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Sister Rose Pacatte of the Daughters of St. Paul moved through Sundance [as] a veteran film critic. Sister Rose [has] serv[ed] not as a sentry protecting religious belief from cinematic product, but rather as a mediator helping to explain one to the other. As such, she embodies a departure both from the religious temptation to police popular culture, and the effort in fundamentalist circles to create a parallel universe of theologically safe movies, television and music. "To paraphrase a Gospel passage, Christ came into the world to redeem the culture, not to condemn it," Sister Rose, 61, said in an interview here. "It's a negotiation. You don't give everything a free pass. Something has to come out of your convictions and values. But what matters isn't what the movie contains, but what it means."

Fish: "The words both 'True Grit' films, & Portis's novel, share are these: 'You must pay for everything in this world. There is nothing free with the exception of God's grace.' But free can mean (1) distributed freely, given to anyone and everyone; OR (2) given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious. The novel says, 'You cannot earn that grace or deserve it." FS: Jesus' story of "The Prodigal/Lost Son" suggests a 3rd notion: grace is freely given to all humans, who may not recognize its presence. Human values differ from God's in judging which person or outcome is ultimately "good" or "bad." Grace is an unearned gift. But to believe it is dispensed capriciously is more a characteristic of Greco-Roman cosmology.