As things has been developing in the hierarchy, the more I am convinced that the “towards the people” mass is initial metaphorical step of the hierarchy’s attitude towards God.
Seen from the context of the sanctuary where the Holy Eucharist was at the centre, it does appear the turning of the hierarchy’s back towards God to make the people the priority.
The mass has become about the people. This is in contradiction to what Jesus did. The sacrifice was first and foremost about God not about people.
Yes, secondarily. It was about people Jesus offered himself to appease the wrath of God against humanity. The mass was to God, although the mass is of the people in the person of Christ.
The problem with this modernist mass is has inverted the hierarchy of priority. Thus. emptying the meaning for the people. It becomes for the people, of the people and by the people. God has been excluded in the celebration of Son’s sacrifice.
I remember this film from years ago and it still resonates. My recollection is that in the end, obedience supplanted faith - it is all that can last. Prescient too, the progressive church of today is also enforcing obedience in place of faith.
Your recollection is right. Obedience is the last gasp of the autocrat when he has lost any other basis or rationale for the free and willing cooperation of his subjects.
Very true. There's also more in the idea that obedience for its own sake is the counterpart of power. Power without love (and needless to say, truth) is tyranny.
Normaly, I'd agree obedience can be problematic, but "last gasp of the autocrat"? Overwrought rhetoric, that. The abbot must keep order among monks in the same way order must be kept in the military. If your superior orders you to kill civilians, obedience is wrong. If your bishop is stealing from congregations and sleeping around, obedience is wrong. I understand the monks' nascent rebellion. I sympathize with them. However, the monks were not being told to do something criminal or amoral. So quit and follow your own personal spiritual path. Or carry on under the orders you receive.
I'm so delighted to find out about this film through your article! I ordered the book this year and was fascinated at its prophetic message. I found the ending of the book most hopeful, almost miraculous.
True confession: I have the book, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. It just hasn't made its way sufficiently into the skyscraper-like tower of "books to read"... but if anyone else reading this post HAS read it, please weigh in on how the book compares with the film!
Wow! I have a copy of this and watched it a few times. I too am perplexed why few Trads know about it. I mentioned it to a fellow Trad some years ago and the reaction was don't watch it as "that is a bad film." Yes, it is a dark film but with a clear mind it teaches us about the bad so we can strive for the eternal good. We know going in that it is a production of the evil empire (Hollywood) which explains the lousy ending. Bravo on your essay Dr. K.
Yes, it's dark, but nevertheless revealing on many levels. I think the unsatisfactory ending can be a vehicle through which to see what is so inadequate about "blind obedience." In other words, I see it as largely an indirect exhortation in how NOT to go about defending and maintaining Tradition.
Maybe now your "sitter" at the Vatican will start Pope Francis on a movement to disappear "The Catholics" from the internet because of its "Rad Trad, Extremist" content and because it encourages "insurrectionist" behavior...
Thanks for bringing this up, Dr. K. My wife and I watched this a few months ago and had pretty much the same reaction as you describe here. Like you, we found the ending unsatisfactory. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, given Brian Moore's own less-than-clear attitude about faith in his writing. (He also penned "Black Robe.") Both films could open up fruitful discussions about externals and faith in the heart, as well as the connection between "feelings" and faith. (On the topic of "prophetic" movies about Catholicism, we recently watched "I Confess" which dealt with the seal of the Confessional, and "The Innocents," which explored Faith in light of horrific crimes against people and community.)
Exactly. The author of the original story is himself conflicted, and that comes through the film too. But again, think of the interesting conversations a group of traditionally-minded college kids could have after watching this.
I like the term “traditionally minded” for a change. I am a new Catholic, and that’s how I refer to myself. I wanted to assent to the church’s catholicity, through space and time, and had long loved the two previous popes, who I think never styled themselves as anything but Catholic. And it heartens me to think Benedict grew more in the direction of continuity with tradition. I know that’s too huge a subject for me to handle, but let’s just say I am still hoping I can escape some of the pigeonholing I might find myself subjected to by fellow Catholics who wrestle and manage to totally accept authentic Catholic theology, but think those of us who are attached to the usus antiquior are all sedes.
Yes, it's true, names can have a pigeonholing effect. I suppose the reason terms like "traditionalist" exist is that they say a lot very quickly and easily; but sometimes they say things (to some people) that we do not want them to! I think it's a queston of gauging one's audience and how they will hear and receive certain words.
I watched this film last year after hearing Michael Matt mention it in one of his "Remnant Underground" episodes. It almost made me shiver to see how similar the situation in the film was to what we have today --- a Modernist Rome, priests who are interested in anything but being priests, obedience being used as an excuse... It would almost seem as if it had been made yesterday! And hearing all the Modernist buzzwords in the dialogue makes one realize what we are facing is nothing new. This is not the "church of the future" the Modernists claim to want so much, but, really, the church that remains stuck in past. I agree with you about the ending. The whole film was wonderful (in a tragic way), but for me, the ending pretty much spoiled it. However, now that I think about, it seems the ending may have been eerily realistic, in a way... Almost as if to show something of how far and wide the Church's suffering would go. I think if the ending implicated the monks succumb to Rome's desires, it sort of signifies how even the "better Catholics" submitted to, and languished in, Novus Ordo-land silently without doing much about it, which helped bring us to where we are now. Just a thought.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Kwasniewski, I really enjoyed it. Please consider writing more on Catholic films (or ones that have Catholic themes). It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on them!
Thanks for these comments. I see the film as a kind of "cautionary tale": in spite of their admirable qualities, the monks are not really "up to" the task of carrying on the tradition, and this is in part because their abbot has already lost his faith, or at least lost the coherence of his faith. It is a parable about good and bad leadership.
I was deeply moved by the film, stayed up way late to watch it, was deeply, deeply troubled throughout by the power dynamics and will keep thinking about it long after reading closely the very many interesting comments and replies. And when I’m trying to think sometimes I get wordy.
I don’t know the author, or his theology.
He depicts SO WELL, and this is the great strength of the film for me, common Catholics’ REFUSAL TO BE FOOLED. Let them be thought fools, by the powers, they are not fools. And that is why I cheered for the monks throughout, who represent the ordinary, common Catholics of the title. The film cheered for them. It touched me more than I can say.
So what I say here, trying to ease my unease, echoes in many respects the astonishing commentary of Dr. K who was cheering them. And who was perhaps accenting the forces they were up against.
These all too ordinary Catholics with their unsophistication refuse to be fooled about what a priest is, and how he should look and present himself. They refuse to be fooled about what worship is, possible arguments by powerful forces or experts of the time for the vernacular and Mass versus populi? notwithstanding.
Against the novelties of Vatican IV (did the Substack and initial audience gasp at the mention of the number IV as I did?) these commoners and their articulate Father Abbot uphold every Catholic’s need for sacramental private auricular Confession. So they did it, fulfilling their vocation. And the Abbot will give the inquisitor— visitor—their explanations.
(This practice corresponds with the way Jesus instituted it, on the very first low Sunday, so that bishops and priests actually hear sins in order to forgive or retain them—kudos and thank you for this insight to my priest this low Sunday who preached on the sacrament, and not on “how hard faith is” for moderns—the doubting Thomas popular spin.)
It is the common, childlike-of-faith Catholics whom the childlike-of-faith monks refuse to leave behind, and they have the backing of their abbot-shepherd. They are being good shepherds. There ought to be no shame in being what our Lord said we needed to become, in vocation and in attitude.
The abbot doesn’t think too highly of himself. He seems to have a shepherd’s heart and logic. He couldn’t stand by while the pews emptied and the men stood outside and smoked, as soon the Mass was changed by Pope John. The abbot doesn’t want to leave anyone behind (recall, as Dr. K narrated, the Father General spoke disdainfully of the church the modernists were trying to “leave behind.”) In contrast the abbot instructs the monks to minister to the Catholics where they are, a place which our Substack audience also believes we still inhabit in common, the still-fallen world desperately needing eternal salvation.
So the exodus from novel worship reverses, the gathering accelerates, as common Catholics of every description and locale and nation seek out what they had so recently lost.
Which is why they’ve been found out.
And that’s where the power brokers, the father general of the order and Kinsella the visitor come in with their smug assurance that they know better than the common Catholics. Their discussion reveals that the big, global moves God is making through the winds of change must not be impeded by the common Catholics. Modern man has come of age and childlike faith must be left behind.
Of course Substack readers will smell a revisionist history of the early church focused on revolution and material utopia rather than the eternal salvation of souls and eternal blessedness. (Today, think: material betterment, encouragement of massive economic migration, and the embracing of globalist goals for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint on a collision course with Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life.) What does it matter if common, deplorable Catholics refuse to be conned by the comrades of this revisionist Jesus? They must be forced to conform to the winds of change and the impending unity of faiths!! There is to be no holding out on the untried goal by way of unexplored paths!
And I’m puzzled why this imperfect shepherd should side with the powerful, instead of the common Catholics he seems to love.
Yes, maybe he is hollowed out at the heart, having lost his faith. That’s to be pitied. Who in the church didn’t pray for him enough, and those like him, so that one day he was reduced to responding as a branch manager of his order only?
The film does seem, as Dr K says, a cautionary tale. And I suggest it may tell us more about what actually already happened after Vatican II, and ordinary Catholics being made to endure more change and tinkering than they felt in their bones was right and good.
Of course I am saddened by the decision of the abbot, and it could well be that obedience is all he has left.
(The monks are genuinely meek. Jesus asks us to be meek and humble like Him. But when pressured to renounce his vocation by the powers of Pilate and the High Priest he is unrelentingly truthful and they appear to win the day.)
(I will try to read up on so much which Dr K has recommended and proposed on what is TRUE obedience. We must uphold that. But the movie dramatizes for me why true obedience for Catholics is never, and never was, unconditional, even if that seems to be the last value the opposing sides in the story share, and which the film seems to applaud. And because I have tried to understand the monks, I now realize that while we Catholics today must be meek and humble, we must never betray our vocation. The powers in the film are neither humble nor meek. They are just canny and smooth.)
(And yet, having converted from the Protestant revolt, I know that defiance, too, can become heady. Luther was many things, but he was not meek.)
However the ending of the film is uncertain, I believe, still. The abbot has his orders to make the monks conform to the changes in every way. And he has given his word. Why? Perhaps I wonder now, whether he looked down on the monks’ being “like children” since he had lost faith himself. Some commenters here are sure Kinsella’s trust is him is sound, the abbot will never buckle, the monks will. I’m less certain of that.
I’m not amazed that the abbot doesn’t finish the Lord’s Prayer. I’m amazed he starts it. He is clearly unhappy with what he has told the monks and he leads them into prayer, after not having led them in prayer or prayed himself for a deadly long time.
Maybe, in a real situation, the prayer would change what seems the foregone conclusion that it is futile to have childlike faith, and futile to try and refuse to be fooled, conned, by the inevitability of bowing to novelty.
Here is another puzzle to me.
The simple monks in the film articulated the real presence in defiance of “Vatican IV”—and bully for them—that priceless treasure of Jesus, that miracle under the sacramental veil. But for these monks, shouldn’t the Real Presence have been undergirded and effected by the miracle of the Real Sacrifice (bloodless but renewed and represented at every Mass)?Wouldn’t the priests of any order, with their schooling and dispositions have articulated that? Have I stated the Catholic truth here? And if so, was the author or screenwriter aware of it? These monks only say Mass commemorates Calvary. Was either artistic figure underestimating those simple monks? (Did Padre Pio for instance not also have the childlike faith required by Jesus, and yet nothing was clearer to Padre Pio than that the world depended on the Sacrifice of the Mass?) Was either artistic figure underestimating the audiences of the early seventies?
Or maybe, is it like films, and plays which state the pope wouldn’t grant Henry VIII a “divorce” because the general public doesn’t understand the concept of annulment?
Just wondering.
And a final thought. Maybe like the monks, might we describe ourselves less as the faithful Catholics—as if others aren’t even trying—and more like the Catholics who are unashamed of childlike faith in the words of Jesus and the constant teaching of the only church he founded, a church known for its millennia of charity and clarity?
Many good reflections in here... it is a puzzling film but I think a lot of the uncertainty that runs through it comes both from the time it was made and from the author's personal struggles, which he "writes into" the characters.
PS maybe this too: Jesus is meek and humble of heart. But he is unrelentingly truthful before Pilate as well as the High Priest who want him to betray his vocation.
The abbot and film take refuge in unconditional obedience because, what, we can’t differentiate that from actual meekness? And he has betrayed his vocation as a true shepherd. Mistaking weakness of purpose with seemingly pious but mock meekness?
The ending left me puzzled for a few minutes before I worked it out and this is my take on it:
The Visitor priest realises two things about the Father Abbot:
The first is that Fr Abbot has completely lost his faith and did so many years ago. When asked by the Visitor why he stayed he replied he sees himself as Foreman, a Manager, its the life he leads. He likes to keep it all going for the other monks who he says are like children.
The second thing he discovers about Fr Abbot is that he ruthlessly applies the vow of obedience that the other monks have taken to him as Abbot and he does it with effect.
Hence, the Visitor knows that when he is gone, the Abbot will ruthlessly apply the ruling from Rome that seeks to ban the Latin Mass and will stop all such Masses being said on the mainland to keep the Buddhists happy. That is why he tears up the resignation letter that the Abbot has written to the Superior General wherein he asks for a transfer to another monastery as a mere monk, not an Abbot. The Abbot asks the Visitor just before his departure what he should do with the television and news people. The Visitor tells him to send all inquiries to himself in Rome. The Visitor is confident that the Abbot will do Rome's dirty work and leaves secure in that knowledge.
This is confirmed in the final scene which shows Fr Abbott can't even complete the Our Father. The Catholic faith now means nothing to him and so he will enforce Rome's command in a fake obedience to an unjust command.
I think the film makers in those early days misunderstood the drive and yearning that would keep the Traditional Mass going. A more suitable end to the movie would have seen the monks deposing the Abbott and rejecting him from the island. They would continue saying the Traditional Mass and keep serving the faithful on the mainland. Given the fame it was already attracting it would then grow as a movement ever stronger as it was doing already. That could have been the basis for a second movie.
The scary thing is that the movie prophetically foresaw that Rome would one day attempt to ruthlessly suppress the Traditional Mass.
I agree 100% with your very perceptive and well-expressed analysis. There is really nothing to add. I think the structure of power and obedience is the only thing that's left when the soul or spirit of faith departs. It's like bones without flesh. I see this film as an (unintentional) "cautionary tale": do not fail to notice the faithlessness under your nose, and do not keep giving obedience to those who become disobedient to God.
What is interesting is that the author of the screenplay was not a Catholic; perhaps a tie in can be inferred to the art community's request which became the Agatha Christie indult?
I bought about ten copies of this years ago from a WalMart $1 sale bin! Gave away most for gifts.
gracias infinitas a Dios por la pelicula , es hermoso conocer la SANTA MISA TRADICIONAL. y tambien agradecimientos a esta pagina que posteó este hermoso articulo...
My husband and I watched this about four or five years ago. After Mass of the Ages came out my husband ordered a copy of the movie to share with others. It's been well received. Would that we had an island with monks to offer the Traditional Latin Mass for us!
I watched the film last year. I really liked the dialogues and the whole film except the end which suggests that the monks will stop the Traditional Mass... so sad it's the servil obedience
Right: servile obedience is one of the themes of the film (perhaps unintentionally?). And I think the story encourages us to step up our game, to understand and know how to defend tradition better, and to be resolute and inflexible about it.
Faith is a wonderful thing. I am 67 and was an altar boy who went to12 years of Catholic school. At no time did the Church speak to me. Was I automatically supposed to have faith? To believe that was Christ's actual body and bllod on the altar? Again, faith is a wonderful thing, but is faith owed, is faith passed on, is faith something that once missed, makes one a disbeliever?
In 2012 Bishop Fellay declared that the New Mass was legitimately promulgated, which is tantamount to saying that it is legitimate. Totally contrary to what Abp Levebrve declared.
Actually, I think there is a big difference between legality/licitness and legitimacy/authenticity. One could affirm the former without affirming the latter. In English, "legitimate" and "licit" are sometimes used interchangeably but they mean different things, as I explain here:
Having found the time afterwards, to follow-up watcing the film by reading the novella by Brian Moore, I'm struck by two main thoughts.
First, the impression of prescience remains that I first encountered on watching the film, only this time, more pronounced and bitterly saddening in all its lack of justice and compassion.
Second, the reading, much more than the viewing, left me with a sense of foreboding, one in which the strangulation of tradition will overcome many stout men by canonically dubious legalism, and force them once more into exile, into the catacombs, the living rooms, the garages.
It's unsettling. It's somewhat like knowing the outcome of what lays in store for the faithful, whilst simultaneously being deprived of the actual verdict.
Contemporary events just so happen to coincide with my reading, and although this is just a novel, it's one sown with truth and inevitability, which is why it is so raw and stinging.
Yes, so true. I think what was missing from the author was the light of faith. He had a cultural and religious understanding of Catholicism sufficient to write the story, but for him it is a kind of observation of a crisis unfolding; he does not have a supernatural perspective, and that makes all the difference in the world. This is what you get in the novels of Robert Hugh Benson, esp. The King's Achievement and By What Authority?
Ah, yes. To be honest, I hadn't considered the spiriyual perspective of the author, insofar that he may have been writing from a place of despair, or perhaps more closely to that of a resigned man. I was more inclined to read the text in a light that illuminated the danger of being offered the grains of incense to burn to modernism, with consequential fatalistic loss of faith. The difference between both readings, being that of intent and genre. The former as a cautionary tale, the latter more autobiographical in nature.
Very interesting no matter which bent you see it from.
The Latin mass, a beautiful accolade and lament to all that is sacred and spiritual, honouring creation, so true unaltered enlightenment may manifest itself beyond the heavenly realms. Amen.
A timeless observation.
Tradition is time, trial and tested wisdom, once stripped from the endless manipulative propaganda and capitalistic dogma, it resonates infinitely with the compassionate and true of heart.
It gives people something to look forward to and relate to each other, and a brilliant excuse to come together in joyous voluntary union.
The future remains positive.
Modernism is an artificially induced fleeting trend, by the soulless and lost, greedy and fearful, those who despise the inherent beauty all around.
Doomed to repeat the history ignored and not acknowledged, by those practicing "modernism"
Technology is a tool that can help or hinder daily lives, modernism is a minimalistic communistic ideology.
Two completely separate entities.
Modernism is an abandonment of all useful knowledege learnt throughout the ages, and is without honour, foundation or integrity.
Simply put......
If your a modernist, your the eventual group that's culled.
Always has been this way, always will be....people don't change easily or quickly, like the rich don't give up power or money, for good reason!
Praise the Almighty Father for his prudence, patience and loving wisdom.
As things has been developing in the hierarchy, the more I am convinced that the “towards the people” mass is initial metaphorical step of the hierarchy’s attitude towards God.
Seen from the context of the sanctuary where the Holy Eucharist was at the centre, it does appear the turning of the hierarchy’s back towards God to make the people the priority.
The mass has become about the people. This is in contradiction to what Jesus did. The sacrifice was first and foremost about God not about people.
Yes, secondarily. It was about people Jesus offered himself to appease the wrath of God against humanity. The mass was to God, although the mass is of the people in the person of Christ.
The problem with this modernist mass is has inverted the hierarchy of priority. Thus. emptying the meaning for the people. It becomes for the people, of the people and by the people. God has been excluded in the celebration of Son’s sacrifice.
For me, this is how it boils down to.
I remember this film from years ago and it still resonates. My recollection is that in the end, obedience supplanted faith - it is all that can last. Prescient too, the progressive church of today is also enforcing obedience in place of faith.
Your recollection is right. Obedience is the last gasp of the autocrat when he has lost any other basis or rationale for the free and willing cooperation of his subjects.
Very true. There's also more in the idea that obedience for its own sake is the counterpart of power. Power without love (and needless to say, truth) is tyranny.
Normaly, I'd agree obedience can be problematic, but "last gasp of the autocrat"? Overwrought rhetoric, that. The abbot must keep order among monks in the same way order must be kept in the military. If your superior orders you to kill civilians, obedience is wrong. If your bishop is stealing from congregations and sleeping around, obedience is wrong. I understand the monks' nascent rebellion. I sympathize with them. However, the monks were not being told to do something criminal or amoral. So quit and follow your own personal spiritual path. Or carry on under the orders you receive.
I'm so delighted to find out about this film through your article! I ordered the book this year and was fascinated at its prophetic message. I found the ending of the book most hopeful, almost miraculous.
Would you recommend the book, then? I have seen the movie, but being a book-worm, I'm sure I would enjoy reading the novel.
True confession: I have the book, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. It just hasn't made its way sufficiently into the skyscraper-like tower of "books to read"... but if anyone else reading this post HAS read it, please weigh in on how the book compares with the film!
Wow! I have a copy of this and watched it a few times. I too am perplexed why few Trads know about it. I mentioned it to a fellow Trad some years ago and the reaction was don't watch it as "that is a bad film." Yes, it is a dark film but with a clear mind it teaches us about the bad so we can strive for the eternal good. We know going in that it is a production of the evil empire (Hollywood) which explains the lousy ending. Bravo on your essay Dr. K.
Yes, it's dark, but nevertheless revealing on many levels. I think the unsatisfactory ending can be a vehicle through which to see what is so inadequate about "blind obedience." In other words, I see it as largely an indirect exhortation in how NOT to go about defending and maintaining Tradition.
That's a good point!
Maybe now your "sitter" at the Vatican will start Pope Francis on a movement to disappear "The Catholics" from the internet because of its "Rad Trad, Extremist" content and because it encourages "insurrectionist" behavior...
Thanks for bringing this up, Dr. K. My wife and I watched this a few months ago and had pretty much the same reaction as you describe here. Like you, we found the ending unsatisfactory. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, given Brian Moore's own less-than-clear attitude about faith in his writing. (He also penned "Black Robe.") Both films could open up fruitful discussions about externals and faith in the heart, as well as the connection between "feelings" and faith. (On the topic of "prophetic" movies about Catholicism, we recently watched "I Confess" which dealt with the seal of the Confessional, and "The Innocents," which explored Faith in light of horrific crimes against people and community.)
Exactly. The author of the original story is himself conflicted, and that comes through the film too. But again, think of the interesting conversations a group of traditionally-minded college kids could have after watching this.
I like the term “traditionally minded” for a change. I am a new Catholic, and that’s how I refer to myself. I wanted to assent to the church’s catholicity, through space and time, and had long loved the two previous popes, who I think never styled themselves as anything but Catholic. And it heartens me to think Benedict grew more in the direction of continuity with tradition. I know that’s too huge a subject for me to handle, but let’s just say I am still hoping I can escape some of the pigeonholing I might find myself subjected to by fellow Catholics who wrestle and manage to totally accept authentic Catholic theology, but think those of us who are attached to the usus antiquior are all sedes.
Yes, it's true, names can have a pigeonholing effect. I suppose the reason terms like "traditionalist" exist is that they say a lot very quickly and easily; but sometimes they say things (to some people) that we do not want them to! I think it's a queston of gauging one's audience and how they will hear and receive certain words.
I watched this film last year after hearing Michael Matt mention it in one of his "Remnant Underground" episodes. It almost made me shiver to see how similar the situation in the film was to what we have today --- a Modernist Rome, priests who are interested in anything but being priests, obedience being used as an excuse... It would almost seem as if it had been made yesterday! And hearing all the Modernist buzzwords in the dialogue makes one realize what we are facing is nothing new. This is not the "church of the future" the Modernists claim to want so much, but, really, the church that remains stuck in past. I agree with you about the ending. The whole film was wonderful (in a tragic way), but for me, the ending pretty much spoiled it. However, now that I think about, it seems the ending may have been eerily realistic, in a way... Almost as if to show something of how far and wide the Church's suffering would go. I think if the ending implicated the monks succumb to Rome's desires, it sort of signifies how even the "better Catholics" submitted to, and languished in, Novus Ordo-land silently without doing much about it, which helped bring us to where we are now. Just a thought.
Thank you for this article, Dr. Kwasniewski, I really enjoyed it. Please consider writing more on Catholic films (or ones that have Catholic themes). It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on them!
Thanks for these comments. I see the film as a kind of "cautionary tale": in spite of their admirable qualities, the monks are not really "up to" the task of carrying on the tradition, and this is in part because their abbot has already lost his faith, or at least lost the coherence of his faith. It is a parable about good and bad leadership.
I was deeply moved by the film, stayed up way late to watch it, was deeply, deeply troubled throughout by the power dynamics and will keep thinking about it long after reading closely the very many interesting comments and replies. And when I’m trying to think sometimes I get wordy.
I don’t know the author, or his theology.
He depicts SO WELL, and this is the great strength of the film for me, common Catholics’ REFUSAL TO BE FOOLED. Let them be thought fools, by the powers, they are not fools. And that is why I cheered for the monks throughout, who represent the ordinary, common Catholics of the title. The film cheered for them. It touched me more than I can say.
So what I say here, trying to ease my unease, echoes in many respects the astonishing commentary of Dr. K who was cheering them. And who was perhaps accenting the forces they were up against.
These all too ordinary Catholics with their unsophistication refuse to be fooled about what a priest is, and how he should look and present himself. They refuse to be fooled about what worship is, possible arguments by powerful forces or experts of the time for the vernacular and Mass versus populi? notwithstanding.
Against the novelties of Vatican IV (did the Substack and initial audience gasp at the mention of the number IV as I did?) these commoners and their articulate Father Abbot uphold every Catholic’s need for sacramental private auricular Confession. So they did it, fulfilling their vocation. And the Abbot will give the inquisitor— visitor—their explanations.
(This practice corresponds with the way Jesus instituted it, on the very first low Sunday, so that bishops and priests actually hear sins in order to forgive or retain them—kudos and thank you for this insight to my priest this low Sunday who preached on the sacrament, and not on “how hard faith is” for moderns—the doubting Thomas popular spin.)
It is the common, childlike-of-faith Catholics whom the childlike-of-faith monks refuse to leave behind, and they have the backing of their abbot-shepherd. They are being good shepherds. There ought to be no shame in being what our Lord said we needed to become, in vocation and in attitude.
The abbot doesn’t think too highly of himself. He seems to have a shepherd’s heart and logic. He couldn’t stand by while the pews emptied and the men stood outside and smoked, as soon the Mass was changed by Pope John. The abbot doesn’t want to leave anyone behind (recall, as Dr. K narrated, the Father General spoke disdainfully of the church the modernists were trying to “leave behind.”) In contrast the abbot instructs the monks to minister to the Catholics where they are, a place which our Substack audience also believes we still inhabit in common, the still-fallen world desperately needing eternal salvation.
So the exodus from novel worship reverses, the gathering accelerates, as common Catholics of every description and locale and nation seek out what they had so recently lost.
Which is why they’ve been found out.
And that’s where the power brokers, the father general of the order and Kinsella the visitor come in with their smug assurance that they know better than the common Catholics. Their discussion reveals that the big, global moves God is making through the winds of change must not be impeded by the common Catholics. Modern man has come of age and childlike faith must be left behind.
Of course Substack readers will smell a revisionist history of the early church focused on revolution and material utopia rather than the eternal salvation of souls and eternal blessedness. (Today, think: material betterment, encouragement of massive economic migration, and the embracing of globalist goals for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint on a collision course with Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life.) What does it matter if common, deplorable Catholics refuse to be conned by the comrades of this revisionist Jesus? They must be forced to conform to the winds of change and the impending unity of faiths!! There is to be no holding out on the untried goal by way of unexplored paths!
And I’m puzzled why this imperfect shepherd should side with the powerful, instead of the common Catholics he seems to love.
Yes, maybe he is hollowed out at the heart, having lost his faith. That’s to be pitied. Who in the church didn’t pray for him enough, and those like him, so that one day he was reduced to responding as a branch manager of his order only?
The film does seem, as Dr K says, a cautionary tale. And I suggest it may tell us more about what actually already happened after Vatican II, and ordinary Catholics being made to endure more change and tinkering than they felt in their bones was right and good.
Of course I am saddened by the decision of the abbot, and it could well be that obedience is all he has left.
(The monks are genuinely meek. Jesus asks us to be meek and humble like Him. But when pressured to renounce his vocation by the powers of Pilate and the High Priest he is unrelentingly truthful and they appear to win the day.)
(I will try to read up on so much which Dr K has recommended and proposed on what is TRUE obedience. We must uphold that. But the movie dramatizes for me why true obedience for Catholics is never, and never was, unconditional, even if that seems to be the last value the opposing sides in the story share, and which the film seems to applaud. And because I have tried to understand the monks, I now realize that while we Catholics today must be meek and humble, we must never betray our vocation. The powers in the film are neither humble nor meek. They are just canny and smooth.)
(And yet, having converted from the Protestant revolt, I know that defiance, too, can become heady. Luther was many things, but he was not meek.)
However the ending of the film is uncertain, I believe, still. The abbot has his orders to make the monks conform to the changes in every way. And he has given his word. Why? Perhaps I wonder now, whether he looked down on the monks’ being “like children” since he had lost faith himself. Some commenters here are sure Kinsella’s trust is him is sound, the abbot will never buckle, the monks will. I’m less certain of that.
I’m not amazed that the abbot doesn’t finish the Lord’s Prayer. I’m amazed he starts it. He is clearly unhappy with what he has told the monks and he leads them into prayer, after not having led them in prayer or prayed himself for a deadly long time.
Maybe, in a real situation, the prayer would change what seems the foregone conclusion that it is futile to have childlike faith, and futile to try and refuse to be fooled, conned, by the inevitability of bowing to novelty.
Here is another puzzle to me.
The simple monks in the film articulated the real presence in defiance of “Vatican IV”—and bully for them—that priceless treasure of Jesus, that miracle under the sacramental veil. But for these monks, shouldn’t the Real Presence have been undergirded and effected by the miracle of the Real Sacrifice (bloodless but renewed and represented at every Mass)?Wouldn’t the priests of any order, with their schooling and dispositions have articulated that? Have I stated the Catholic truth here? And if so, was the author or screenwriter aware of it? These monks only say Mass commemorates Calvary. Was either artistic figure underestimating those simple monks? (Did Padre Pio for instance not also have the childlike faith required by Jesus, and yet nothing was clearer to Padre Pio than that the world depended on the Sacrifice of the Mass?) Was either artistic figure underestimating the audiences of the early seventies?
Or maybe, is it like films, and plays which state the pope wouldn’t grant Henry VIII a “divorce” because the general public doesn’t understand the concept of annulment?
Just wondering.
And a final thought. Maybe like the monks, might we describe ourselves less as the faithful Catholics—as if others aren’t even trying—and more like the Catholics who are unashamed of childlike faith in the words of Jesus and the constant teaching of the only church he founded, a church known for its millennia of charity and clarity?
Many good reflections in here... it is a puzzling film but I think a lot of the uncertainty that runs through it comes both from the time it was made and from the author's personal struggles, which he "writes into" the characters.
Ah, glad for your reply, and I alsoreplied to myself to PS on unconditional obedience vs true meekness
PS maybe this too: Jesus is meek and humble of heart. But he is unrelentingly truthful before Pilate as well as the High Priest who want him to betray his vocation.
The abbot and film take refuge in unconditional obedience because, what, we can’t differentiate that from actual meekness? And he has betrayed his vocation as a true shepherd. Mistaking weakness of purpose with seemingly pious but mock meekness?
The ending left me puzzled for a few minutes before I worked it out and this is my take on it:
The Visitor priest realises two things about the Father Abbot:
The first is that Fr Abbot has completely lost his faith and did so many years ago. When asked by the Visitor why he stayed he replied he sees himself as Foreman, a Manager, its the life he leads. He likes to keep it all going for the other monks who he says are like children.
The second thing he discovers about Fr Abbot is that he ruthlessly applies the vow of obedience that the other monks have taken to him as Abbot and he does it with effect.
Hence, the Visitor knows that when he is gone, the Abbot will ruthlessly apply the ruling from Rome that seeks to ban the Latin Mass and will stop all such Masses being said on the mainland to keep the Buddhists happy. That is why he tears up the resignation letter that the Abbot has written to the Superior General wherein he asks for a transfer to another monastery as a mere monk, not an Abbot. The Abbot asks the Visitor just before his departure what he should do with the television and news people. The Visitor tells him to send all inquiries to himself in Rome. The Visitor is confident that the Abbot will do Rome's dirty work and leaves secure in that knowledge.
This is confirmed in the final scene which shows Fr Abbott can't even complete the Our Father. The Catholic faith now means nothing to him and so he will enforce Rome's command in a fake obedience to an unjust command.
I think the film makers in those early days misunderstood the drive and yearning that would keep the Traditional Mass going. A more suitable end to the movie would have seen the monks deposing the Abbott and rejecting him from the island. They would continue saying the Traditional Mass and keep serving the faithful on the mainland. Given the fame it was already attracting it would then grow as a movement ever stronger as it was doing already. That could have been the basis for a second movie.
The scary thing is that the movie prophetically foresaw that Rome would one day attempt to ruthlessly suppress the Traditional Mass.
I agree 100% with your very perceptive and well-expressed analysis. There is really nothing to add. I think the structure of power and obedience is the only thing that's left when the soul or spirit of faith departs. It's like bones without flesh. I see this film as an (unintentional) "cautionary tale": do not fail to notice the faithlessness under your nose, and do not keep giving obedience to those who become disobedient to God.
What is interesting is that the author of the screenplay was not a Catholic; perhaps a tie in can be inferred to the art community's request which became the Agatha Christie indult?
I bought about ten copies of this years ago from a WalMart $1 sale bin! Gave away most for gifts.
gracias infinitas a Dios por la pelicula , es hermoso conocer la SANTA MISA TRADICIONAL. y tambien agradecimientos a esta pagina que posteó este hermoso articulo...
por mi parte de corazon quiero pedir:
QUEREMOSQUE VUELVA LA MISA TRADICIONAL...
PORQUE NOS LA ROBARON?😥😥😥😥
My husband and I watched this about four or five years ago. After Mass of the Ages came out my husband ordered a copy of the movie to share with others. It's been well received. Would that we had an island with monks to offer the Traditional Latin Mass for us!
I watched the film last year. I really liked the dialogues and the whole film except the end which suggests that the monks will stop the Traditional Mass... so sad it's the servil obedience
Right: servile obedience is one of the themes of the film (perhaps unintentionally?). And I think the story encourages us to step up our game, to understand and know how to defend tradition better, and to be resolute and inflexible about it.
Faith is a wonderful thing. I am 67 and was an altar boy who went to12 years of Catholic school. At no time did the Church speak to me. Was I automatically supposed to have faith? To believe that was Christ's actual body and bllod on the altar? Again, faith is a wonderful thing, but is faith owed, is faith passed on, is faith something that once missed, makes one a disbeliever?
In 2012 Bishop Fellay declared that the New Mass was legitimately promulgated, which is tantamount to saying that it is legitimate. Totally contrary to what Abp Levebrve declared.
Go figure.
Actually, I think there is a big difference between legality/licitness and legitimacy/authenticity. One could affirm the former without affirming the latter. In English, "legitimate" and "licit" are sometimes used interchangeably but they mean different things, as I explain here:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/11/the-four-qualities-of-liturgy-validity.html
Thank you Dr Kwasniewski. I really enjoyed this film: the prescience, the thematic relevance, the palpable rawness of the fight. Monks of War.
Having found the time afterwards, to follow-up watcing the film by reading the novella by Brian Moore, I'm struck by two main thoughts.
First, the impression of prescience remains that I first encountered on watching the film, only this time, more pronounced and bitterly saddening in all its lack of justice and compassion.
Second, the reading, much more than the viewing, left me with a sense of foreboding, one in which the strangulation of tradition will overcome many stout men by canonically dubious legalism, and force them once more into exile, into the catacombs, the living rooms, the garages.
It's unsettling. It's somewhat like knowing the outcome of what lays in store for the faithful, whilst simultaneously being deprived of the actual verdict.
Contemporary events just so happen to coincide with my reading, and although this is just a novel, it's one sown with truth and inevitability, which is why it is so raw and stinging.
Yes, so true. I think what was missing from the author was the light of faith. He had a cultural and religious understanding of Catholicism sufficient to write the story, but for him it is a kind of observation of a crisis unfolding; he does not have a supernatural perspective, and that makes all the difference in the world. This is what you get in the novels of Robert Hugh Benson, esp. The King's Achievement and By What Authority?
Ah, yes. To be honest, I hadn't considered the spiriyual perspective of the author, insofar that he may have been writing from a place of despair, or perhaps more closely to that of a resigned man. I was more inclined to read the text in a light that illuminated the danger of being offered the grains of incense to burn to modernism, with consequential fatalistic loss of faith. The difference between both readings, being that of intent and genre. The former as a cautionary tale, the latter more autobiographical in nature.
Very interesting no matter which bent you see it from.
The Latin mass, a beautiful accolade and lament to all that is sacred and spiritual, honouring creation, so true unaltered enlightenment may manifest itself beyond the heavenly realms. Amen.
A timeless observation.
Tradition is time, trial and tested wisdom, once stripped from the endless manipulative propaganda and capitalistic dogma, it resonates infinitely with the compassionate and true of heart.
It gives people something to look forward to and relate to each other, and a brilliant excuse to come together in joyous voluntary union.
The future remains positive.
Modernism is an artificially induced fleeting trend, by the soulless and lost, greedy and fearful, those who despise the inherent beauty all around.
Doomed to repeat the history ignored and not acknowledged, by those practicing "modernism"
Technology is a tool that can help or hinder daily lives, modernism is a minimalistic communistic ideology.
Two completely separate entities.
Modernism is an abandonment of all useful knowledege learnt throughout the ages, and is without honour, foundation or integrity.
Simply put......
If your a modernist, your the eventual group that's culled.
Always has been this way, always will be....people don't change easily or quickly, like the rich don't give up power or money, for good reason!
Praise the Almighty Father for his prudence, patience and loving wisdom.
God Bless the true and faithful.