Posted on 01/02/2009 9:47:21 AM PST by NYer
As others have noted, the Catholic-school movie Doubt (like the play) is kind of a Rorschach test that leaves audiences forming conclusions based on their preconceptions. The film, set in 1964, pits a disciplinarian nun (Meryl Streep) against a “the-Church-needs-to-change” priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) over his abuse of a child.
But having seen it, I think the movie version is open to several interpretations:
1. It might be a “Gay message movie.” (Spoiler alert!) We meet a boy who is misunderstood and abused because of his homosexuality (“God made him that way,” explains his mother. “We’re talking about actions, not inclinations,” answers the nun, sensibly), and the priest character in the film, who is hinted to be homosexual, and abusive to boot, is treated sympathetically. All of this hyper-awareness of homosexuality strikes me as anachronistic in a movie set in 1964, but I wasn’t around then so who am I to say?
2. It might be an “anti-organized religion” movie. The film is sympathetic to benign Christian concepts but every character who takes seriously the hierarchical Church gets twisted by it. The priest alternately thwarts and exploits the system. The older nun describes the importance of the “chain of command” from the Pope on down, but goes around it because the men who run it are corrupt. A younger nun is struggling to live in it, but finds she has to truncate her heart in order to do so.
3. It might be a movie justifying perpetual intellectual adolescence. The movie’s thesis statement is delivered in a sermon at the beginning of the movie: “Doubt can be a bond as sustaining as certainty,” and reinforced in the closing scene of the film. The problem: That’s nonsense. Doubt is isolating, not uniting. Compare your local Unitarian church to your local Assemblies of God church and see for yourself. Doubt can be a powerful force for deepening faith when it leads us to discover why we believe what we believe, but to wallow in doubt is to avoid reality — or, likely, to avoid having to break with some sin.
My answer to the Rorschach test: Doubt shows the deep corruption of 1950s and early 1960s Catholicism. Some want to pretend Vatican II is the root of all upheaval in the Church. To make that case, they employ a post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc argument that points to the numbers of priests and nuns and Mass attendees before the Council and after it.
The numbers do make the Council look suspicious. But the elephant in the room is the state of pre-Vatican II Catholics. If they were so wonderful, why did they respond to a pope and Council’s decrees by walking out en masse?
In fact, externalism — moralism and duty untethered from charity and faith — had already rotted the Church behind the facade. Vatican II didn’t drive people away so much as it ripped off the facade and exposed what was underneath. And, for all the problems in the Council’s implementation, that was what it set out to do.
Too many in the older generations cringe and wince when you mention the school nuns of their childhood. They remember their cruelty, they take what they experienced to be typical of Catholicism, and are glad to be rid of it. Doubt dramatizes that 1950s Catholic experience: A little of its sweetness and power, and a lot of its subtle perversity.
Catholics of my generation grew up in the 1970s and 1980s with a totally different experience of the Church. All that baggage isn’t ours, and frankly, we’re not interested in carrying it around anymore.
See #38.
Nuns wore traditional habits until the 60’s when they adopted more modern dress. Elizabeth Seton’s order wore a headdress like that depicted instead of the more typical veil.
>>I think that this is what John XXIII had in mind. <<
I don’t. I think the NO with the sprinking of Latin and all the smells and bells is what he wanted.
My parish has that as well as the TLM. I like the NO. Like EWTN has.
I believe that as well. My mom just couldn’t believe that we were not getting the same education at CCD as she did. We went to the same church, same priest that she grew up with. She did what her parents did. She sent us to CCD, we attended church on sunday, and made all our sacraments. She couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to continue to go after we made our sacraments. There was nothing relevant in it. All we heard about was the soft fluffy stuff, the CCD teachers either seemed afraid to say something wrong in the new vatican 2 teaching, or they felt everything old was irrelevant.
Things must have been so different after V2. I am self educated in the Catholic Faith after leaving it for the Baptist faith for 8 years. A long study of early church fathers yielded my error, and now, my children, aged 21, 17 and 15, are well schooled in their faith, from home, but they also attended CCD, due to the requirement to do so for the sacraments. I went in and taught CCD (not their classes) and my kids came to me and informed me when their CCD teachers taught error, or opinion as church teaching.
I feel bad for the kids that don’t know any better and are still hearing things like, I personally don’t believe in purgatory, but the church teaches it so I have to tell you about it, and that there are only 3 marks of the church-yes these are things my kids came and told me their teachers taught, and I was straight in to the DRE to let her know and fix it!
keep watch parents, and don’t abdicate your responsibility to train up your child the way they should go, because others are trying very hard to subvert them, even where you think it is safe.
All 3 of my boys are very devout catholic young men, one called to the priesthood, one to marriage, and one very active in the pro life movement. KEEP FIGHTING, its the only hope our generation has after its poor catechesis.
Exactly. It was changed from Roman Catholicism to Vatican II Roman Catholicism and many of the changes were things people were forwarned about in regards to the dreaded modernism as it was called then.
For those who were “up on” the Catholicism of Pope Pius the 12th, who read or heard the words of that pontificate and the bishops of the 40s and 50s such as Bishop Sheen, the changes appeared to be what earlier Church leaders had seen in a somewhat prophetic manner as something terribly wrong filtering into the Church. Those who walked away felt it was no longer the faith that was passed down to them by their parents, that it had changed drastically.
It is important to understand that parents really understood their immense responsibilities to be the primary educators of their children and to pass on the faith that they received, not the changes from Vatican II if they differed from the faith in which they were raised.
This was a time when Catholics did not put their children into the public system - that would have been absolutely the last resort, and parishes helped educate the children of the parish regardless of their ability to pay the full tuition - often it was partially paid by another parishioner as the subculture of the parish was really functional and strong.
The convents and rectories were full and people went to confession weekly. To be Catholic was not comparable to being Presbyterian as it is now. There was a cultural difference as broad as an ocean. As a child I recall Priests speaking who were very much like Bishop Sheen in their oratory.
“A radical change like Vatican II should have been accompanied by strict quality control measures and significant instruction to parishioners.”
ROFLOL and crying at the same time over your words. Man made Quality Assurance measures are left best in the work place. Let the Holy Trinity be Our Assurance. The Mystical Body of Christ has no need for quality control and you can’t apply TQM or JIT to real faith as you must approach it as a child.
Significant instruction and inculcation already was given to the parishioners back in 1960 as they understood their “ordo” better than most Catholics today. This was an age when all Catholics understood latin and were quite literate compared to today’s college graduates. Part of the reason the changes survived was the dumbing down of the culture and the concurrent social revolution of the 60s.
Some would say the poor implementation of the radical changes was part and parcel of the goal of Vatican II if it was intended to undermine the real faith of Catholicism.
Yes, and it’s time to put an end to it wherever we are and to stand up for the truth.
“For the devout, they lived with it. For the doubting, they left.”
You could argue that some devout left and some doubting stayed too and it is important to see the mixed bag in the aftermath. If for 2 decades you are told from the pulpit and the Vatican to watch out for the evil of xyz and in 1960 xyz is announced as the new format of the faith you might feel confused or you might know exactly what to do.
It is hard to point a finger at the regular Sunday parishioner when their actions were of faith in trying to follow along the path of Truth and Love. For many, it was as if the North and South Poles had flipped. I was in the last class making Holy Communion in latin in my parish. It was an affluent and very well educated parish with a Basilica that had standing room only even with Mass also being said in the Parish School Auditorium. The changes hit this Parish like a nuke.
ok poor choice of words.
By “quality assurance” I was being somewhat flip. My choice of terminology was not chosen to diminish the glory of the Trinity. I purposely employed a business term to the discussion as if it were a new plan. Literary technique. To be a little more precise, I think the implementation of Vatican II needed lots more oversight. Most others on this thread understood this approach and did not see a need to belittle me.
My main point was that without significant oversight, radicals within the church were allowed to implement it as they saw fit, which lead to abuses.
I think you misunderstood what I meant about “instruction”. I wasn’t discussing instruction in the Bible...I was discussing instruction on what Vatican II was all about. Vatican II instruction was NOT provided to parishoners. A change was made, and few knew why. The Baltimore Catechism was dropped entirely and was not replaced by anything for about 20 years. Even the present Catechism (which is really quite excellent) is not taught to students...so instruction is still quite poor.
And no, an understanding of church doctrine, the Bible and tradition was quite poor amongst the general Catholic population prior to Vatican II. It might be worse now, but it was what I would call good. For cyin’ out loud...people were saying the Rosary during Mass because they didn’t understand what was going on!
However I will admit that the love and knowledge of the Church was stronger amongst the few truly devout Catholics of the time. Perhaps you and those close to you took the effort to understand the Mass. I admire that. But the general population was disconnected.
“But the general population was disconnected”
I disagree but then perhaps there was a vested reason to front this message of disconnection as it fitted a certain need to justify the change.
That pretty much sums up the Hollywood worldview, doesn't it?
>>It is important to understand that parents really understood their immense responsibilities to be the primary educators of their children and to pass on the faith that they received, not the changes from Vatican II if they differed from the faith in which they were raised.<<
You have pegged it!
We lived our faith. It wasn’t a Sunday thing back then. You got a new car blessed, your house was blessed every year, celebrations for Saint’s Days, family rosaries, blessing Easter baskets, silence for three hours on Good Friday, you name it. It wasn’t a “Go to church on Sunday/confession once a year” thing. Everything centered on being Catholic. We were different.
A friend of mine from RI tells stories of living on the coast. People would bless themselves with ocean water before swimming. We prayed before starting a long trip and at restaurants (we still do). How often do you see any of that now?
Parents made young Catholics. Now, all of it is a coma in your life.
Yikes!
Make that comma!
I haven't seen the movie, but what one thinks may depend on one's own expectations. People who hope or fear that it will be anti-Catholic may come away with a different impression from people who don't.
I finally rented this last night and found it a ringing defense of the old Church, complete with protective nuns, a corrupt American hierarchy and the taint of modernism. This is the only Streep movie I’ve ever seen that I liked.
It properly depicts the seduction of the boy by a “chicken hawk” rather than the classic pedophile. These bastards prey on boys old enough to be interesting but small enough to be no trouble.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.