Exodus: Gods and Kings

A review by Father Scott Archer

December 15, 2014

Begin with one of the most dramatic stories of the Old Testament—the exodus. It is rich source material involving a staff that turns into a snake and the waters of the Nile into blood; that parts the Red Sea with the hand of God, a wall of water on the right and left; of plagues that include fiery hail from heaven; with dialogue that calls for the booming voice of God saying, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” and “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Let my people go that they may sacrifice to me in the desert.” Then, bring in writers who replace the staff with an Egyptian sword; a Nile that is bloodied because of hungry crocodiles; a Red Sea “parting” that takes place while everyone, including Moses, is asleep and with no walls of water; plagues that happen against the will of Moses, including a hail storm that anyone living in the Midwest of the United States would consider mild; and replace the booming voice from the burning bush with a petulant eleven year old boy who throws temper tantrums. What you get is Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, one of the most boring movies of 2014.

This movie is unfocused and meanders throughout its two and half hours looking for some direction. It never finds it. Moses, played by a very stiff and disinterested Christian Bale, passively watches everything taking place around him, while the audience is left wondering why the eleven year old playing God wants the people of Israel to be freed. Moses tells Ramses, competently brought to life by Joel Edgerton, it is because the slaves are Egyptian citizens and, therefore, should either be paid for their work or freed. Perhaps God would have settled for the unionization of the workers in place of freedom? It gets worse. Moses, when the freedom of the slaves is not granted, begins training the Israelites in military tactics. While Moses himself works hard at chiseling the words of the Ten Commandments into stone and God pours tea (I wish I were joking), we do see a glimpse of the Israelites in camp with a golden calf in their midst. We also see another missed opportunity to dramatize the events that followed in the source material.

This is a movie that could have inspired the audience and brought to life one of the greatest stories of the Old Testament. Instead of a triumphant exodus of the people of Israel from their bondage with the spoils of Egypt in tow, as well as miracles wrought by the hand of God, pillars of fire, the parting of the Red Sea, and the hand of God writing the Commandments, we have a dusty testament to the bland direction of Ridley Scott and the unfocused view of the multiple screenwriters, several of whom are not even credited. This is a film of many missed opportunities. Exodus: Gods and Kings breaks the first commandment of filmmaking; Thou shalt not bore thy audience.

Comment on Fr. Z's "Pondering Francis: Part II

I like this article by Fr. Z.

Father is obviously trying hard to make sense of Pope Francis in a manner that doesn't seem disingenuous.

It seems that there are at least two camps in the world of Catholic bloggers today when it comes to analyzing this pontificate.

There are those who make note of problematic statements and behavior and then ask, "How long will Our Lord allow this to continue?"

But, this camp is small.

The largest camp, the one across the lake, the one with all the new equipment, motor boats, water skiing instructors, and the praise band entertaining the campers after dinner each night, is the mainstream Catholic media.

So many in the big camp have adopted a formula for writing about the Bishop of Rome that seems to pick up the baton dropped by the conservative Catholics of the late-'70's and early-'80's, namely, the idea that if the proverbial "smoke of Satan" has, in fact, infiltrated the Church as Pope Paul VI observed (and this is a matter of debate for them), it is solely due to the misinterpretation of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, documents which were perfectly and beautifully written.

Pope Emeritus Benedict, an adviser at the Second Vatican Council, and a strong proponent of proper interpretation of the documents, defined two councils during his last months as pope. I'll call the two councils the Good Council and The Evil Twin. The Good Council was described in perfect detail in the documents. The Evil Twin was the "council of the media," in the way in which the media had provided bogus analysis of the documents and then promoted error-filled praxis in such a way that, soon, all loyal Catholics embraced the error as orthodoxy.

Obviously, this happened...but, there are now several very detailed histories of the Council (here's a couple of recently released histories: _The Second Vatican Council: An unwritten story_, and, finally, _The Rhine Flows into the Tiber_ has been re-released as _The Inside Story of Vatican II_) that make a case that the media's promotion of the Evil Twin did not necessarily require a great deal of effort, considering that so much of the error was generated by the intentional introduction of ambiguity into the documents. The strategically-placed ambiguity allowed those individuals within the hierarchy of the Church, who were so inclined, to fabricate and propagate praxis that did not conform to doctrine or, in turn, present that doctrine with precision and clarity.

To add salt to the wound, every pope since the council acknowledged the trouble in the Church, and yet, when there were moments in history when the journey down the wide path of personal desire and human-centric worship could have been stayed, when the time was nigh to take hold and fight for that which was once good and fruitful for the Church, the popes let go of the ancient "good" of the old world and remained asleep on the sentimental journey-of-their-youth down the yellow brick road to the utopia implied by the "spirit of Vatican II."

To his credit, Fr. Z does not take the mainstream approach. No mere meme with a "Look'ee here, Zeke! They've gone and took the pope's words out of context again!" is presented here to explain away the "What's Bishop of Rome Francis trying to do, anyway" chatter.

My only reservation, and my reason for writing this comment instead of just posting Fr. Z's blog to my Facebook page, is that I think Fr. Z might be reaching a little bit here in attempting to connect the dots between Pope Emeritus Benedict's concept of continuity and Pope Francis' focus on the “peripheries“. Specifically, I believe we have ample evidence that when Bishop of Rome Francis speaks so fondly of the need to go to the "peripheries" he is not remotely thinking of "Traditional Catholics whose 'legitimate aspirations' have been drawn to the traditional forms of our sacred liturgical worship, and who stick closely to traditional expressions of doctrine, (as a necessary) periphery." Rather, the Bishop of Rome has reserved a less...um...pastoral vocabulary for describing those who stand with Tradition.

That being said, I agree with Fr. Z when he writes, "We must work with what we have...Francis makes it pretty hard sometimes to read him in continuity with his predecessors, but it can and it must be done."

Sadly, Pope Francis CAN be read in continuity with the "spirit" of the Second Vatican Council in as much as Pope Paul VI,  Pope St. John Paul II (who, we must remember, was canonized a saint due to his "holy life" and NOT because of a holy pontificate), and Pope Benedict XVI all allowed the praxis spawned of that "spirit" to thrive during the time that had been given them to fight the good fight.

Dracula Untold (2014)

A movie review by Father Scott Archer

October 20, 2014

When I went to see Dracula Untold, a movie directed by Gary Shore and with Luke Evans (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) in the title role, I thought I was going to see an origin story, but it is, in fact, attempting to pass as “the true story behind the story you thought you knew.” This was apparent when I realized the audience is supposed to admire Vlad Tepes’ choice to become a vampire and root for him after he becomes one. As a story, Dracula Untold fails miserably.

The key ingredient in the behind the scenes story of a misunderstood hero is showing the audience that they have not been told the true story in the first place; that the choices you thought the villain made were not actually made, and the character is redeemed in a very clever way. In this way, the audience still gets a “good vs. evil” tale, yet not in the way expected, while allowing the audience to cheer for the character once thought to be the villain. This was very successfully done, for example, in the movie Maleficent (2014), where, even when the choice of vengeance was made, there was repentance and redemption in the end.

The character of Dracula has been used as a classic good versus evil tale, with good triumphant in the end; however, in this retelling, Vlad Tepes (Dracula) makes the choices you expect him to make, which are bad, evil choices. The writers and director try to convince us that these choices are made for good and noble causes, but therein lies the problem. The end can never justify the means. In a tale of a misunderstood hero, the choices must be different. In the aforementioned example of Maleficent we were given the believable and cleverly written premise that her story was never told properly. This is not the case with Dracula Untold.

Vlad still intentionally chooses to become a vampire. Yet, we are supposed to believe he is sacrificing himself to save his country. He continues to make the wrong choices when he has the chance to redeem himself; he instead chooses to make his vampirism permanent by killing his beloved wife. The choice to convince the audience to root for a character who is clearly evil was also a bad one. It makes no difference why he became a vampire. The truth is, he chooses the wrong path, no matter the reason, and the writers and director clearly wanted the audience to support him.

Do we even want Dracula to be a hero? No! We want him to fall in defeat at the hands of someone like Van Helsing. We want… no… we need to have good triumph over evil. In our relativistic world a story about evil versus evil should not come as a surprise, but that does not make it a good story. This movie sought to rehabilitate a monster who cannot not be rehabilitated. However, this story failed in so many other ways.

This is a CGI movie on steroids if ever there was one, and I had the impression that I was watching a video game most of the time. The costuming is the typical medieval-fantasy-Ren fair variety, but I am convinced that the fur-collared coat worn by Vlad is the same one worn by Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The score by Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man, Game of Thrones) is unmemorable and adds nothing to support the movie in any significant way. The best thing I can say about this movie is that everyone’s hair, for a movie set in fifteenth-century Transylvania, is very clean and perfectly coifed!

Dracula Untold is simply a story that should have remained untold.

Comments on the article, "Don't Rebuild Your Parish. Restore It."

When a conversation turns towards liturgy, and the benefits offered by the traditional Latin Mass are offered for consideration, it's my experience that most Catholics who only attend the Novus Ordo respond by blurting out: "We can't go back."

With all due respect--That's obvious!

I mean, "Hello!?" Only Dr. Who can go back. Right?

But, just as someone with an appreciation for the historical development of architectural and structural design might restore a Victorian or an early-American home with the intention of living in it today (theologically, restoring an old church that had undergone "wreckovation" in the "spirit of Vatican II" would be a more appropriate analogy), so too can, and should, the liturgy be restored so that we might once again live under the protection from error that the traditional Latin Mass has afforded the Catholic faithful for many centuries.

In my opinion, this can be accomplished immediately by offering the traditional Latin Mass in every parish at least once per week, not necessarily to the exclusion of the Mass of Pope Paul; however, I also agree with this article which does not suggest such a dramatic approach.

Rather, the article promotes restoration of those elements which have, for centuries, infused reverence and a sense of the Sacred Mysteries into the Roman Rite.

At some point, and this is not a new concept, we must at least acknowledge that, when we stray from the strategy of restoring all things in Christ and, consequently, flirt with the idea of rebuilding or fabricating, we risk losing touch with the very foundation on which we stand and on which the future must be built upon, i.e., the organic development of Tradition and liturgy as guided by the Holy Spirit through the age.

As the article points out, to reject the concept of restoration perpetuates a deplorable and spiritually disastrous situation in the Church: "A beautiful liturgy handed down for centuries has become a laboratory for the innovators who force their creativity into the Mass."

The Little Houseboat that could...or couldn't?

Unam Sanctam Catholicam just published another important article related to evolution theology HERE.


I agree with USC's position, and I'll offer a couple of my thoughts.


I understand the apparent need to make all things fit into the most current scientific hypotheses, nobody strives to be the object of the "knuckle-dragging" jokes so often directed towards anyone who strictly adheres to Church tradition. But, to believe in God while accepting scientific principles does not necessarily demand, as I saw in a Catholic school last year, the use of timelines describing on which day of the Biblical Creation cycle it was that dinosaurs appeared or when furry critters began climbing trees. As smart as we think, as we hope, ourselves to be, we must remember the one basic principle that science and scripture clearly agree upon: There is always knowledge which lies beyond the science of Man.


I may have related this before, but there was a time as an undergrad that, inspired by Carl Sagan, I deluded myself into thinking that I could excel at astrophysics...that was until I realized that they were serious about the "physics" part. 
My enthusiasm for the cosmos happened to coincide with a NASA deep-space satellite passing by Saturn. NASA received images of the rings of Saturn. The images revealed certain abnormalities of orbit.


The next day, in our morning lecture, the head of the department (did they all TRY to look like Einstein or was it just coincidence?) rushed onto the stage and climbed up onto the lab table. He raised his arms into the air, and casting his eyes upwards, he shouted as if he cried out to heaven, "Today, the laws of physics have changed!"


The impression I had that day, that science "law" was a house built upon shifting sand, has never left me. In fact, at that moment, the House of Science seemed more like a houseboat on the wide Mississippi; however, instead of navigating the strong central current in the middle of the river, it seemed to perpetually drift and bounce along the shoreline, its route subject to a constantly fluctuating current, at the mercy of structural obstacles and inflowing streams.


I still wonder if the little houseboat will make it out to the center of the river or just sort of bounce along until the Big Dump into the great ocean.

Conversation Before and After Mass, a clean break that priests must mend

It's been my experience that (silent) reverence is offered to the Blessed Sacrament in those parishes where the priest preaches reverence for the Blessed Sacrament.


There is a precedent for priests mentioning this often: reverence for the Blessed Sacrament is a recurring topic throughout Church history. Never taken for granted, it has been prescribed by councils, by popes, and in the surviving sermons/writings of many saints, including St. John Vianney whose feast day in the new calendar was yesterday: "What is it that makes our churches so sacred and so venerable? Is it not the presence of Jesus Christ?...We must appear before Him with the greatest reverence, and when taking part in sacramental processions we should awaken within us the most profound respect...We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest of our lives. Let us, sinners as we are, pray with tears and sorrow for the forgiveness of our sins...Let us say to Him in all earnestness that we would rather die than to offend Him again!" (_Sermons of the Cure of Ars_, The Neumann Press, 1995)


The disposition before the Blessed Sacrament, as prescribed by the patron saint of parish priests, St. John Vianney, describes the joy before the Blessed Sacrament not as moments of profane conversation and laughter in an attempt to "celebrate" the Eucharist with people, but as a time of "greatest reverence" and "profound respect" directed to the Blessed Sacrament.


While conversation and laughter in the church can be very distracting to those praying and adoring the Blessed Sacrament after Mass, there is something far more pernicious afoot here.


This modern behavior constitutes a clean break with the pre-Vatican II Church in the application of Eucharistic dogma to discipline. This Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog article offers an important observation: "The real danger is not that the Church will teach error as truth, but rather, that the Church will tolerate error and allow deviations from Catholic discipline because it feels like it can't stop them anyway. Thus, the teaching will remain 'on the books', so to speak, but like obsolete laws in many American states that ban drinking on Sundays but have not been enforced for decades, the teaching of the Church will remain a dead letter while aberrations and dissent will be accepted as the norm."

Our faith determines how we worship, yes, but our faith is handed down from generation to generation, to a large degree, by the manner in which we worship and in the disciplines associated with Eucharistic dogma. This reciprocal relationship does not bode well for orthodoxy when so many insist on engaging in unprecedented practices which are only justified by the liturgical opinions of the post-conciliar liturgical reformers.

Comments on article: "It's all about God," by USC

Why doesn't the average parish in America pay attention to testimonies like that offered in this article ?

Most parishes in which I've been involved have, at one point or another, started a push to get more people to register at their church. Inevitably, this type of campaign has resulted in flyers for Polka Masses, guest speakers that seem like they'd fit in at a comedy club, promises of full bands with drums, horns, and guitars, and constant assurances that "all are welcome." This all translates to a dumbed down Mass that creates a sense of being lost in a crowd rather than a sense of a transcendent encounter with God.

I've even talked to a few priests and liturgical committee members about the possibility of offering at least one of our five Sunday Masses ad orientem, in Latin, with Gregorian chant. The consensus? People will leave the church in droves if the parish takes that type of radical approach.*

Sad to say that, while this contention regarding what might cause a mass exodus from the church may or may not be true (how can we know?), what does seem to be true is that, in most parishes, the only changes that appear to be logical in the context of what's happened to the Mass over the last 40 years, are those changes that move the focus of the Mass farther and farther away from God.**

I pray that articles like this one by USC have an impact at the parish level.

*For those of you keeping score at home, it seems to me that the last time people left the church in droves was when tradition was all but rejected for the novelty, innovation, and minimalism that have become part and parcel with the Mass of Pope Paul VI. While that form of the Roman Rite was enthusiastically received in the beginning, it did not take long for the details/ambiguity of the committee documents to be used to justify the infestation of Catholic worship by all manner of novelty and innovation. This was when people lost the sense that worship was built upon solid rock. As far as keeping people in the pews in our time goes, what is it worth if we are confronted daily with evidence that over half of the Catholic population refuses to behave like Catholics, presumably because they have improperly formed consciences? No space to focus on this here, and in an attempt to avoid getting too personal, one need go no further than considering the voting record of Catholic laity and some (but definitely not all) Catholic politicians.

**Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum and the new translation of the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite" actually provide a more traditional line of reasoning when it comes to the liturgy. One could consider this to be a turning point, opening the door to a true restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass; HOWEVER, for whatever reason, with our current pontiff, I have more of a sense that the wind is blowing in the direction of 1972 rather than 2015. Much of the helpful and consoling terminology and liturgical focus of Pope Emeritus Benedict seem to have been relegated to the proverbial back burner.

Comments on USC's "7 Reasons...." article

This article should be made into a flyer and put in all of our churches. 

Ever since I converted to the Catholic Church, I've read and heard about the "lost" generation of Catholics who were not properly educated in our faith, and consequently, could not educate their children. It's my understanding that it was this process of unlearning the faith and rejecting Tradition that led to what Pope St. John Paul II referred to as a "silent apostasy" in the Church. He coined the phrase "new evangelization" as a strategy to bring these people back into the fold. 

Pope Emeritus Benedict, Archbishop Sample, Cardinal Burke, to name a few of the prominent voices of traditional liturgy in our time, have written and spoken of a "renewal of liturgical understanding" (from Ratzingers's _The Spirit of the Liturgy_) as the key to combating this silent apostasy. In this respect, as enticing as the Charismatic Renewal seems to be for certain types of people, the CR introduces a high potential for a long-winding detour away from the truth of the Catholic Church. 

As a youth, I went through the charismatic wringer which, ultimately, hangs one out to dry, spiritually speaking. By embracing emotion as the catalyst for worship, one tends to go whichever way the wind blows under the grievous presumption that whichever way the wind does blow is evidence of the Hand of (your own personal buddy-buddy) God. So, if a modernist theologian comes up with an exciting new take on certain scriptural texts, and one's emotions are tweaked by the presentation of this theological opinion, then it's true for that person. As a young charismatic, I belonged to a group that embraced something we liked to call  the "teaching of the Spirit," which, to my eyes, is the path to which the Charismatic Renewal leads. Every person is obligated to "listen" for the "Spirit's" direction as they read the Bible, worship, offer "praise," engage in a devotion, drive their car, and, using the example in the article, decide which vegetables to take at the cafeteria. Each time we listen to the Spirit, we establish our own personal traditions, some of which might be outside of the Voice of the Magisterium or unprecedented in the Church, in the context of, Mass, for example. Some of these personal traditions even reach into the realm of superstition. These traditions might start off small, like "must eat carrots on all Tuesdays...must take the back way to work on Monday and coming home on Fridays...must fling my arms in the air at the end of the 'Our Father'...anyone who doesn't weep during the communion hymn just doesn't 'get it'...." but, just as unchecked venial sin leads to mortal sin, this approach introduces error which seems small but only grows and multiplies.

Ultimately, abiding in the "teaching of the Spirit" promotes modernism in evolution theology, truth in flux. The Commandments are still acknowledged, but the details of the Church's teachings on the Commandments are only accepted according to one's conscience under the presumption that every thought, word, and deed are directed by the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because that individual desires it to be so. In some cases, as mentioned above, perhaps a brand new theological opinion offering new insight is embraced by the "teaching of the Spirit" even though that opinion does not provide the scope and depth of the original Catholic teaching. The CR, in my opinion, creates followers of men and their theological opinions, not followers of God. 

I've been reading Fulton Sheen's _The Life of Christ_ and, as I read this article, I thought of two quotes from his section on the multiplication of the loaves. To paraphrase the first quote, the crowd that had received the loaves sought to make Jesus king, but not the King He was born to be. Instead, they sought to make him a king of earthly miracles, a king who would fill their stomachs and make exciting magic for them. Sheen wrote, "They looked FOR Jesus (for the miracles) but did not look TO Jesus (to His Divinity for salvation)." 

Archbishop Sheen concludes: "Excitement is not religion: if it was, an 'Alleluia' on Sunday could become a 'Crucify' on Friday."

Maleficent

A movie review by Father Scott Archer

May 31, 2014

"There is evil in this world; hatred and revenge," Maleficent tells the young Princess Aurora. There is, however, also holiness, love, and forgiveness. Directed by Robert Stromberg and starring Angelina Jolie in the title role, this is the unexpected message one takes from the Disney film Maleficent, a dazzling presentation of “the true story behind the story you thought you knew.” Based on the tale of Sleeping Beauty, the director takes us into the world of one of literature’s favorite villains. It is a world of castles and fairies, evil men and wood-creatures, and magic and curses. It is also, however, a world in which we find a very Catholic message.

This movie successfully symbolizes what others such as the Narnia series fail to achieve. I have been preaching from the pulpit for many years that no matter how greatly we have sinned, no matter how far we have fallen, we are forgiven if we are truly contrite and receive the forgiveness of God in the Sacrament of Penance. No, the Sacrament of Penance is not overtly presented within this film; that is for the Catholic to see with a Catholic eye. But the message of a fall from grace, repentance, and redemption are at the heart of what the writers and director convey to the audience.

The acting is sufficiently good. It is a story moved along by the action and message, yet I cannot imagine anyone but Jolie playing Maleficent. She is graceful to the point of leaving me somewhat awestruck, even when she is performing her evil deeds. The role of Aurora could have been played by any number of young actors, yet Elle Fanning portrays the sweet innocence that is required of her without turning Aurora into a simple caricature.

Like many, I've grown tired of the use of CGI in movies, but it is used to good effect here. It is, after all, a fantasy. I watched this in 2-D because I wanted to see if it worked without things “flying” in my face. It does, and for that I am grateful. The beautiful score by James Newton Howard also enhances, rather than distracts from, the action and emotion. It carries your heart as high as Maleficent can fly.

Despite its PG rating for fantasy action and violence, I would maintain this is a movie for all ages, except sensitive young children. It truly can be enjoyed by adults and young people. It is not a Catholic movie, nor is it filled with Catholic images, but it has a message that Catholics will recognize as an age-old tale of sin and vengeance and—in the plot’s denouement—contrition, love, and redemption. I highly recommend it.

The Monuments Men

A movie review by Father Scott Archer

April 29, 2014

If you had told me not too long ago that I would one day describe a film written and directed by, as well as starring, George Clooney, one of the most Catholic movies I had seen in a long time, I would have quickly corrected your misguided thinking; however, The Monuments Men is a movie oozing with Catholicism. It not only features beautiful works of Catholic art, but Clooney gets everything right in presenting this story. In doing so, he immerses the film in Catholic culture.

The Monuments Men stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. The movie opens with the sound of pounding. We soon discover it is a group of priests hastily disassembling the Ghent Altarpiece, Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie; that is, the desperate attempt of priests and others to save the art of their churches and cathedrals, the sacrifices they make, and the lengths to which those who attempted to recover the art are willing to go.

Near the end of World War II, museum director Frank Stokes, played by George Clooney, convinces President Roosevelt that the countless works of art that had been stolen by the Nazis had to be recovered. The Nazis are losing the war, and there is a justifiable fear that much of the art would be destroyed or lost forever. The president gives him permission to assemble a small group of men to go into the war zone to recover and save the stolen art.

With a wonderful supporting cast, this very much feels like an old-fashioned World War II movie. I grew up watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, and it definitely has that feel about it. While the subject matter is very serious, it maintains a lighthearted feel; however, we also see the tremendous sacrifices made in recovering and saving so much of the art of Europe. For example, Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), at great personal risk, keeps track of all the art that passes through the Jeu De Paume museum in Paris, recording its origin and its destination.  There is also a particularly moving scene with Donald Jeffries, played by Hugh Bonneville, as he attempts to save Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna.

As a priest, one of my great irritations when seeing movies that involve any aspect of Catholicism is the lack of thought or research when it comes to costuming priests and nuns. So much care is put into achieving the correct details in historic dramas, yet seldom do I see this when it comes to Catholic priests and religious. Costume designer Louise Frogley deserves accolades for getting it right. All the priests who appear in this film are dressed correctly in cassocks and birettas, and these are all worn properly.

Overall, it is a fun movie about a serious topic, filled with great emotion, and the score by Alexandre Desplat lends itself beautifully to the action on the screen. You will not be disappointed by this movie, no matter if you are World War II movie buff, an artist interested in seeing a film centered on art, a fan of any of these actors, or someone who simply wants to see how much of the cultural heritage of Europe was saved by a brave few. You will appreciate the great achievement and sacrifice of these men who risked their lives to save the art—predominately Catholic art—from destruction.

Noah

A movie review by Father Scott Archer
March 30, 2014


Noah, with Russell Crowe in the title role, is an exciting, imaginative, and often moving portrayal of the story of Noah from the Old Testament. For the most part, this Darren Aronofsky directed film stays true to the Biblical story, while giving us a movie that is immensely pleasing to watch. Russell Crowe plays a very believable, human Noah, who struggles with understanding the details of what God wills for him to do. Jennifer Connelly is a very passionate and strong Naameh, Noah’s wife. It is a movie I would recommend to anyone who wants to see a Biblical film on a grand scale. Among the evangelical crowd, however, this movie seems to have caused quite a negative stir, and much of this is based on their view that it does not follow the Biblical story closely enough, it is ideologically driven, and they object to the artistic license Aronofsky has taken with the story. It might be helpful to address some of these concerns and objections.

First, it seems as though some people have forgotten that directors have to use artistic license to drive the story along, much in the same way Cecil B. DeMille did with his 1956 The Ten Commandments. Where were the people objecting to the love triangle between Moses, Nefretiri, and Rameses? There is no power struggle with Moses as next in line to be Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, yet DeMille uses it as a plot device to create more tension. Need I even mention Edward G. Robinson as Dathan, or Moses hurling the tablets at the golden calf, followed by fireworks and an earthquake? The latter was a dramatic and memorable scene; however, it never actually happened in the Bible. Noah is a very twenty-first century telling of a Biblical story, meant to speak to a twenty-first century audience, much in the same way The Ten Commandments was intended for a mid-twentieth century one.

Another objection I heard was that Noah never mentions the name God. Remember that the story of Noah (Noe) starts in chapter 6 of Genesis; that is, the first few pages of the entire Old Testament. It records that God speaks to him and Noah obeys, but Noah does not speak to God. It simply states, "And Noe did all things which God commanded him." By the end of chapter 9, he is dead. Even when you look at Exodus, when God reveals Himself to Moses, he asks, "If they should say to me: What is his name? what shall I say to them? God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you." Rest assured, every time Noah utters the words “the Creator” in this movie, you know he is referring to the Almighty.

The decision to make the “sons of God,” who appear in chapter 6 of Genesis, into Tolkien-like rock giants, who are in reality angels, was an artistic choice one may or may not appreciate; however, I suspect this was to give us a sense of an ancient time when giants roamed the earth. There is even an exotic dog-like creature that is killed in the movie, a creature obviously now extinct, and this also gives us that sense of being in a world not far removed from the beginning of man. As an aside, these “sons of God” in traditional Catholic commentary are not angels; rather, they are the descendants of Seth and Enos.

As for Noah being a "drunkard," another objection I heard, it occurs exactly how and in the same place as it does in Scripture. "And Noe, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard, and drinking of the wine was made drunk..." Also, much is made of the fact that he does not eat meat. I am not certain how this is supposed to contradict Scripture, given the fact that he was a husbandman. It does have a Tolkien-like condemnation of industrial society, and I believe this is why some see this Noah as an environmentalist, but it is made perfectly clear that God (the Creator) destroys His creation because of the wickedness of mankind. In this movie, Noah is a flawed man whose only objective is to be obedient to the will of God. He does not always understand perfectly what that will is, but he does end up understanding and carrying out His will to completion.

The acting by all the stars in this movie is superb, and Iceland provides the perfect backdrop to the end of all things, which is also the renewal of all things. The audience views in wonder at how, “all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the flood gates of heaven were opened.” The gorgeous, sweeping score of composer Clint Mansell adds to the splendor that is Noah. There are so many moving, beautiful, and dramatic scenes in this movie, especially the miraculous gathering of the animals to the ark, which may cause even those without faith to go and read the account of Noah’s story in the book of Genesis.

The New Evangelization through Merciful Restoration

There's a great and tragic irony which exists in the Church today and which this homily by Archbishop Sample addresses, if only indirectly.


It was Pope Bl. John Paul II who noted that a "silent apostasy" had gripped the Church. He coined a strategic phrase that was intended to prescribe a strategy for combating this "silent apostasy": The New Evangelization. According to the reasoning behind this "new evangelization," too many who called themselves "Catholics" lived their lives in apostasy, some out of ignorance, some out of a blatant denial of Church teaching. Many needed to be re-evangelized, thus the "new evangelization.


From the beginning of Blessed John Paul II's crusade, if I may refer to his call to arms in that way, a central theme developed which was strongly promoted in the writings of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI. That theme is the renewal of liturgical understanding, an understanding which had been watered down and, in some cases, completely subverted by the liturgical reforms carried out way back in the '60's and '70's in the name of the "Spirit of Vatican II."


The reasoning on which this call for renewal stands is that, after the post-conciliar reforms, the law of prayer, as evidenced by the manner in which we offer the Mass in most parishes, constitutes a rupture with the law of prayer as it had been inherited by the Second Vatican Council, the First Vatican Council, the Council of Trent...pretty much all the way back to at least Gregory the Great. An impressive pedigree, to say the least. Pope Emeritus, writing as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in _The Spirit of the Liturgy_ was clear about the path to renewal: restoration of continuity in the law of prayer.


This clear-cut approach to the New Evangelization has recently been obscured by claims of new groups leading the charge with "new" ardor, "new" methods, "new" language..."new", "new", "new" everything. Ironically, this approach would seem to have much more in common with the "spirit" of the 1970's reformers than with the original intentions applied to the "New Evangelization."


What Archbishop Sample is suggesting in this video is a clear-cut means of implementing the wishes of Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI through liturgical restoration.


The key to proper restoration of the liturgy, and a subsequent renewal of liturgical understanding, is mercy. Restoration with mercy is done in opposition to the merciless tyranny of the reformers of the '60's and '70's in so completely discarding the mercy inherent in the Tridentine Mass in favor of their own vanities.