“The Catholics” (1973): A Trad Film Ahead of Its Time
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- Опубліковано 3 кві 2024
- A modernist Vatican in pursuit of ecumenism and worldly ideology, determined to stamp out the Latin Mass. The peremptory order to adopt a new Mass in English, facing the people, in the name of “obedience.” Faithful priests and laity resisting and drawing Rome’s ire. Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
As similar as this may sound to the current situation in the Church, I am actually referring to the plot of the 1973 TV film The Catholics, directed by Jack Gold and starring Trevor Howard and Martin Sheen. Based on the novel Catholics written by Brian Moore a year earlier, the film (which is in the public domain and viewable in its entirety here ( • The Catholics Full M... ) ) depicts the inevitable clash between Tradition and Modernism which has come to characterize the Church since the Second Vatican Council. While intended to be fictional, the storyline is eerily prophetic of today’s post-Traditionis Custodes landscape, which has so much in common with the post-Vatican II chaos familiar to the film’s first audiences.
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I saw this wonderful film when it played on TV in 1973. I had converted to the Catholic religion in July of 1972 and had been gradually learning about all the changes that were made in the 1960s. Like many people, I had assumed that the old Mass had simply been translated into English and that was that. This film, and the novel, hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't until the 1980s that I first experienced the TLM. I hate to repeat the cliche response, but it DID seem like a completely different religion.
He is my take on the difference, ua-cam.com/video/MAw8Yj7HxLQ/v-deo.html
I’m 61 and, for more than 50 years, I have attended the Novus Ordo Mass. However, there had been a stirring within me several years back that left me seeking an awakening of all my senses. The few TLM Masses I attended had me wanting more reverence, and more of those “bells and whistles.” I was led to join a parish that offered the Mass in Latin, as well as Ad Orientum. This movie has firmed up my conviction that the Mass of the Ages is where we, as Catholics, will find unity and true authentic worship of Christ our King.
I grew up with the Latin Tridentine Mass and was very upset when my local church changed it to the Novus Ordo. My family knew something was not right and stopped going to Mass. Later on I discovered the SSPX and Deo gratias for Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Later on I found the movie, The Conflict" and it just gave me the chills watching it.
I find it slightly humorous the locals didn't believe Sheen's character was a priest.
My parents were very aware and had many issues with the changes to their church. I was in Catholic school and drifted away because I listened to the evil of the world. I reconverted in a long process about ten years ago. Now I’m fully Catholic and at seventy five live in penitence and sadness. I have become devout. If my health improves, I’ll drive to my closest Latin Mass, about 40 min. away.
Call or write to your closest Latin mass parish. It may be possible to arrange a ride if your health allows for attending mass.
This was one of the first Catholic movies I watched when I converted. I was astonished at how accurate it was and like you amazed at how more don’t talk about it
This movie was almost as depressing as the movie “Silence.” It is about the defeat of the faith and capitulation to the heresy of modernism.
That is true. But such a film can still be profitable as kindling for conversation and thought.
keep the faith and keep praying 🙏🏻🕊️
@@DrKwasniewski Movie or not..
There is not much of the subject to be taken lightly.. Considering estimated 1 Billion are still in it being deceived ..
Prophetic events are unfolding.. And the Hour is Late..
Rome designed Vatican Center as a Serpent in and out.. the altar the head w/eyes and fangs.. the grande finale role.. 24/7 Satan worship .. welcoming the AntiChrist .. Leading world religious deception .. false peace and unity.. After decades signed w/the fraternal brotherhood in Abu Dhabi Interfaith Headquarters ... Promoting a world Interfaith religion that is Not the Gospel ...
There is No " Interfaith " .... There is One Faith... Ephesians 4-5 One Lord One Faith One baptism ~ .... It is Not Islam Buddhism or Hinduism ..
Many have left the so called Church.. Many more need to.. it will not get better for them .. They need the Gospel and that so called Church .. It's false claims.. traditions of men.. ritual Mass. religious trappings.. will Never make it the True Church ..
Romans 10:17 So then Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God ~
John 14:6 And Jesus said unto him; I am the Way the Truth and the Life NO man comes unto the Father but by me ~
There is NO Abrahamic covenant outside of Jesus ..Galatians 3:28 There is neither jew nor greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither
male nor female in Christ For ye are all One in Christ 29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the Promise ~
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting Life ~
Ephesians 2: 8-9 For it's by Grace ye are Saved through Faith and that not of yourselves it is the Gift of God and not of works lest any man shall boast ~
Just what Fr Ripperger says when one stops praying …. Wonderful movie, thank you so much for shining the light on this little gem!
It is the scariest horror movie I've ever seen.
Then you have not seen the short film about the modernist architecture seminary.
@@PatrickKnieslerWhat is it called?
Yea its fake and will never happen 😂
So I watched the movie last night after seeing this post. What an interesting movie. It is definately prophetic in several ways. What I did not expect was the twist at the end. The personal 'crisis of faith' was difficult for me to interpret and fully understand. Ultimately, the church rises and falls on the personal faith of the priests, the lay people, and the occational living saint. One of the things I took away is the necessity of tending and nurturing my own faith.
I wasn’t aware of that film. It seems appropriate that Martin Sheen played the modernist priest in it. Thanks for making and publishing this video.
Him doing yoga while wearing a cross with no Corpus was the epitome of the modern priest, but I can’t say “the young priests” of today, because I’ve found them to be leaning towards tradition.
@@EpoRose1 That is becoming increasingly true in my diocese. Even the young spirit-of-Vatican-II priests are committing fewer liturgical abuses than the older spirit-of-Vatican-II priests.
This is quite true! Nowadays if there was an apostolic visitation of a traditional community, it would be old Vatican II hippies coming to examine the youthful congregation.
yes, we are living the persecution.. oh the dreaded "apostolic visitation" so many orders have received in this papacy.
Follow tradition and Scripture. The Latin Mass builds faith, the Novus Ordo not so much.
I've never heard of this movie until this week when my Utube recommended to me and I postponed it until later but i was on Cathoic chatroom when someone recommended it. It seemed a Divine urgency for me to watch it. I've never seen a movie where ut directly one way or another involve me. The dialogues are very captivating. Yes! this movie demands much pondering and reflections on what it means to be Catholic.
I've watched the film a number of times and I always find myself hoping for a different ending.
Yes!! SO true. But I like to think that the different ending is Lefebvre, who was really getting going right around the time this film was made. And another different ending is all the Catholics around the world who have held on to the TLM.
@@DrKwasniewski That seems like an excellent read of it!
It is reported by one of Fr. Ripperger's assitants that demons are happy because (quote): "it is through obedience we will destroy the Church."
Which drives me to assert: _the obedience due is to Jesus and His message, His Laws, His directives, not just any human being, no matter how much white he might wear._
Once a Pope stops following Jesus, _THE WHOLE CLERGY MUST STOP FOLLOWING HIM because their obedience to him is predicated on that human dressed in white obeying Jesus._
Where is Jesus message, laws and directives preserved? Two places: the Magisterium and Scripture.
@mmmjd-usa I stopped listening to Fr. Ripperger after listening to an audio of him almost mocking the sedevacantist position and hearing some of the people at his talk laugh. The new religion brought in by Vatican II does not resemble the Mass the Catholic Church did for 2000 years. A lot of the prayers have been omitted, a lot of prayers have been changed, the priests face the people and not the tabernacle…if a tabernacle is present. People irreverently hold their hands out for communion, they stand to receive communion, and more. Pope Pius V said that if anyone does a Mass other than what is in the Misal Romano let them be “anathema”, and the V2 popes have a different Mass then what is in the Misal Romano. Many traditional Catholics are sedevacantist because of this. It saddened me to hear Fr. Ripperger’s response to sedevacantistism.
@@psychedelicpython
All of that may or may not be true. At bottom, traditional Catholicism is not the same as sedevacantism. Rejecting Fr. Ripberger because he rejects sedevacantism is like rejecting the Bible because Cathokics and Protestants disagree on the Canon Of Scripture,
The ending of the movie made more sense to me after I found out the original author of the book was a lapsed Catholic / atheist. Yes, it's ending is very unsatisfactory.
Yes, but it provokes us to ask what we would and should do in similar circumstances. In that sense, it is a "cautionary tale."
I felt that also when I watched it, but in some ways, it was oddly insightful. For example, the abbot made a point of being obedient to the modernist Vatican authorities, BECAUSE he lacked real belief. Obedience was all he could cling to. I don't think that God would allow the Church to be quite as bad as depicted in the film, but it did take certain tendencies to their logical conclusions.
@@sanjivjhangiani3243that’s what I found interesting. You know what else? (Spoiler alert if anyone wants to watch it) At the end, when the abbot declared no more Latin Mass, the “big storm” was approaching, covering up the sun… Three Days of Darkness, anyone?
@@DrKwasniewski very true, sir
Very much so, but much of the film was prescient and still applies to what the Church is undergoing in our times.
If one listens carefully to the dialogue in “The Catholics,” the TLM is so popular that charter flights from other countries are arriving. I found the ending to be unsatisfactory, extremely disturbing, but not entirely unbelievable. It was interesting how it seemed to be the younger priests whose faith seemed less fragile. I did see parallels with today. The Church had essentially become an NGO.
Ah yes-- perhaps the ending was a warning, not a prediction...
Found it!!! Sharing everywhere
Also book ordered Dr K love you brother!! God bless you
Awesome! Thank you!
Very sad movie
I watched it some years ago, and was troubled at the time. It pointed out the often apparent lack of real faith even in the hearts of the "traditional" religious superior on the island, and by extension the entire preconciliar Church. A prophetic film to be sure. The Church is simply seen as a vehicle for activism in whatever form you choose, for whatever cause.
Actually, some of the priests are depicted as having genuine faith, whether they are viewed ultimately favorably or unfavorably. The abbot is viewed as the sort of conservative who will allow the old ways out of affection for the past and respect for people's feelings. As the movie shows, in a crisis, that's not enough.
@@sanjivjhangiani3243 I realise that some of the "priests" (brothers really) are depicted as having genuine faith. I did not say anything about them, my comment referenced the superior as typological.
I think that the best interpretation of the abbot's character is that what leads (or may lead) to false obedience is the lack of faith/religious indifferentism.
You missed the meaning of the ending. Only a priest who has lost his faith can carry out the orders of the modernist. It’s absolutely devastating - and absolutely the truth of what has come to pass.
I agree with this interpretation!
I’m very happy that such an astute commentator as Dr. K has reviewed this movie. I came across it about five years ago and always wanted to see the full version. I, too, was surprised that this film wasn’t talked about more in the TLM circles. I recommend it to several people who I thought would be interested, but never heard any feedback. Thanks again Dr. K for bringing it up!
Dear Dr. Kwasniewsky, thank you so much for doing this review! It will surely get lots more people interested in the film. I think it is important for "trads" to see it. I saw it a few years ago for the first time and I've since watched it about another 5 times--it is very riveting! Starlightatdusk4896 wrote: "It is the scariest horror movie I've ever seen." Which is pretty funny. I don't know if he meant it the way I understood it. But I, too, think it's a very frightening film. The film is about the Mass, and in an inexplicable fashion (I don't think it was the intention of the Director) the film seems to blare the stark supernatural truth of what the Mass is: the most real and most intimate and most personal meeting with Our Lord Jesus Christ. And at every single Mass we come before Him a-new. All the monks in the film are good simple fellows, like the children Our Lord says we must become. The Abbot on the other hand was not very simple, and so he got into a spiritual mess: a pilgrimage to Lourdes caused him to lose his faith seeing all those sick people who would leave Lourdes as sick as when they arrived hoping to be healed. And he thought they were being meanly duped...by God, or the Church, or both, I can't remember. And so he lost the Faith and couldn't pray anymore. And the Mass meant nothing to him. That is the horror. An Abbot, one who has given up everything for God, who then loses God. And the Faith. And as the spiritual head he must guide and preserve the monks and their Faith--and hide the truth of his own spiritual death ! There is a certain air of desolation in that monastery--the music certainly accentuates it. The monks are earnest and they have not lost the faith, but their monastery seems on the brink of Dickensian desolation...on the brink of a total collapse of the Faith. The Abbot is a father and the monks are sons, and who look to him like all sons look to their fathers for light and guidance and meaning. At the end the Abbot seems to come out of some kind of very long nightmare...he forces himself to pray, looking tortured to the max (but he's praying!). Meanwhile his monks are finally in peace and look deeply reassured. They are serene. So surely they will help their Abbot back to a full and robust Faith. Which reminds me of a saying from some saint: the distance between a problem and its solution is the distance there is between the floor and your knees.
Thanks for these great comments.
When Martin Sheen’s character is on the floor , in his wife beater under shirt , w large crucifix hung around the neck, quite apparently in prayer… and then the camera pans out to reveal him meditating in yoga position…
I saw this when it first came out in the Theatre. Now the CD and book is available on Amazon!
I watched this after dinner. Whoa!
I remember Sheens’s character saying transubstantiation being optional viewing it back in the 70’s.
I watched this movie only a few days ago. In fact it was very enlightening and satisfactory to me. If the monks would have resisted the decree from the Vatican they would have been reduced to something similar what the SSPX today is. Have you heard of the case of Sister Wilhelmina, the Benedictine nun? She was found incorrupt. Her life story is even more interesting. She suffered under modernism for more than 40 years, but kept the right faith in her heart always trying to return to tradition as the only one in her convent. She was a true traditionalist. When the time was right under Pope Benedict XVI she founded her own monastery, with Latin Mass, Georgian Chant praying the divine office in latin. She made a full restoration under the guidance of the FSSP. She could have done this for more than 40 years with the SSPX brothers. But she waited for the right moment and the right circumstances. For me this is a sign from heaven showing us the way in this confusing days. ALSO in the second message of Akita - Japan the Mother of God said we should "not attach ourselves to the form, but be faithful in prayer". Unfortunately the II part of the message is rarely quoted by traditionalists only the 3rd part when Mary speaks of the impending chastisement.
I hurried to watch this after watching your podcast about the film. I found it very disturbing and can echo a comment below that it was a horror movie. I think that a person watching this film could spin it to whatever mindset they have. Trads could think it was a treatise on the evils of the modernist changes from Vatican II and a modernist could think it shows the evils of those who are too stubborn and set in their ways to see the value of the new ways of thinking about God and Christianity. I have only been a Catholic for a few years (Easter Vigil 2021) but one of the things that cemented my decision was reading Taylor Marshalls book "Infiltration". I am horrified to think that I have finally found the true Church and the Traditional Mass of the Ages, and the hierarchy is trying to take it away.
They will not succeed
Don't be horrified. Just realize that you have joined the Church at a time that would be like ca. 1500 AD, when the hierarchy was terribly corrupt, which is what prompted (though it did not justify) the Protestant revolt. We must be like the Counter-Reformation saints who turned the tide in a huge wave of renewed faith and tradition.
This movie was prophetic, for sure. Must watch.
The writer and producer of this film just had to have the abbot struggling with a crisis of his faith, dragged down by the old way. He of course is the errant one. Sheen, the enlightened and fresh thinking modern age priest is cast as the faithful one, the true churchman.
They always foreshadow what they will do in film. They get the insider scoop and use it as easy content while it’s still outlandish enough
Since becoming Catholic in 2019, other than what I read in secondhand out of print books or reprints, look up myself on YT, or seek out from other resources, I have not personally heard "one, single" homily teaching Catholic dogma or doctrine inside a Catholic Church. And in traveling, I have attended many many churches. Have heard plenty of talks and homilies over the last 4 years but if I need to know something about the faith I have to read Trent, Sources of Catholic Dogma by Denzinger or Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott. It's a pretty damnable pathetic state the Vatican ll architects and implementors have created and left the Church in. So; any recommendations for good reading is appreciated. BTW, not college educated, so I am sure to read and reread several times, let it set and them reread it again. I trust His leading and His given common sense much more than most of the malarkey I hear spewed.
Yes. We must largely educate ourselves nowadays, with the collapse of intellectual, cultural, and liturgical seriousness after the Council. Fortunately there are ever-growing pockets of tradition where, slowly, Catholic life is being rebuilt. I consider it a privilege to watch and pray and work so that this will continue.
The more I learn, the more I am convinced that "resistance" to ecclesial authority is the opposite of what Christ desires.
Just as Christ willfully endured His earthly passion before His resurrection, so also must we expect to endure a passion of the Church, (His living Body).
Christ did not resist, he laid down his life. In a similar way, as we strive to conform our wills to His, we must endure the pains of submitting to what He is permitting His Body to endure.
I respectfully disagree with you. There can be and has been legitimate resistance to ecclesiastical authority. For examples, see:
www.amazon.com/Papacy-Filial-Resistance-History-Church/dp/1621384551
www.amazon.com/Ultramontanism-Tradition-Authority-Catholic-Studies/dp/1960711601/
Dr. K, We will watch the film then leave a message here. Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux, Mike T
I can't bring myself to watch it
Another made for tv film from the same era as The Catholics was The Last Child.
ua-cam.com/video/o-YJ6UyXlCg/v-deo.html
I have always wondered why 'traditional' Catholics dont know or discuss these films.
I had a falling out w the younger guys in my Exodus90 chapter over the relevance of these and other films from 50 years ago.
I look forward to a film about Archbishop Lefebvre and Father De Pauw.
Imagine thinking "Catholics" was a "trad film."
I meant a "trad film" in the sense of one that is about the kind of topics trads discuss and ponder. Not that it has a traditionalist message per se. My title could have been clearer...
@@DrKwasniewski That's fair
To put this in some wider context, elderly priests could and did offer the Old Order of the Mass and the New Order in Latin - if with the ire of the bishop falling on his head, also the Church in England and Wales had indeed recently won a much covetted Indult to retain the Old Order (if only from a locked cupboard, in an out of the way 'place', at an awkward time, and without advertisement (in the episcopally supported Catholic Press - the Tablet being one of the few to take them), and the newly imposed New Order was already under pressure to ditch the 1969-71 format, full of thee(s) and thou(s), the Westminster Hymnal, and quaint formality.
The intention was that the elderly would face extinction via attrition, while the young would flourish, engaged with a burgeoning active participation. In short, the Old order was seen (correctly) as a patent and glaring affront to the New Order, but also that that form was an increasingly mangled distortion of the Old.
This had little or nothing to do with Archbishop Lefebvre, and Irish Catholics were .. obedient .. to Rome, cost what it may; today's Rome-averse or Vatican-resistant radicalised traditionist rebellious spirit would have been as alien to the Faithful as the Jerusalem Bible or the details of the Westminster Confession.
Keep the Faith; tell the truth, shame the devil, and let the demons shriek.
God bless. ;o)
I was a freshman in high school when this was broadcast. We all watched it. My parents had converted after WW2 and were really bothered by the changes which hit us in 1967-68. We were pulled from parochial schools when the Notre Dame nuns ditched their habits without warning and we attempted to find a Tridentine Mass somewhere. Most of my large family never attended a NO again, nor did many of my parents’ many friends. We moved to attend the Maronite, then Melkite rites but we rarely crossed the threshold of a NO parish though several of us were forced to be married in them. My mom died soon after B16 allowed the Traditional Mass again.
There are many more of us than perhaps you might think there are.
My mother’s dad was a Pentecostal minister and I remember her telling a priest (who had stripped the art out of our parish church) that she “knew what Protestant worship services looked like, and she had just seen one.”
The Third Vatican Council?
= PF.
He mentioned Vatican IV. What happened to Vatican III?
A deliberately dark film in setting, style and content. Like Dan Brown, the author wove a tale utilizing a blend of fact, pseudo fact and fiction that was never intended to offer an opinion but to leave the observer pondering its meaning. In a sense, it was a morality play where every observer walked away with a different perspective.
I don't think that film is for me.
Dr. Kwasnieswski I had to defend you to my fiance after we watched this. It was really awful.
I'm very sorry to hear that! What was the trouble about? I did warn that it was a hard film to watch, that it deals with the crisis in the Church, and has an unsatisfactory ending...
Brian Moore the novelist was definitely not a trad
That's right, and I said as much.