User Reviews

For all real Catholics this movie is heresy and does not correctly portray the central tenet of our faith. I am very sorry I watched it especially on Easter Sunday !! I don't believe that the Pope would have ever denied the belief in Transubstantiation !!! Yes, I can see making sure that the new rite of facing the congregation for the Mass was followed and saying the Mass in English. But to deny what the Mass truly means is this author's misunderstanding of the events and of the Catholic faith. And to expect monks to obey something that denies what the early Christians died for is to make a mockery of everything Catholics believe and everything Christ taught. Christ gave us Himself in the Eucharist. Christ is truly present in the Eucharist ! Christ died for us and this movie denies all of these facts. This movie only goes to show the ignorance of people not willing to investigate the Catholic faith and to discover Truth.

The Catholic Church has had many ups and downs, and in my lifetime, the downs have been of a scandalous nature. But in the year of my birth, 1963, Vatican II changed much of the catholic doctrine, and the debate of that is what this film is all about. This is set in an Irish abbey where monk Trevor Howard is informed by Vatican representative Martin Sheen that the high mass being held on a regular basis in Latin must cease and other changes, including the way confessions are held, are to be enforced as well. The monks are livid by this and it leads to a confession by Abbott Howard of how his own faith has been affected overtime.

In a day when faith is being tested, it's often nice to look back and see the patterns of this in history. Howard's faith has become simply words over actual beliefs, and I am sure that many faithful Christians can identify with how he feels. A lengthy debate between Howard and one of the other head monks (Raf Vallone) reflects the difficulty of some veteran Catholics to accept those changes, let alone anything that has been done since. Setting this in the very Catholic Ireland makes perfect sense, as of all places to stir up debate and rebellion, both political and religious, Ireland seems the most obvious.

I can only recommend this to those who gave retained their faiths because the ideals presented here are conflicted and may convince former believers or life long atheists that they were right all along. It is a very chatty film, with little to no humor and no action whatsoever, although it definitely has a very potent point of view that expresses sympathy to all sides. Even with everything that has happened in the years since this took place and was made, some of the issues remain quite potent. As a former Catholic who has kept many of the ideas, I can identify with the conflict being presented in detail.

(Some Spoilers) The movie takes place in the not so distance future where the Vatican had revokes and changed most of it's old time ideas based on the Old Testament in order to get "with it" and become chic in the hip modern and not at all that religious world.

Sent by the Father General (Raf Vallone), the new title for the Pope, Father Kinsella, Martin Sheen, travels to the off shore Irish Island of Mork to lay down the law to it's religious leader the Albaesian Monk and Abbott, Trevor Howard, of the Island. The Abbott has been having the Catholic Mass recited in Latin which had been forbidden by the Holy Father, and See, as well as having the practice of private confession which also have been declared obsolete by the new, Vatican V, Vatican.

With the threat of being busted down to Monk or priest, from Abbott, for his insubordination to the Church Mork's Abbott is given an option to either forgo his new, well really old, found religion or be transferred out of the Island of Mork that he's been assigned to all his adult life. Father Kinsella at first does everything to get The Abbott, and his subordinates on Mork, to get on with the program of the Vatican V new edicts in it's modernizing of the Catholic Church.

We, the audience, as well as Father Kinsella and the Monks on Mork at first believe that the Abbott is honest and truly divinely inspired by his actions that can have him booted out of the Catholic Church that he loves so much and served so well and long. It's later that the Abbott lets it all hang out to his real feelings about the Church and those feeling have nothing at all do do with the Latin Mass or receiving private confessions from his church, or assembly, members.

The Island's Abbott in a tearful confession to Father Kinsella admits that for some time he'd given up the faith and stopped prying even when leading his congregation in prayer! The fact that his followers had become extremely orthodox in their Catholic beliefs had really nothing at all to do with him. The Abbott just, in a clever way of hiding his own insecurities, went along with them like a politician looking at how he can get the most votes from his constituent's.

I's then that both the Abbott and Father Kinsella come to a middle ground with him, the Abbott, going alone with the new Vatican edict to the shock surprise and disgust of his followers on the Island. This has Father Kinsella keep the truth from the Father General of the Abbott's real beliefs or disbelief's about the Catholic Church.

The Abbott of Mork Island has lost his faith in prayer some time ago when he traveled to our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in France. Seeing people coming from all over the world to have the Lady of Lourdes cure them, and their loved one, of their illness and nothing positive coming out of it just turned The Abbott around. It also turned him against everything that he believed, or was thought to believe, all his life by the Catholic Church.

The movie ends with The Abbott and his parishioners going into the Islands Abbey and kneeling down to pay, in English not Latin, and take the sacrament of their both Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But unknown to everyone that's there, with the Abbott in the front row leading the prayer session, he's the only person in the church who's not prying; he's in fact crying.

Catholics, A Fable. A radical young Vatican 2 politically active priest is sent as an papal emissary to a small rural Irish island to quell the turmoil caused by a small religious group of maverick conservative monks. This film explores the film themes of; old and young, modern and ancient, urban and rural, conservative and progressive. Trevor Howard wonderfully stars as the monk's leader, The Abbot and the plot counter point to Sheen's character. The monk's cast is delightfully acted with many craggy well known UK film male actors. Knowing the facts, I got the feeling that politically progressive Sheen was over-using this Vatican 2 papal emissary and overseer's role to be motivated by his antagonism towards the Catholic church leaders. Look for this in many extreme hyperbole laced dialog sessions with 'Abbot' Howard about the new churches view of The Mass and other basic beliefs. Those biased Catholic Vatican beliefs stated are NOT real. By doing this film with this questionable dialog religious facts, again Sheen's shows that he does not agree with most authority figures even in this film. The ultimate irony is Sheen's role is the flawed authority figure. Maybe that was his point. I found this film to be anti-catholic slanted with a sad ending. We see that monk's personal belief must be obedient to papal church dogma. Starred: Martin Sheen