March 11, 2005

Not-so-subtle look at church

Orlando Sentinel

By Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic
Posted March 11, 2005

Catholic Church scandals are hardly the stuff of major motion pictures here in the States. They find their way to the front page, play out over a news cycle, and drop off the radar. You have to go back to Godfather Part 3, Monsignor and other films of 15 or more years ago to find serious attempts at building a Hollywood movie around wrongdoing by priests and bishops.

But in Roman Catholic countries they're still hot stuff. Remember the uproar over Ireland's Priest, or The Crime of Padre Amaro in Mexico? Pedro Almodovar thought church-abuse scandals would make a fine subtext for his latest, Bad Education.

Conspiracy of Silence is the latest Irish outrage, an over-the-top attack on church-celibacy rules, the price paid by pretending priests don't have sex , and the extremes (at least in the movies) that the Vatican and its bishops will go to in keeping this dirty little secret from the faithful.

Posted by kshaw at March 11, 2005 06:55 AM