Odd Premise: That Catholic Church was FOR Democracy
Watching Otto Preminger's THE CARDINAL (1963), one finds out that the Roman Catholic Church is dedicated to the American way of life, that is, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. Funny -- and for all these years I thought Pius XI denounced democracy, and Anglo-Saxon-style democracy based on capitalism, in particular, in a papal bull in the early '30s. (It might have been the bull related to the Spanish Republican government's dispossession of the Church?)
The history of the Catholic Church in America in the 20th Century (up until a new generation of priests appeared in the 1960s & '70s) was autocratic and aligned to repression (such as film censorship). The Catholic Church in America supported the Franco's Fascist cause in Spain.
An odd film, and one that I find practically incomprehensible, and incoherent. What was a Jew (Preminger, who had waged war with the Church over censorship) making this film for? Did Austrian or American Catholics help him and his family escape the Nazis in Europe, or help other Jews he knew of? This must be a testament to the good character of Pope John XXIII, a liberal who did help the Jews escape Nazi persecution in Italy, when he was a Cardinal. An ode to the spirit of Vatican II.
In that, it is a fascinating social document, as it presages the activist priests that arose, who were interested in fighting oppression (and who were supressed by Pope John Paul II, a conservative).