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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
January 2003

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WHAT'S REALLY WRONG WITH THE FILM

The film El Crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) has arrived from Mexico, where, as virtually every two-bit film review will tell you, it has broken box-office records. Those same reviews will mention that the film sparked a controversy in Mexico, because, they will say, it is about a young priest who takes up an affair with a 16-year-old girl. News stories about the controversy may even mention the two scenes that have come under the heaviest attack: one in which the priest dresses up his paramour in a robe intended for a statue of Mary, and one in which a woman feeds the Host to her cat.

The outrage over these scenes misses the mark; they are not what is truly controversial about El Crimen del Padre Amaro. Nor is the priestly dalliance. What the film shows and what it says are different things. It is tiresome to chant, "Context is all (or very nearly all)," but there it is.

It would be one thing to object to the fairly explicit sex scene between priest and schoolgirl. For most people, it is at the very least the near occasion of sin to view onscreen nudity and intercourse. But that objection would stand regardless of whether or not one of the participants was a priest. And besides, there is no nudity or intercourse in the Marian-robe scene. The line that gets printed in the accounts of the controversy is that the film is "making fun of sacred symbols of our Faith," namely, the Virgin and the Host.

Come, now. See who is doing the robing, who is saying that his lover is "more beautiful than the Virgin": a priest with no real piety or morality. A priest who is willing to lie to further his career, who is willing to have sex with a young girl but not to leave his comfortable life and marry her, who suggests she have an abortion so that he will not be found out. The only time we see him at prayer is when he wants to be rescued from the earthly consequences of his sin. Those earthly consequences are all that matter to him; he has already rejected an opportunity for confession. He is not simply a weak priest (like the pastor in the film), nor is he a rebel priest who disobeys on principle (like the priest in the hill country). He is merely an empty priest, with no real faith or charity. The film has made his wretchedness clear; why is it outrageous when a wretched man does a wretched deed? How does it make fun of the Virgin? It reflects badly on the lust-addled Father, not Mary.

A more general objection might be that it is impious even to depict such a priest, an offense to the priestly office. But given the current depiction of priests being offered by real life, it's hard to feel the sting.

As for the other scene; yes, it is outrageous that the Host should be fed to an animal. But see who is doing the feeding: a superstitious madwoman with no real piety or morality. A woman who views the wafer as "medicine" fit for either a cat or a developmentally-disabled girl. Just stuff it in and watch the magic. How is the Host mocked when evil people are shown abusing it? Of course bad folks mistreat Our Lord -- nothing outrageous in that.

I find myself doubting that those scenes are what Archbishop Alberto Suarez Inda of Morelia had in mind when he said that the film was "loaded with hatred of our Church." I suspect he was referring more to what the film was truly about. Father Amaro is not simply a priest who has an affair; he is a priest who, in the pursuit of his precious ecclesial career, commits crime after crime, eventually grinding a relative innocent under his wheels. He is aided and abetted in some of these crimes by his bishop. His fellow priests are either corrupt or spineless; the one priest with integrity ends up excommunicated, and the one priest who repents leaves the Church. I could be mistaken, of course, but the hatred I detected was expressed in the implication that God and faith have nothing to do with the institutional Church, and that those Catholics who do have faith are pious dupes. The film depicts one diocese, but the thoroughness of the decay suggests something more universal: if you want to find a good man, don't go looking in the Church. That's what's outrageous.

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