Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Art and Literature for Catholics => Topic started by: Viva Cristo Rey on July 28, 2014, 11:45:52 AM
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This movie is a must for all Catholics especially Irish Catholics.
However, you must get the original full version that was on American
PBS. The amazon versions which also includes the "the Catholics"
Or "Conflict" have many important scenes that are missing from these videos.
Also for some odd reason Barnes and Noble will not sell any copies to me and I noticed
That there aren't any doay Rheims bible. It seems that Barnes and noble might be anti catholic.
I notice they promote Wicca and all religions.
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I watched the movie 20 years ago.
I don't recall anything about it except that I think the setting was an old monastery on an island in England. At the time it was very dry to me and un-interesting. But that was when I was in my 20s.
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I just saw it. If you are Catholic,( especially a Tradcat) you have to see it.
It is what is going on now. It is scary that this movie was made back in 1973. Now, that you are older you can understand it. It is our Catholic Faith.
It is Ironic too that Martin Sheen whose character
Is totally novus ordo and modern is like that in real
Life even to social justice to ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs.
The poor abbot in struggling to overcome athesism and he stopped praying.
He became weak and lukewarm. The no priest was tempting him with silver too.
At the start of film they show people gathered at Mass
Rock coming to Ireland from all over the world for the Latin Mass.
The Mass Rock and penal days are here.
Archbishop Lefebvre helped save the Latin Mass
Back in 1988. It is because if SSPX there
Summorum Pontificuм.
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Remember The Mass Rocks.
Yes we Go to Mass to be with God almighty; not to be
With our neighbor.
Lol. Many of us in Novus Ordo couldn't stand the hippie guitars.
The hippie social justice pot smoking yoga lovin perverts and sodomists are running
Our Church and our government.
In a America we have Mass sites too. Recently, they took
Down historic marker which described the first Mass in area and in private
Homes. Where brave German Priests from Philadelphia would dress as farmer
Or trapper dodging bullets or lynching to offer up the Holy Sacrifice
Of the Mass. We used to build churches and schools. The herectics
Within close them down as enemies of Christ are building while slaughtering
Christians. The h0Ɩ0cαųst of Christians is still being down played and denied after
Many years of silence and indifference. Anti Christianity surpasses all other
Peoples persecution.
And all Obama, Hollywood Catholics and cardinal Timothy dolan do is promote, praise condone sɛҳuąƖ perversion. They are obsessed with sɛҳuąƖ perversion.
They booed God and they attack the Church.
When we we went to Knock it was sad I thought that we would be seeing
The original little Church where our Lady and Others appeared.
It was modern and cold. Now the Mass Rocks in Ireland
Made me think of the Mass of my ancestors. Then in America the herectics sold off shrine
Property to budists up in auriesville, nj. Let the herectics have it all because
We have the faith.
We don't have to go far to visit a shrine when you have the
Latin Mass.
I have to go and mail an Irish priest the prayers to make sure
He blesses our Godchild's brown scapular of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel.
And most important pray to God and pray the Rosary.
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In the end it isn't about feeling good or social work. It
Is about saving souls.
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I notice that I received many thumbs down. The movie was recommended by longtime tradcat who told me about movie.
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:smirk:
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I notice that I received many thumbs down. The movie was recommended by longtime tradcat who told me about movie.
Well, the movie ends with what is effectively the Gates of Hell triumphing over the Catholic Church.
The heretical priest orders the monks - the last orthodox Catholic clerics on earth - to stop offering the Latin Mass and to deny the dogma of the Real Presence. The Father Abbot, who has lost his faith, falsely places the virtue of obedience above the virtue of Faith and obeys the order to apostatize, and orders the monks to do likewise.
In the end, defense of the Catholic Faith is shown to be pointless and irrelevant, blind obedience is portrayed as virtuous and despairing existential terror wins the day.
So, while it might be a superficially attractive film for trads because it shows the NO in a bad light, the film does not follow that premise through by arguing on behalf of Catholic tradition. I'm not sure what it's arguing on behalf of, other than despair and agnosticism.
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No, I disagree. The Irish monks were already in trouble for disobeying and questioning the Abbot
Long before the arrival of the Vatican official. You can see that the Abbott is struggling with temptations being offered by the devil. Also, by the abbot remaining at the Monastery was a blessing because the replacement could have been worse. We see the monks praying and we see the Abbott trying to pray. As the monks are praying, we know God and our blessed Mother shall triumph in the end.
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The fictional movie was made in 1973 and it relates to what is happening in real life today.
The beginning of the movies is good. It shows The Latin Mass and it explains why the Latin Mass.
The person who wrote the book was struggling with his own faith.
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The thread count plugging this TV movie is becoming almost BoD-like. (Cui bono, I wonder?) Indeed, there is a hardly a subforum that doesn't have one or two. I'm almost yearning for another couple of Michelle-Obama-is-a-cross-dresser threads, complete with YouTube links, to wash the taste of the inappropriate Trad applause out of my mouth.
While I do not disagree with the tenor of BTNYC's assessment—how could I? I offered a similar assessment on an earlier thread (http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=31101&min=30&num=5)—I fear his last paragraph is overly optimistic in its tentatively proposed explanation of why self-identified Trads treats these crumbs as if they were croissants flown in fresh from an upscale Parisian boulangerie. That is, I think that a distaste for the NO has little or nothing to do with it. Rather, I have seen time and again that for a certain sort of Trad, the glimpse of a tonsured head or a delicately tatted dalmatic receding into the distance, especially when accompanied by the barely audible background chanting (recorded decades ago probably) of matins or nones or one of the other hours, has an appeal that frequently overrides all the critical faculties, an appeal that is uncomfortably akin to what in more conventional movie-audience environments is prompted by naughty footage of a yummy twenty-something starlet frolicking in the buff with a guy or another girl.
Put otherwise, inattentive Trads are swooning over the sizzle and barely noticing the steak. As I wrote on the earlier thread, the book that forms the basis of this manipulative program is a minor masterpiece of a sort, but neither the book nor the movie is proper fare for youngsters, who assimilate these misleading subliminal bits even more thoroughly and rapidly than their insufficiently critical elders.
The person who wrote the book was struggling with his own faith.
Brian Moore had given up any such struggle 25 years earlier. He had hardened his heart against the Faith, whatever "socially Catholic" aspects remained. To claim otherwise is to substitute imagination for evidence, VCR. However, as the version of Catholics you have also imagined exists nowhere in the world outside you, this is saddening but hardly surprising.
What's more, even were what you claim true (I reemphasize that it isn't), it would be of no account. The book he wrote and the TV movie others made from it must be evaluated on the basis of what one finds therein. And what is that? Nothing more nor less than a summons to cast off the remnants of a superstition that has outlived its usefulness, no matter how sentimentally appealing it might remain.
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The thread count plugging this TV movie is becoming almost BoD-like. (Cui bono, I wonder?) Indeed, there is a hardly a subforum that doesn't have one or two. I'm almost yearning for another couple of Michelle-Obama-is-a-cross-dresser threads, complete with YouTube links, to wash the taste of the inappropriate Trad applause out of my mouth.
While I do not disagree with the tenor of BTNYC's assessment—how could I? I offered a similar assessment on an earlier thread (http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=31101&min=30&num=5)—I fear his last paragraph is overly optimistic in its tentatively proposed explanation of why self-identified Trads treats these crumbs as if they were croissants flown in fresh from an upscale Parisian boulangerie. That is, I think that a distaste for the NO has little or nothing to do with it. Rather, I have seen time and again that for a certain sort of Trad, the glimpse of a tonsured head or a delicately tatted dalmatic receding into the distance, especially when accompanied by the barely audible background chanting (recorded decades ago probably) of matins or nones or one of the other hours, has an appeal that frequently overrides all the critical faculties, an appeal that is uncomfortably akin to what in more conventional movie-audience environments is prompted by naughty footage of a yummy twenty-something starlet frolicking in the buff with a guy or another girl.
Put otherwise, inattentive Trads are swooning over the sizzle and barely noticing the steak. As I wrote on the earlier thread, the book that forms the basis of this manipulative program is a minor masterpiece of a sort, but neither the book nor the movie is proper fare for youngsters, who assimilate these misleading subliminal bits even more thoroughly and rapidly than their insufficiently critical elders.
The person who wrote the book was struggling with his own faith.
Brian Moore had given up any such struggle 25 years earlier. He had hardened his heart against the Faith, whatever "socially Catholic" aspects remained. To claim otherwise is to substitute imagination for evidence, VCR. However, as the version of Catholics you have also imagined exists nowhere in the world outside you, this is saddening but hardly surprising.
What's more, even were what you claim true (I reemphasize that it isn't), it would be of no account. The book he wrote and the TV movie others made from it must be evaluated on the basis of what one finds therein. And what is that? Nothing more nor less than a summons to cast off the remnants of a superstition that has outlived its usefulness, no matter how sentimentally appealing it might remain.
Some very astute observations here and in your earlier post, Claudel.
And the point you make about the sedating effect that the outward trappings of tradition have on trad filmgoers (highlighted above), is well taken. This is as good an explanation as any I can think of for why I have met so many (indeed, one would be too many) trads who cite Otto Preminger's Judao-Americanist VII agitprop epic The Cardinal as an example of a "good Catholic movie."
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What you are saying is the movie was made to mock the Church? Now I understand what you are saying. We shouldn't compromise the faith.
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However the tale is intended, what I like about the movie is the frank portrayal of the abbot (if that is his title), who has lost the faith but continues to run the monastery as its "superintendent." It shows in dramatic form how cynical many of the leaders must be, and how they'll employ a false concept of obedience to level any resistance.
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However the tale is intended, what I like about the movie is the frank portrayal of the abbot (if that is his title), who has lost the faith but continues to run the monastery as its "superintendent." It shows in dramatic form how cynical many of the leaders must be, and how they'll employ a false concept of obedience to level any resistance.
I had the same impression of the movie.
I thought it was well-made, largely because of the typically Irish actors. They were playing the part of someone that wasn't unlike who they really are. If you want an Irish character, get an Irish actor, because it's not easy to pretend that you're Irish when you're NOT, and do so convincingly.
There are numerous very brief moments when various actors do things and say things that only an Irishman would do, and it is very entertaining to watch that. They show the spark of their inextinguishable cultural faith in very subtle and simple movements and expressive words in context. A most telling moment is when the monk in the rowboat pulls up to the stone steps with Sheen standing there, and the monk can't believe that Sheen is a priest because of his clothing, which appeared to be like a motorcycle rider's outfit, with leather jacket and boots on. The boatman looked around and then refused Sheen to board, even SWINGING A STICK at him, perhaps a Shillelagh! Those 5 or 10 seconds are simply genius, and most hilarious. They are excellent entertainment and well worth replaying several times. They get funnier every time you replay them. Later on in the movie, when Sheen arrives at the monastery in a helicopter, our understanding of the Irish expectation for how a priest should look is enlarged by one monk in the room with the abbot, who can't believe Sheen is a priest, either, merely based on the appearance of his clothing.
There are instances all throughout the film, such as when the monk brings Irish soda bread up to Sheen, who then not so subtly proceeds to NOT "enjoy" it. Another moment is when Sheen is moved through the refectory by the abbot, forbidding his monks from speaking to him. Then there was the fishing scene at the water, and the words of the expert fisherman -- remember the Apostles were fishermen. The symmetry is palpable. The visitor is from Rome, and he is no expert fisherman, but he has to go to this "John the Baptist" niche in the water's edge rocks to be shown a real fisherman. Between the loaves of soda bread and the fishes of the cove, we can recall the miracle of the loaves and fishes in the Gospel. These things are all over the movie.
"However the tale in intended," the frank portrayal of each character, most prominently the abbot, is most edifying, really.
When I first saw the movie, I had never heard of "Rock Mass" in Ireland, and I had never heard of "Mass Rocks" as being places that physically exist there. Therefore, the opening scene of a priest saying Mass on rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean was surreal to me, rather bizarre, actually, and appeared to be contrived. The thought crossed my mind that maybe this is something that may have actually happened somewhere in Ireland, but it also appeared to be some kind of "Woodstock" scene, with people in the open air gathering for an event. I couldn't make heads or tails of the cultural significance because I had not known of Irish "Rock Masses."
There is another thread here on CI that explores this theme in some detail.
All I had been able to understand is that those people were gathering on the mainland in a remote place for Mass, and that the priest who was the celebrant had come over from an island nearby, during the time when local parishes had abandoned the TLM in favor of the NovusOrdo liturgy, in 1970 or '71.
The people came carrying signs protesting the changes in the Mass. But who were the signs for? Who was there to read the signs other than more people with the same ideas in mind? The only person was the character played by Martin Sheen, who was effectively depicted as an OUTSIDER, one whose part later in the movie made it clear that he was no friend of Tradition, and had been sent from Rome to deal with a "problem of Resistance," one which CathInfo is really all about. So it's very good advice for all members of CathInfo to watch the movie, and I recommend watching it more than once.
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I notice that I received many thumbs down. The movie was recommended by longtime tradcat who told me about movie.
Well, the movie ends with what is effectively the Gates of Hell triumphing over the Catholic Church.
I don't think that's fair. The movie ends showing on abbot evoking the countenance of spiritual desolation -- but that's not "the Church."
The Gates of hell AT THAT TIME were triumphing over the soul of the Abbot, but that's just one man. They were not triumphing over the monks there in that monastery.
The heretical priest orders the monks - the last orthodox Catholic clerics on earth - to stop offering the Latin Mass and to deny the dogma of the Real Presence. The Father Abbot, who has lost his faith, falsely places the virtue of obedience above the virtue of Faith and obeys the order to apostatize, and orders the monks to do likewise.
In the end, defense of the Catholic Faith is shown to be pointless and irrelevant, blind obedience is portrayed as virtuous and despairing existential terror wins the day.
So, while it might be a superficially attractive film for trads because it shows the NO in a bad light, the film does not follow that premise through by arguing on behalf of Catholic tradition. I'm not sure what it's arguing on behalf of, other than despair and agnosticism.
It seems to me if you watch the film looking for what it "argues for" you're going to be disappointed, because it is more suited for a kind of dramatic docuмentary, for it shows the visit of a Roman visitor in the person of an apparently American priest who has been sent by Rome to extinguish the TLM in this remote corner of Ireland.
Some parts are doubtful and appear to be depicting poetic license in movie-making. But if you can look past that and take it "with a grain of salt," you should be able to enjoy the movie for the short moments of lucid Irish character acting, and the beautiful Irish scenery, in between the moments of derision and contempt for everything holy, much of which is drippingly displayed in the acting of Martin Sheen, whose face I really don't want to see ANYWHERE, but here he's tolerable because there is likely a nice Irish face nearby, somewhere.
I think it's an enjoyable movie, but it's not for children. I would rate it "R" for being disrespectful of the Canonized Latin Mass.
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Catholicism would not be where it is now if many of our so-called leaders over the past decades - conservative and traditionalist leadership included - were not as cynical and treacherous as that abbot, and if the orthodox faithful were not as easily cowed as those monks at last turned out.
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“Catholics” is thought provoking and prophetic.
I believe it was produced by a Jєω in a made for TV flick. I think it actually came out in 1971. And the theme, that the old Catholic Church faithful had now become outlaws got my attention.
The fascinating prophecy behind the movie was this: The Jєωs were explaining to us just how they would hijack the Church. Get the top leaders and the whole organization will follow.
I thought the script was excellent and I wasn’t depressed by the ending. The monks who wanted to fight for the Faith were inspiring.
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I have the movie in DVD, I think someone gave it to me, for I would never have paid money for it. I saw the movie like 25 years ago, and saw it as Novus Ordo junk. It is the type of emptiness you see on EWTN. If there is something I can't stand is having wasted my time, and this movie was a waste of time. Why? I'd say because it is not Catholic, a piece of garbage, and I would not waste one more second on it. Take my word for it, and if you do not, then that's your problem.
From another thread, Claudel puts it more eloquently below. From what he wrote I'll steal the short of it: "it is a work descriptive of a conflict in which neither the protagonist nor his principal antagonist stands for anything Traditional Catholics claim to believe in.
Claudel wrote:
I am genuinely puzzled by all the positive attention this film has been receiving from commenters here, especially those who, with or without good reason, regard themselves as tough-minded.
I bought the book Catholics upon its first release here in the States about forty years ago. It was, if I recall, a Book of the Month Club selection—a very big deal back then, when reading a book was not something people did to take a break from cruising the Internet for predigested information and instant knowledgeability.
Brian Moore, the author, was a most accomplished writer and a very graceful one, too. What's more, his having a good ear for speech in general and for the jargon of conciliarist publicists and propagandists (whether then or now) in particular lends a tone of instant recognizability to the debate that the novel enshrines. The problem is that the debate concerns not whether conciliarism or the old faith better represents God's truth or even whether any continuity remains between the new and the old faith but rather whether the psychological needs of people at large are better met by what the Irish American papal legate or the old abbot is plugging—put bluntly, which option has the more utility for the public: still more kumbaya or a return to smells and bells?
My recollection of the movie (actually a British teleplay) is pretty dim—I watched it just the once, when it was shown for the first time on US television—but what I do quite vividly recall about it is less any departure from the style or focus of the novel (there wasn't any) than the impact that brilliant acting (Trevor Howard's) can make when it engages with laughably bad acting (Martin Sheen's). I suppose I can see why one would wish to think of Howard's abbot as defending the substance of the true faith, not simply its accidents—who in his right mind, after all, would ever want to associate himself with anything uttered by such a rotten representation of a transparent phony as Sheen's Kinsella?—but the abbot doesn't defend that substance because he's lost belief in it.
A reader of the book would have a much harder time tugging the wool over his own eyes, there being on the printed page no ruggedly gorgeous scenery, no fancy camera work, no comforting Gregorian noises on the soundtrack playing in the background, and no classy acting by the guys togged out as monks. Even with all these distractions, surely one or two other commenters should have noticed that, to draw an analogy from political science, they were looking at a teleplay that amounted to a debate between an archliberal and a neocon: while they agree that Divine Truth is nonexistent and Christian belief is delusional, the former contends that all, for their own good, must be compelled to see the emptiness of their illusions/delusions, and the latter argues that a world without illusions is unlivable for the great mass of men and women. (Paging Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss! Professor Strauss, call your office.)
To return, again and finally, to the book, which interests me infinitely more than a silly TV program, I repeat that it is a very fine thing of its kind, perhaps even a minor masterpiece within the genre of short fiction. But it is a work descriptive of a conflict in which neither the protagonist nor his principal antagonist stands for anything Traditional Catholics claim to believe in. That is, Brian Moore's Catholics is a fictional treatment of a subject about as relevant to the desire for the reconversion of Rome to the Faith as the matter of the latest entry in the X-men or Star Trek or Spider-Man franchise.
My advice to Trad parents who think this is a good movie to show to their kids is as follows: learn to think otherwise!
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I guess I don’t get it ? :popcorn:
You guys have way more intellectual horsepower than I do.
I took the movie as simply being about Holy religious holding out to defend the true Mass.
At the time the film was produced, the traditional Catholic movement was in it’s infancy.
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I have a public-domain DVD of it, picked up at Dollar Tree, with the title "The Conflict". IIRC I also downloaded it online once upon a time. I found the movie rather bizarre, especially the ending where the surrendering monks were reciting the Our Father. I see it as what I call a "spinach movie", something I might watch because it's "good for me", not necessarily enjoyable or interesting.
I can't help but be reminded here of Popeye eating spinach, an early attempt at political correctness, giving Popeye some socially redeeming credit for eating a nutritional food (thus setting a good example for the kids) that usually doesn't come at the top of anybody's list of tasty, enjoyable things to eat. (Full disclosure: I like spinach very much. Most people do not.)
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I took the movie as simply being about holy religious holding out to defend the true Mass.
There is certainly no reason to object to someone's deriving pleasure or enjoyment from a movie, either as a whole or in certain of its aspects, especially if the person in question is not in danger of being misled by the work's objectionable elements. As I wrote long ago, I was deeply touched by Trevor Howard's performance. He imparted a near-tragic dimension to the character of the abbot and his loss of faith. I was not moved, however, to wish myself in his shoes!
Is reading or attending a performance of Macbeth to be discouraged or condemned because its protagonist consults witches and heeds their counsel? Some people have done so, but I am not one of them.
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This movie is a must for all Catholics especially Irish Catholics.
However, you must get the original full version that was on American
PBS. The amazon versions which also includes the "the Catholics"
Or "Conflict" have many important scenes that are missing from these videos.
Also for some odd reason Barnes and Noble will not sell any copies to me and I noticed
That there aren't any doay Rheims bible. It seems that Barnes and noble might be anti catholic.
I notice they promote Wicca and all religions.
Barnes and Noble is a general bookstore. They sell what people want to buy. The don't sell the DRV routinely because very few, if any, people ever walk into their stores looking for one. They will be very happy to order one for you if you really want to get one from them. I have done it without problems.