Catholic Evangelism Media Index
By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics
Former Instructor St. John's University, New York City
Christain, Paticularly Catholic, Video
Free with Amazon Prime
In addition to the free shipping, a vast collection of free music, including religious music, and many other benefits, an Amazon Prime subscription provides a vast collection of video, both movies and TV for free with "limited ads." For an extra three dollars a month you can eliminate the ads.
Amazon's free with prime videos include a collection of Christian and more narrowly Catholic video. I have hardly begun to explore this free collection, but here are several videos that I can suggest.
Animation
Mel Gibson's orginization was not satisfied with making the greatest Christian movie, they also made what may well be the greatest children's Christian movie. It is very moving and much more enjoyable than the "Passion of the Christ. It is called,
"The Miracle Maker.". Do not miss this one, even if you do not have children. Perhaps there are some children you can watch it with.
Popular TV Series
Free on Prime includes the popular TV series about Christ and his associates,
"The Chosen". It has a 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Another very popular TV series is Touched by an Angel. This is also avalible free with ads on Prime. There are nine seasons with 211 episodes.
The famous Franco Zeffirelli miniseries Jesus of Nazareth is also free with ads on Prime.
There is a lot more that I have not covered. These are some of the most famous series.
Classic Movies
A famous movie,
The Greatest Story Ever Told" about Christ, is also available on Amazon Prime.
Another classic is Becket.
Beyond the Free Amazon Prime Videos
Once again there are many other Catholic and religious films available for free on Amazon Prime. I have listed here some of the most prominent and the best.
There are many other great religious movies that are not free on Amazon Prime, but you can still get them without directly paying money. When you order things from Amazon with Prime you get free two day delivery. If you accept somewhat slower delivery you can frequently get a three dollar credit toward digital purchases like movies. So by thinking a head and buying early with the slower delivery you can watch Christian classic movies for free. I generally get a three dollar credit and the movies typically cost four dollars to rent. So at that rate four orders would net me three Christian classics like "A Man for all Seasons" or "Lilies of the Field."
Public Library
An alternative to renting the films from Amazon is to check your local public library to find those. They are likely to have a better collection of Christian movies than Amazon Prime free collection. Library dvds are, however, frequently beat up. If Amazon Prime has the film for free it would generally be better to use the Prime copy. That being said do not shy away from the library collection, as the religious movies are likely to be in far better shape than the popular blockbusters and children's videos. Furthermore, if the religious movies are checked out a lot that will encourage librarians to include more in the collection. Librarians are always looking for ways to increase their circulation.
If your library does not have important religious movies you might want to suggest they buy them or even buy them yourself and give them to the library. Before you buy them, however, check to see if they want to add the title to the collection. The normal thing to do with a donation is to sell it at a library book sale. So check with the librarians before you buy. Building the public libraries religious collection can be a very cost effective way to evangelize. I have several web pages on evangelization through public libraries.
As a huge portion of the population, perhaps more than half, gets Amazon Prime for the shipping and many other services, it strikes me as important that we explore what Prime has to offer Catholics and other people of faith. This can be another form of evanglization.
The Only Constant is Change
What Amazon offers is constantly changing. So many of the movies and TV shows you are interested in may show up over time, but if you delay on seeing what they offer now it may disappear.
Where to Find Christian Movies and TV series
There is at least one website that tells you where you can stream movies and TV,
Just Watch dot com.
Evangelization and You
At my parish there have been messages encouraging us to evangelize. This is one of many initiatives that I am engaged in to evanglize. I encourage you to help me on this. To that end if you wish to pass on your suggestions for possible inclusion in this list, ask questions, or share your thoughts here is my
contact information.
And of course it will help this page if you link to it, both because some people will follow the link and because that will move the page up on the search engines.
I have a page on
my reasons for subscribing to Amazon Prime.
Media Evangelization Index
Last Updated January 10, 2025