Is The Statement anti-Catholic?

The late Irish-American author Frian Moore (1921-1999) had serious issues with the Catholic Church. So much so that in their obiturary on Moore, the BBC notes: "Brian Moore's youthful rejection of Catholicism coloured all of his novels, some of which were banned by the Church. He once described Ireland as 'a nation of masterbators under priestly instruction.'"

One of Moore's novels, The Statement, has recently been made into a movie, starring British actor Michael Caine. In it, Caine plays Pierre Brossard, an aging Frenchman and former Nazi collaborator, who personally ordered the execution of seven Jews in a small French village. Since the war, Brossard has lived in relately comfortable obscurity largely thanks to the assistance of a certain anti-Semitic group of Catholics.

Given that Moore authored the book, someone asked the obvious question, "Is this picture anti-Catholic?" To which Michael Cain responded, "No. It's pro-Catholic because we all imagined the Catholic Church was anti-Nazi and it is. The reason we made the picture is for the surprise. That some of them weren't."

Correct me if I've missed something, but is Caine arguing that the film is pro-Catholic because it shows off some Catholics in such an unfavourable light that they remind us all of how good the Church is?

The American Bishops' movie review section reaches a different conclusion: "Brossard is a daily communicant, devoted to the Blessed Mother and St. Christopher. He is also a cold-blooked killer who doesn't like kneeling next to blacks in church and accuses post-Tridentine 'leftist' priests of ruining the Catholic faith--not to mention that he loves kicking dogs."

... Jewison (producer Norman Jewison) jettisons objectivity in favour of broad-brushstroke anticlericalism, painting the Catholic hierarchy for the most part as a den of duplicitous vipers willing to cover up atrocities for the greater good (read "public image") of the Church.

"And though Jewison does make sure to sidestep the card of 'anti-Catholicism' by including a 'nice' Jesuit priest, such blink-and-you'll-miss-it nods to piety are but a drop in the bucket of hypocrisy and ecclesiastical indifference presented by the film--one character goes so far as to say that the corruption 'goes all the way up to Rome'."

Now I'm not ruling out the possibility that Michael Caine really believes the stupid statement he made about his movie being pro-Catholic. Author Philip Jenkins has already convinced us that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice in his brilliant new book The New anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Oxford University Press, 2003. What that means is that in the minds of most people out there, anti-Catholicism isn't prejudice at all; it isn't prejudice at all; it isn't what it really is. It is, therefore, perfectly reasonable to imagine that in the mind of a thoroughly secularized British actor, anti-Catholicism might even appear to be pro-Catholic.

These are unsettling times for Catholics--and frustrating times for people who can still think.

J. Fraser Field writes from Vancouver where he is Executive Officer of the Catholic Educator's Resource Centre (www.catholiceducation.org).