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Title: Catholics (29 Nov 1973)
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| Episode cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Trevor Howard | ... | The Abbot | |
| Raf Vallone | ... | Father General | |
| Martin Sheen | ... | Father Kinsella | |
| Cyril Cusack | ... | Father Manus | |
| Andrew Keir | ... | Father Matthew | |
| Godfrey Quigley | ... | Father Walter | |
| Michael Gambon | ... | Brother Kevin | |
| Leon Vitali | ... | Brother Donald | |
 |
Seamus Healy | ... | Brother Pius |
| John Kelly | ... | Brother Paul | |
|
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John Franklyn | ... | Brother Martin |
|
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Patrick Long | ... | Brother Sean |
|
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Cecil Sheridan | ... | Brother Malachy |
|
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Tom Jordan | ... | Father Terrence |
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Liam Burk | ... | Brother Daniel |
In the near future, the Catholic church has joined with other western religions in an ecumenical movement that has washed out much of the original message of the religion. A group of Irish monks have begun saying the mass again in Latin and have begun to have an international following. Martin Sheen is sent from Rome to bring them to task and they must confront what is truly essential in their worship and what is not. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
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It's a relief to find a movie that can deal with Catholic religion that is intelligent yet not sentimental. For some reason other religious groups have been dealt with much better in recent years (think about _Kundun_ or _The Apostle_).
By far the most important event in late 20th century Catholicism was a the Second Vatican Council held in the early 1960s. There, amazingly, a group of bishops brought up in traditional Catholicism set out to revitalize the Church and make it relevant to the modern world. For many liberals (both within the Church and without), they failed, and we are still left with a sex-obsessed church leadership that is focused on bureaucratic control. Few could deny, however, major improvements: the way Catholics deal with Jews, Protestants, and members of the other religions has been transformed; a decisive (and apparently permanent) opposition to the capitalist reduction of human beings to economic figures; and so on.
For most Catholics, however, the greatest changes brought about by the council (and shortly afterwards) were in practice rather than faith: Friday abstinence was abolished; a number of saints were demoted (St. Christopher, St. George, St. Nicholas) or declared non-existent (St. Catherine of Alexandria); and most dramatically the old Latin Mass was replaced by a rather pedestrian English-language "liturgy." For very many people, it turns out, old fashioned "devotional Catholicism" was the root of their existence and the loss was devastating.
Very few movies have addressed the impact of Vatican II (in fact, I find it hard to think of any), and even fewer the pain of the loss of Catholic devotionalism. It turns out that devotionalism was not especially connected with hierarchical power, and that the Vatican centralists have been very happy with the pop-py new liturgy. _Catholics_ addresses a future Church (actually in 1999) where has been devotionalism is destroyed (Lourdes has been closed down; the Vatican has repudiated transubstantiation), but the Church hierarchy is still as power hungry and controlling as ever.
This film is based on the novel _Catholics_ by Brian Moore, perhaps the greatest Catholic novelist in the tradition of Graham Greene. What is this tradition? A tradition which breathes Catholicism, but which stands in critical opposition to the power-seeking elements within Catholic structures.
There are, of course, other elements in the film, addressed by other reviewers, and if you are not concerned with the history of modern Catholicism the film may not appeal. But that is hardly the point.