Not being a Catholic, I think I'm a bit lost in criticizing the movie. I can't understand for the life of me what the big problem was.
Not that the liberalizing tendencies of John XXIII were bad, they didn't go far enough, but they were a step in the right direction. But if older priests set in their ways wanted to say a Latin mass, why couldn't they?
Martin Sheen is an emissary from the Vatican who's come to this really remote island off the coast of Ireland which some television station broadcast a Latin Mass said by the Father Abbott Trevor Howard. In the Russian Orthodox Church there's this crowd called Old Believers who practice their religious rites from before the Patriarch Nikon introduced his reforms. I'm guessing what Howard is fostering there is a nest of Catholic old believers.
Anyway Sheen's come from the Vatican with a cease and desist order and it's met with hostility by Howard and the monks in his charge.
Call me ignorant here, I plead guilty to it, but why can't the Vatican just make the English or Latin Mass optional? Certainly these guys might take positions on other issues I'd have serious problems with and so would other people. It seems that what language you do your religious observance in should be a matter of choice. If they want to say it Latin, let them.
Of course other issues are touched on, but that ain't why Sheen's there. He and Howard give good performances of two generations of Catholic clergy in conflict.
But should non-Catholic viewers of the film really care?
