I just never could be convinced that it should be set in a Latin American Country. Most of these countries were settled by Spain and of course the Catholic Church was established there so it was hard for me to be convinced that a Catholic Priest would be persecuted in a Latin Country. Of course maybe it was just symbolic of another country but Latin America? I don't think so.
shareI can't comment on the film itself since I haven't seen it, but the novel it was based on was itself based on actual historical events in Mexico during the 1920s. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Garrido_Canabal.
shareI had a history professor at Ohio University tell me he was astonished about the ignorance of Americans concerning what happened off our Southern border and within less that 100 years.
I have done quite a lot of study on the Cristeros movement and this movie. The atrocities committed against the Catholics in Mexico were extensive. The government was full of anti-clerical freemasons (this is an historical fact, not a conspiracy theory)and communists/socialists.
The "poster boy" for the plight of Mexican Catholics was Padre Miguel Pro and his brother. They were executed by the Mexican gov't. Fr. was executed for being a priest and hearing the Confession of his brother. His brother was executed beside him for going to Confession. Both cried out "Vivo Cristo Rey" (Long Live Christ the King) with their dying breaths.
There's a long history of persecution of Catholic priests all over Latin America, and even in Europe. Nominally Christian countries or not, pretty much all of them have been governed by people less than fond of the idea that priests answer to the ecclesiastical structure (bishops, the Pope, etc.) and, in theory, to God, first, and the government, second. That just the normal state of things; y'know, Thomas á Beckett?
Add to that an almost pan-regional instability, lots and lots of coups d'etat, revolutions, and civil wars, and the Catholic Church's nominal policies both on violence in general and on giving aid and succor to the afflicted regardless of ideology, and in the end it would be harder to believe that a Catholic priest would _not_ be persecuted in Latin America.
And the number of Catholic missionaries in places like El Salvador either flat-out executed for doing things like treating the wrong patients in hospitals, or who simply have vanished off the face of the earth (not to mention those who have somehow escaped captivity and recounted experiences of torture), continues to grow.
All in all, the reality is that it should come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever. It was true in 1947 and it's true today.
The movie takes place during the Mexican revolution.
After Francisco Madero’s victory over Porfirio Díaz, he continued to have close ties with the Catholic Church. As the Mexican Revolution progressed, the Constitutionalists of Venustiano Carranza denounced clerical involvement in Mexican governmental affairs. They protested that they were not persecuting the Catholic religion but wanted to reduce the Church’s political influence.
While the movie is obviously inspired by things that really took place, the opening narration states that it takes place not within Mexico but in a fictional, small state, 1,000 miles north or south of the Panama Canal, so you can't say really that it takes place during the Mexican Revolution.
http://ocdviewer.com
Might be a good time to see the movie "For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada" starring Andy Garcia, Oscar Isaac and Catalina Sandino Moreno. We know the Catholic Church was attacked in Mexico, and I'm sure it was true in other countrys.
shareThe Cristero War in Mexico followed the 1910 Revolution and opposed efforts at land reform and reform of other abuses by the Church and other wealthy landowners. Fonda and Ford were, of course, Catholics. The Church and other conservative powers continue to rewrite "the true story" of these events, the most recent being "For Greater Glory".
Even Cortes in 1524 wrote to King Charles that he wanted more priests to bring religion but no bishops "squandering the goods of the Church on pomp and ceremony, and other vices, and leaving entailed estates to their sons or kinsmen". He argued that the "vices and profanities now common in Spain.....would bring our Faith into much contempt and they (the indigenous people) would hold it a mockery".
The Church in Mexico has always, even to this day, held its interests with Conservative causes. The poor parish priest Hidalgo (1810) led an army of peasants for independence from Spain, and was accordingly excommunicated by the Church. The Church supported the the militarists in the War of Reform (1857), backed the French intervention and Hapsburg monarchy in 1861 and opposed the 1910 revolution of Madero, Villa and Zapata.
The Church held obscenely large holdings in land and peasant serf/slavery. The number of "civil unions" even today in Mexico is a historical tradition of necessity from a populace that could not afford the church fees for religious ceremonies.
To this very day the Church supports the PAN (National Action Party) and vice versa, that party with roots in the Cristero War. No big surprise that this was filmed during a PAN administration.
The history of the institutional Church in Mexico is one of many great tragedies of Catholicism and it is shameful that it now puts lipstick on this pig.
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There is so much wrong with the mindset of the biased Catholics in this thread, but I will reply to a comment about the USSR in Stalin's era. Actually, the ''persecution'' of Christians was never particularly strong in the USSR and in Stalin's era, the anti-clerical policies were relaxed to a greater extent than before and the government at the time (which included Stalin as chairman of the communist party but not president of the country) were supported strongly by the Orthodox church in Russia.
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Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
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