VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Growing up on television sound stages, David Henrie fell into what he calls the “bubblegum theory of pleasure.”
“In my teen years, and my early 20s, I was just a successful child actor. I had built up a big following online and was just living for the world,” said the 36-year-old Henrie, who had roles on Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” and ABC’s “How I Met Your Mother.”
As the perks of success lost their flavor, like a stick of bubblegum, he said, they “led me ultimately to an anxious life and a relativistic life. I had no real purpose other than just get stuff, get people to like you, get respect, but that was so fleeting.”
Things changed for Henrie while he was working with actor Kevin James and his “Mall Cop:2” Mexican co-star Eduardo Verástegui on the 2015 movie “Little Boy.” Both Catholics, the two older actors began to question Henrie about his own Catholic childhood. “They were able to challenge me, and they had questions, and they had answers for the questions, and they answered all my questions,” he said.
During the filming, James drove Henrie to St. Michael Abbey in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, where one of the abbey …