Gerry

Gerard Thomas Straub is a documentary filmmaker and an award-winning author of five books, including a novel. His critically acclaimed book The Sun and Moon Over Assisi, which offers inspirational reflections on St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi, was named the best spirituality hardcover book of 2001 by the Catholic Press Association. His photo/essay book on global poverty, When Did I See You Hungry?, features photographs taken in India, Kenya, Brazil, Jamaica, Italy, Canada, the Philippines and Mexico. Mr. Straub is also the author Dear Kate, a novel published by Prometheus Books in 1994, and Salvation for Sale, a nonfictional look at the world of televangelism published by Prometheus Books in 1986 and released in paperback in 1988. His latest book, Thoughts of a Blind Beggar, is available through Orbis Books.

Gerry has written and directed thirteen documentary films, three of which have aired on many PBS television stations, including We Have a Table for Four Ready, which tells the poignant story of a soup kitchen run by Franciscan friars in Philadelphia, and Room Enough for Joy, which tells the heartwarming story of L’Arche community founded in Tacoma, Washington by two Jesuit priests which serves the needs of twenty mentally disabled children and adults. Mr. Straub also had a long and distinguished career as a network television producer in New York and Hollywood; he produced dramatic television series that have aired on CBS, NBC and ABC, including the wildly popular General Hospital. He was the executive producer of The Doctors, a long-running soap opera on NBC which was taped at Rockefeller Center in New York. He also wrote and produced a nationally syndicated magazine show and created an internationally syndicated soap opera.

Mr. Straub’s striking black & white photography has been exhibited in the art gallery attached to the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky, and also published in The New York Times and Sojourners magazine. He also taught a course on television writing and directing at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. He has lectured and shown his films at the University of Notre Dame, St. Bonaventure University, the University of Dayton, Loyola Marymount University, Canisius College, Mount Mercy College, Siena College, Wheaton College, Calvin College, Chestnut Hill College, Providence College and the Catholic Theological Union. In addition, he has spoken at more than three dozen of Catholic churches and high schools across the nation. He has led retreats in California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York and Minnesota. He received an honorary doctorate degree in Humane Letters from St. Bonaventure University in May of 2003. In May of 2006, Mr. Straub delivered the commencement address and received an honorary doctorate degree in Humane Letters from St. Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. In March of 2007, Gerry’s global poverty photographs were chosen to be exhibited at the prestigious Anaheim Religious Education Conference sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles which was attended by 40,000 people from across the nation.

Mr. Straub, who is a Secular Franciscan, is the founder and president of The San Damiano Foundation, which produces films that celebrate the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan concern for the poor, social justice, peace, non-violence, prayer and the integrity of creation. The San Damiano Foundation strives to put the power of film at the service of the poor. Gerry has written and directed nine documentary films for The San Damiano Foundation: When Did I See You Hungry?, which explores the Christian response to global poverty and is narrated by Martin Sheen; Embracing the Leper, which describes the heroic work of a Secular Franciscan who brings aid to the lepers and the poor of the Amazon region of Brazil; Holy Pictures, a meditation on the importance of stillness and silence in the spiritual life; Rescue Me, on the plight of the homeless in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles and featuring a song performed by Bono and the Irish rock band U2; Endless Exodus, on the plight of the undocumented migrants from Central America and Mexico; The Patients of a Saint, which tells the inspirational story of an American doctor who abandoned his career and opened a home and clinic for chronically ill and impoverished children of Lima, Peru; Room at the Inn, which revisits the St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia; Where Love Is, which focuses on the heroic work of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit; and The Narrow Path, a film on peace and nonviolence featuring the Jesuit priest, author and peace activist Fr. John Dear.

The San Damiano Foundation has been written about in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, St. Petersburg Times, Providence Journal, U.S. Catholic, National Catholic Reporter (cover story), and Sojourners magazine, and has been featured in stories which have aired on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (PBS), Life & Times (KCET-TV, the PBS station in Los Angeles), and News Conference (KNBC-TV News in Los Angeles), as well as on local television shows in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Tampa, Florida. In addition, stories about Gerry and The San Damiano Foundation have also been published by diocesan newspapers in Buffalo, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Providence, Brooklyn and Glasgow, Scotland.

Gerry Straub is a former member of the Board of Directors of Bread for the World, a Washington, DC based Christian lobbying organization that fights against hunger. Mr. Straub is also a former member of the Board of Regents of the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California. In September of 2003, The University of Dayton presented Mr. Straub with the Daniel J. Kane Religious Communications Award, an annual award given to a person who has made “an outstanding lifetime dedication to gospel values through various forms of Media.” Mr. Straub lives in North Hollywood, California.