MovieChat Forums > El club (2015) Discussion > The Former Chaplain's crime?

The Former Chaplain's crime?


I couldn't figure out what the former military chaplins'crime was. Was it related to the Military Junta and Pinochet ?
What was the nun's crime ?

When Sandoken offers the Jesuit little children, you see the priest constantly praying afterwards. What was up with that ? Was it penance or guilt ?

I didn't think that any of it was funny, rather it was quite sad. I also get the sense that they were all in purgatory at the end as well. I thought thought I had heard that the Jesuit say that he was going to stay in the house with them and you see him driving off.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

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As I recall, the former chaplain took confession from the soldiers...they confessed their terrible crimes of murder, mutilation, etc,...his crime was to remain silent and thus an accomplice. The nun was accused of beating the child she adopted from Africa...said she was falsely accused of this crime by her mother. As far as the Jesuit's thoughts...that is up to us to interpret. The movie was tough to watch...detailed accounts of child molestation, murdering dogs, beatings. I got the storytelling, enjoyed the bleak landscapes and listening to the chilenos...but scored it low.

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As I recall, the former chaplain took confession from the soldiers...they confessed their terrible crimes of murder, mutilation, etc,...his crime was to remain silent and thus an accomplice.

No, you have this exactly backwards. Priests are required by the Roman Catholic church to uphold the Seal of the Confessional by never recording or disclosing the sins confessed. Father Silva violated this sacrament by keeping a notebook recording the atrocities that the military officers described in the confession box. He mentions that he destroyed the notebook but it didn't matter, because he could remember everything in it.

Father Silva mentions that he was called an "accomplice" by some victims of the Pinochet regime; it is thus implied that he went public after 1990 and disclosed some of what he learned as confessor. This disclosure, violating the Seal of the Confessional, is one of the gravest sins a priest can commit.

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1. Father Silva, the former chaplain, had been an accomplice in the crimes committed by the military under the Pinochet regime.

2. Sister Monica wasn't an ordained nun. She had been a troubled young woman who joined a convent and then traveled to Africa where she adopted a boy. Her mother alleged she was physically abusing this child which resulted in his removal from her care by social services. Losing her child prompted her to contact an uncle with connections in the Catholic Church to obtain a job, hence her position as housemother at this home for disgraced criminal priests.

3. Father Garcia, the Jesuit counselor, prayed for Sandokan's salvation, recognizing that his madness was the result of years of sexual abuse perpetrated by the priests who cared for him as an orphan living in their church.

4. Father Garcia's mission was to find out why the new priest had committed suicide and whether the residents of the home were practicing penance fully aware and repentant of their sins. Instead, he found them unwilling to do confession and in transgression of some of Ten Commandments due to their greed, falsehood, defiance, arrogance, drunkenness, and impure thoughts, therefore, he had decided to close the house. However, when Father Garcia realized that Sister Monica, Father Silva, and Father Ortega had killed the greyhounds while blaming Sandokan who was then brutally beaten by the dogs' owners, he brought the injured Sandokan to the house and changed his mind about closing it. Father Garcia's condition for not closing the house was for the residents to accept Sandokan as a spiritual brother, providing him shelter and caring for him -- which would be their penance as this damaged man would always be a reflection of their sins.

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Thanks for a great summary and answers to my questions.

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