Hi, jboze,
After thinking about some of these things, I thought I'd add a bit regarding the particular items you brought up.
1. About the two troubled men who just coincidentally happen to be Roman Catholic priests. The question that comes to my mind is this: if the intent of the movie’ director/scriptwriter was simply to tell the story of two troubled men, why does he just happen to choose to make them Catholic priests? His movie tells the tale not of just two troubled men, but of two troubled Catholic priests, or rather his idea of Catholic priests. And the two kinds of priests reflect standard anti-Catholic stereotypes. The "drunken priest" (Fr Joyce) and the "greedy priest" (Fr Keene) are common images straight out of the old Know-Nothing playbook of anti-Catholic bigotry. Now suppose the author had chosen to make the two troubled men two Jewish rabbis who are consumed by greed: according to the standard, and very old, anti-semitic stereotype of the “greedy Jew,” the “greedy Shylock.” We would recognize that this to be a clearly anti-semitic depiction, right? So in Noelle, the depiction of the two Catholic priests is an anti-Catholic depiction.
2. About Last Rites. You mentioned a place where a priest says “To hell with Last Rites” to someone he’s supposedly trying to reassure that they won’t need Last Rites. I don’t myself remember that scene, but it sounds consistent with the rest of the movie. Last Rites are considered by Roman Catholics to be a precious and important part of their religious response to the prospect of death. An anti-Catholic scriptwriter seeking to "score points" might put words like "to hell with Last Rites" into the mouth of a priest. But no Roman Catholic priest with any sensitivity at all would tell anyone he’s trying to reassure "to hell with Last Rites." Compare, say, a Jewish rabbi speaking with a member of his synagogue who, thinking s/he was dying, isn't dying after all. The rabbi simply would not say, by way of reassurance, or for any other reason I can think of, "To hell with Kaddish" ... Kaddish being the precious Jewish prayers for the dead. No rabbi would say something like that … but an anti-semitic scriptwriter might put words like that into a script for a stereotypical rabbi.
3. About the mockery of nuns. I’ll pass on this because I don't myself remember this in this movie at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s there: that would sure be consistent with the rest of the movie. But it’s just not in my recollection.
4. About priestly celibacy. Celibacy is mocked by Fr Joyce (the "drunk priest") in his conversation with Fr Keene in the car as they're leaving the bar. The implication is that Fr Joyce isn't celibate, and considers traditional Catholic vows of abstinence and celibacy passé. Near the end of the movie, there’s a bizarre episode in which each priest, vowed to celibacy, asks Marjorie, in sequence, to marry him. Evidently she says No to Fr Joyce and Yes to Fr Keene. Now I agree, Fr Keene may very well be in the “wrong vocation." There's no indication from the script that Fr Joyce is, though. And the context is that both Fr Joyce, and Fr Keene, and every other Catholic, are simply walking away from anything distinctively Catholic ... celibacy being one among many Catholic signs and symbols "dissed" by our scriptwriter, who clearly means us to applaud as everyone leaves those nasty old Catholic things behind. Compare a script written by an anti-semitic author who depicts two rabbis and their synagogue congregation throwing off more and more of those nasty old Jewish fetters in order to walk free, nice and "normal" and well-assimilated into society.
5. About the Mass that Fr Keene ran away from. This scene actually included spillage on the altar of what may or may not have been what Roman Catholics consider the Blood of Christ. "May or may not" because it depends on the stage of the Mass he ran out on; that was unclear, or it was unclear to me. Sometime after Fr Keene takes off, Fr Joyce and a congregation appear for Midnight Mass: traditionally a religious service of great affection to Catholics. Fr Joyce and the congregation simply ignore the spilled chalice on the altar, and Fr Joyce doesn’t even offer to celebrate Midnight Mass, instead joining the congregation in a kind of sing-along. Now, Roman Catholics view spilling the Blood of Christ, running out on a Mass, refusing to offer to celebrate Mass with a congregation, all as tremendously sacreligious. Suppose the script had depicted a Jewish rabbi, entering the synagogue, rending the Torah into pieces, throwing the pieces onto the altar, ignoring the congregation assembled for Hanukkah services, and running out of his synagogue in passionate quest of romance. After all, Marjorie is not depicted here at all as a “fallen sister”: and Father Keene’s interest in her is clearly romantic from the first day he's in town, isn't it? This all conveys yet another old anti-Catholic cliché: that priests are "mal-adjusted" and would be just fine if they would just get married like everyone else.
There are plenty of other anti-Catholic images in this movie. I’m just going to pick out one, one of the most offensive, IMHO: Father Keene’s handling of Confession.
Confession is considered a Sacrament by Roman Catholics. In Confession, the penitent expresses sorrow for sins, and the priest is to treat the penitent with the compassion of Christ. He gives absolution to the penitent, communicating the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. It is considered an important and precious time when an individual penitent meets with a priest to confess sins in very great secrecy under what is called the Seal of Confession. The priest is sworn to die rather than reveal anything that is told to him in Confession. That is how important the penitent’s confession is considered by the Catholic Church.
In the movie, though, we see a troubled and irascible penitent who is treated with inexplicable cruelty by Fr Keene in two scenes. In the second, he simply walks out of the Confessional, ignoring the penitent completely. He then proceeds to repeatedly violate the Seal of Confession, revealing what has been said to him in the secrecy of the Confessional with brutal abandon This is yet another old Know Nothing stereotype: the “brutal, lying priest".
Now, about the Catholic League (CL). This is not really a journalistic organization as such. I'm not personally familiar with CL, but my understanding is that it’s sort of the Catholic analog to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL really has an outstanding history of speaking out when anti-semiticism rears its ugly head in our society. Perhaps if there had been an ADL in the 1930s Germany, the Nazis may not have been able to come to power. CL has a similar function, and as a Roman Catholic myself, I am deeply honor CL for their courage in speaking out against anti-Catholic bigotry, just as our Jewish brothers and sisters rightly honor the ADL for speaking out against anti-semitism.
Well, this is very long, and I'll stop in a moment. But I do want to say, what I've said elsewhere, that I recognize that there really are some very good things in Noelle. There’s a sweetness and humanity that is very appealing; I’m just disappointed that this is conveyed uniformly as somehow the opposite of Catholicism: in accordance, once again, with old anti-Catholic stereotypes about the “inhumanity” of the Catholic Church.
To me this dual nature of Noelle presents a dilemma: how to respond to something like this that contains truly good things, while at the same time conveying, throughout the movie, truly ugly anti-Catholic prejudice. I don't myself see any reason at all that the beautiful and moving story that is here could not have been told without all of the ugly anti-Catholic trappings. But that’s the way the story is told, so how to respond? Likewise, I’m guessing that there may be anti-semitic books and plays and the like that may actually contain real beauty alongside the ugly bigotry. How are we to view such material? I’m honestly not sure, except that I think it’s right to acknowledge the dilemma, and to, at least, clearly denounce the bigotry whenever I acknowledge the beauty in a work like this.
That’s my own response. But of course we all have to decide how to respond for ourselves.
In any event, I think moviegoers have a right to know what kind of movie before any movie is before they go to see it. This movie is being marketed by its aggressively Protestant distribution company as a traditional Christmas movie. And it’s a very, very far cry from that. If I had known that in fact it contains considerable anti-Catholic material, I would have passed it up for the many other beautiful/traditional and beautiful/contemporary Christmas movies that are around.
And I think a reasonable question is: if this was intended as such a movie, and not intended as well, or at least in part, as a work of anti-Catholic prejudice, why wasn’t the story just told as Christmas stories usually are, without all of the “dissing” of Catholic chatacters and signs and symbols?
The setting could have been non-denominational and general, yet affirming of faith. Then what a story this could have been. Compare It’s a Wonderful Life. There’s a wonderful Christmas story that is full of extraordinary beauty and humanity and faith … and which does not tar this or that denomination or people along the way.
Now a Noelle like that could have been an amazingly beautiful Christmas story. Instead it’s a Christmas story laced with thoroughly anti-Catholic bigotry. What a tragedy …
Charles Delacroix
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