Wednesday 21 September 2011

Robbed - of the Latin Mass!

From the book, Catholics, by Brian Moore comes the film of the same name.

The film 'Catholics' was made in the early 70s and priests, at the time, told their flocks that: "It can never happen".

Well, it did.

In the film, the great Cyril Cusack plays Fr Manus who makes a stirring and profound discourse around 02.15 - that says it all.

If ever you have a chance to see the film in its entirety, do so; you will not be disappointed but you may be surprised at the ending.

The second great shame is that Ireland today is but a pale shadow of its Catholic roots - would it be too great a connective leap to say that, with the loss of spirituality (mainly derived from the Latin Mass), came a vacuum that brought secularism, apostasy and...paedophilia?

Here is the clip.................

9 comments:

  1. Richard, thank you for posting this. I've never seen the entire film but am now tempted to try Amazon for a DVD. I'll link to you from the 'Oasis'.

    In the meantime Dana has her work cut out, courageous and faithful lady.

    Thanks again.

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  2. Thanks for posting this. What a moving video (and song). The more I think about what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, the more incomprehensible (and profoundly sad) a lot of it seems.

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  3. Is this the same movie where Martin Sheen's character is denied a seat in the boat because he's a priest dressed as a layman?

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  4. Yes, Joyce, the very same. God bless.

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  5. I've never seen the film either, though I should like to do so. The book is excellent: Brian Moore at his very best! (Some of his others, such as Lies of Silence and The Colour of Blood are also excellent. Others are to be avoided...)

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  6. At the time it was made we were to view and interpret it through Martin Sheen's eyes. Now we see the same film and we want to identify with the traditional monks.

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  7. Good comment Pangur, very perceptive.

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  8. I dunno. When I saw it years ago, I felt all the sympathy was for the monks. The point was made so starkly that decisions were made to rob the faithful of their Mass. The Martin Sheen character came across as a brash young trendy who didn't seem to believe in anything - though I wondered about Buddhism.

    Be that as it may, God Bless Cardinal Heenan who persuaded Paul VI to allow an indult to keep the Latin Mass available. And God Bless Archbishop LeFebvre, whose actions gave the Heirarchy a sharp shock and precipitated orders such as FSSP, which if I remember rightly was formulated in response to SSPX

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