Cinematic Priests

The Catholic Thing

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza
In these slow-waning days of summer, I've found myself thinking about priests in the movies. For such an infinitesimally tiny part of the population, Catholic priests show up on screen rather more often than you would expect.
Great actors seem to want to try their theatrical hand at playing priests. And audiences enjoy watching them. The Two Popes (2019) was not a great film, and historically nonsensical about Benedict and Francis, but it was great fun to see Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Jonathan Pryce indulge their episcopal imaginations. Another knighted actor, Sir Alec Guinness, credited playing a priest - Chesterton's Father Brown - with a significant role in his conversion to Catholicism.
Movies are stories, and priests are supposed to be the best storytellers of all, as their words come to life daily at the altar, more than any combination of writer, director, and actor could ever manage. Sacraments are rather more straightforward to pull off than screen magic. Good thing too, as salvation depends upon it.
My The Catholic Thing colleague Fran Maier got me going on this subject. His fine book True Confessions came out earlier this year and he revealed that the title was chosen in part as an homage to the eponymous 1981 film, starring Robert De Niro as Msgr. Desmond Spellacy. I had not seen the film and was intrigued as I have long admired two of De Niro's other priest turns, as Father Rodrigo Mendoza in The Mission (1986) and Father Bobby Carillo in Sleepers (1996). So I watched True Confessions, the movie.
De Niro, who has made a career of playing characters from the shadowy world of the mafia, plays priests who are admirable, but not untouched by the shadows. His characters pose a question for Catholic moviegoers. What kind of cinematic priests do you prefer?
It's a different question than what kind of priest you would prefer in the pulpit, or in the confessional. C.S. Lewis said that sin is boring and virtue truly original in real life, but it doesn't work out exactly that way on screen.
I asked Fran if he preferred the De Niro priests as against, for example, Father O'Malley as played by Bing Crosby in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). Fran opted for De Niro, as do I. It should go without saying - but I am saying it - that De Niro the actor is distinct from De Niro the person, or De Niro the political activist.
Crosby's Fr. O'Malley is pious and inspiring, which ought not to surprise, as genuine piety is inspiring. Piety does not mean weakness. Father Pete Barry, played by Karl Malden in On The Waterfront (1954), might be the toughest character in a film full of tough guys. His "Boys, this is my church!" speech interprets Matthew 25 in the language of dockworkers.
O'Malley and Barry - and, for another example, Gregory Peck playing Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty in The Scarlet and the Black (1983) - are good men doing good things. De Niro's priests are good men who are tempted for good reasons to do bad things.
A good man who does bad things for good reasons is more interesting than the good man who does good things, or the bad man who does bad things. Or at least it seems so on screen - and sometimes in ethics class, where a common question is surely whether a lie can be justified for this or that compelling reason.
In Sleepers, De Niro plays Fr. Bobby, who is invited to give perjured testimony in order to achieve a level of justice that the courts cannot provide. That a correct verdict at law might produce a perverse outcome is not rare. Fr. Bobby can lie to prevent just that. It's a complicated tale but the moral question is simple. Can a witness - a priest, at that - take an oath and then lie? The audience finds itself hoping that Fr. Bobby will lie for what appears to be a more just result.
The Mission is, to my mind, the greatest Catholic film ever made. Written by Robert Bolt - an apparent agnostic who also wrote A Man for All Seasons, for both stage and screen - it feat...