, violating Pius XI’s warning against “religious relativism” in the False Fatima Apparitions file. This mirrors the modernist heresy that “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Lamentabili, Proposition 20). True Catholic art, as Pius XII taught, must elevate souls to supernatural truths, not cater to interdenominational sentimentality. The film’s aesthetic mediocrity—typical of post-conciliar “faith-based” media—further betrays a lack of reverence for the sacred.
The Silent Apostasy of Omission
Nowhere does the article mention David’s role as ancestor of the Messiah or his Eucharistic foreshadowing in the offering at Bethlehem (1 Samuel 21:1-6, prefiguring the Bread of Life). This omission reflects the conciliar sect’s systematic desupernaturalization of Scripture, reducing it to moral anecdotes. As the Syllabus condemns: “Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress” (Proposition 5). The film’s slogan—”inspired by the courage of a real-life hero”—replaces David’s supernatural faith with secular resilience, embodying the naturalism Pius IX anathematized.
Source:
New animated film ‘David’ tells story of Israel’s famous king for the whole family (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 19.12.2025