Oh for the days when Holywood presented priests as manly, heroic and admirable - how times have changed!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Cardinal on IPlayer
Oh for the days when Holywood presented priests as manly, heroic and admirable - how times have changed!
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13 comments:
Thank you Father - I was disappointed to miss so much of it today. Did you know that it has been announced that Pope Benedict will give the Thought for the Day on Christmas Eve?
Father,
It was shown on BBC 2 this morning (Wednesday 22 Dec, 10.15am).
It was the first time I had seen it, and it certainly showed the Church in a very good light, especially the concluding section covering the Anschluss.
Well worth watching on I-Player!
It is indeed a shame that priests are no longer portrayed in this manner. Nearly all the priests I have encountered with the qualities you mention have belonged to Opus Dei.
I remember seeing this film and it was many years ago.
Basil, if I ever have a Catolic question I can't answer I hunt out an Opus Dei priest to ask. They are the only ones who can be depended on to give straight answers according to the Magisterium.
Doesn't The Cardinal have a scene in it where his sister dies because the doctor has to save the baby and let the mother die
and this leads him to a crisis of Faith? Or is it another movie I am thinking of?
Otto Preminger, the director, famously recruited a Benedictine monk to assist as an MC for the liturgical scenes - check the credits!
I also have seen this and have been rewatching it again and again. I'm beginning to feel extremely nostalgic for the pre-Vatican II Church. What I would give for the last 48 years in the Church to be just expunged from history. Why did we throw it all away...
Many thanks, Father Ray, for alerting us to this and providing a link, otherwise I would have missed it. I watched last night, with fascination, and enjoyed it.
Preminger tackled several difficult issues, and resolved them well. His priests, prelates (and lay Catholics) are by no means all examples of goodness. The impression overall, is of a firmly grounded Church which works for good in a wider society of problematic deviancy. The exact opposite of the public image of the last few years.
BBC iPlayer will have it for a week for watching in the UK. I think overseas will have to persuade EWTN to screen it, or get the DVD.
Father: Have you ever seen "The Keys of the Kingdom" which is an adaptation of the book of the same name by AJ Cronin? The hero Fr Francis Chisholm is played by Gregory Peck. It's a bit sentimental but it does present the priesthood in a favourable light - although there is one nasty monsignor played by Vincent Price.
If you possibly can, do go and see 'Of Gods and Men', a really wonderful new French film about a community of Cistercian monks in Algeria - a true story. Sensitive and compassionate, and beautifully filmed.
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia claims that, “The Vatican's liaison officer for the film was Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI.” The source for this claim is the Internet Moviebase (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056907/trivia?tr0951317)
Wikipedia also claims that the book was based on the life of Cardinal Spellman.
What's the bet Basil and Sharon are the same people?
Crux Fidelis, AJ Cronin dedicated his novel ‘The Keys of the Kingdom’ to Columban Fr Francis McDonald with whom he studied medicine. Dr McDonald was the first Scotsman - he was a Glaswegian - to become a Columban. Like Fr Chisholm in the novel he went to China where he worked till 1949, when missionaries had to leave. He later worked in Fiji for a while.
While I don’t think Fr Chisholm is based in any way on Fr McDonald, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the local colour came from the latter’s accounts of his experiences in China. Fr Frank died in Ireland on 14 July 1971 after a long illness. I’m almost certain I was at his funeral, as I was in Ireland at the time after finishing studies in the USA and preparing to leave for the Philippines.
My favourite movie priest is, I think, Karl Malden in ‘On the Waterfront’. Nothing namby-pamby whatever about him. There was also a movie made of the life of Blessed Miguel Pro SJ in 1972, ‘Rain for a Dusty Summer’, which I saw in the Philippines. Father Pro was played by Fr Humberto Almazán, ‘Padré Humberto’, a Mexican who had been a successful movie actor before becoming a priest. He got permission to play the role of Father Pro. It’s a movie I’ve never been able to locate since but would love to see again.
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