Recently.a movie called "Spotlight" opened in theaters across the country depicting the pursuit of the true story behind decades of of child abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston. The story has grown to include priests everywhere around the world. The reaction to the revelations in the Boston Globe are focused on the investigative journalism of reporters with the Globe. The following is a critique of that movie by Erin Trahan. It prompted me to write a COMMENT to her article, and is followed up by a contributor's COMMENT to which I wrote a RESPONSE. Thank you for reading this. Charlie Mc
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'Spotlight' Brings This Film Critic Back To Her
Catholic Roots — And Rebellion
The superb new movie “Spotlight,”
about The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s child abuse
cover-up, was the best film I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival by
a marathon mile. It opens in Boston on Friday, Nov. 6, and I wholeheartedly
recommend it. More On 'Spotlight':
As a professional critic there’s an
incredible amount of film artistry to laud about “Spotlight,” an old-fashioned
procedural of the best sort. For me, though, it was a reminder of what it is to
be, or to have been, a Catholic.
I moved to Boston from Michigan in
2001, the year most of the movie takes place. That’s when the Globe’s
four-person Spotlight team started uncovering the Boston Archdiocese’s rampant
abuse of children and power. Though I’d grown up Catholic, even attended the
University of Notre Dame and served a year in a kind of Catholic Peace Corps,
I’d distanced myself enough from the church that the news felt more inevitable
than personal.
Ever since, I’ve remained oddly
dulled to the extent Catholicism is woven into the fabric of this city and my
own identity, too. I shrugged it off as part of the Boston stereotype, having
nothing to do with me, because, I figured, being an outsider trumps all else.
So I’m white, Catholic, Irish (my name is Erin!) — a veritable trinity — and
I’m an outsider? “Spotlight” showed me the absurdity of such logic.
On the film’s surface, it takes an
“outsider” editor-in-chief Marty Baron (a wonderfully stoic Liev Schreiber who
paradoxically plays the kind of Boston character I’m griping
about in the TV series “Ray Donovan”) to push the abuse exposé to the
front page. The fact that Baron is Jewish and from Florida raises a few
eyebrows at first. But this film suggests, some would say trumpets, that the
story is precisely about how systems are rigged to make insiders feel like
outsiders.
Spotlight editor Walter “Robby”
Robinson (played with gravity by Michael Keaton) is the closest thing to a main
character in an ensemble film that prioritizes process over psyches. For too
long he either does not or cannot clearly perceive his relationship to the
powers that be, whether among fellow alums of Boston College High School across
the street from the Globe or within the newsroom’s hierarchy. Before he can put
the church story together, though, he needs to see the pieces of himself in it.
In that way, “Spotlight” asks that
question on so many of our minds: What institution can we trust? It’s a movie
less about individual journalists and more about journalism’s function in
democracy; less about predatory priests and child victims, and more about the
institution that allowed the abuse, and the corrective systems that, with time
and resources, could oblige the former to change. It mourns what’s lost, and in
fact made me nostalgic for a past I’ve never known, including working in a
newsroom.
A secondary storyline also caught me
off guard. In it, reporter Sacha Pfeiffer (a sharp Rachel McAdams) weighs how
to break the news about the scandal to her devout grandmother. Her grandmother’s
sorrow rang familiar. She grieves for the dissolution of the church and the
rites and rituals that used to bind generations. The church abandoned her
heart.
Of my 19 first cousins, nearly
two-thirds no longer practice Catholicism. Our reasons are legion and
inexplicable to our parents, who almost all still regularly attend Mass.
Watching “Spotlight” I thought of
the victims, of course, but I also thought about my aunts. One has lamented
that her grandchildren will not find solace, as she has, by reciting prayers. For
two others, the scandal was the straw that left them attending Mass only on
holidays, if at all.
Still, as it was for the lapsed
Catholic reporters of “Spotlight,” something is missing without church. The
Michael Rezendes character reveals how until this scandal he always felt he
might go back someday. When you grow up Catholic, you understand that tug.
After much mulling, my non-Catholic
husband and I recently decided to baptize our daughter. It was the first time I
celebrated Mass with extended family since I can’t remember when.
Erin Trahan edits The Independent, and is a regular
contributor to the ARTery.
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Charlie Mc:
Beautifully said, Erin. I too am a
Catholic, Irish, Jesuit educated Bostonian who loves this wonderful city. That
it has been so blighted by the silent secret acts of parish priests, pastors
and hierarchy sickens me to the heart. That all of this filthy "underwear"
is now out in the daylight for all to see is the best thing that could possibly
happen to the Institution. History shows that this has happened countless times
before when the rotting branches needed pruning back to the truths of its founder.
My suggestion for us all is to read
Thomas Keating's ["Reflections on the Unknowable"], or any of his
recent works; and read Emily Dickinson ["Some keep the Sabbath going to
Church..."].
Religion is sometimes helpful but
often divisive.
Jesus first recorded words: "The
present moment is the right time. Change the way you think, for the Kingdom of God is WITHIN you!"[Mk.1:14-16]
God is within all, including those
countless of little children suffering for all their lives from the deep wounds
inflicted upon them by any who teach them what evil is. The harshest words ever
attributed to Jesus is also from Mark:
"If anyone should cause one of these little ones to lose his faith in me,
it would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be thrown
into the sea."[Mk. 9:42]
As Mark Ruffalo [Mike Rezendes} is presented as saying: "This applies to
anyone, be it priest, or Bishop or even to the Pope himself!." Again,
check out Thomas Keating.
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COMMENT: "Ummm. Do you
even own a Bible?
Mark 1:14-16
does not say what you say it says.
Jesus never said "the Kingdom of God is within you."
You also
misquote Mark 9:42.
Please don't
mislead people like this".
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Charlie Mc:
In Mark1:15,
Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the ‘good news’ of God, saying ‘The right
time is now, the Kingdom of God is "ηγγικεν" [eggiken]. This word in Greek, the written language of Mark, but not the spoken language
of Jesus, is derived from the Greek “εγγιων” which [according to Liddell and
Scott] can be translated as “to bring very near, to draw nigh, to be at hand”.In “An
Introduction to the New Testament’ by R.E.Brown, we read: “Although some would
translate the proclamation to mean that the Rule or Kingdom of God has come,
the best translation of the verb “eggizein” is probably “come near”—the Kingdom
is making itself felt but has not fully arrived.
In the JBC
[Jerome Biblical Commentary} Edward J. Mally SJ writes: “ Mark1:14-16 is a
summary of Jesus’ preaching which was edited in line with his own theological
preoccupations. With regard to vs.15, Mally writes “’God’s reign is at hand;
Repent”. This indicates that Mark is emphasizing the eschatological nature of
Jesus’ presence in Galilee.
Throughout
the four Gospels, Jesus repeatedly refers to the Kingdom of God as a mystery,
and not one of this earth. He also asks the disciples not to refer to him as
the Messiah, for that title in Jewish traditions refers to a king of this
world, one who will lead and succeed in overthrowing the oppressive foreign
domination by Rome. He frequently has to use parables, metaphors and
mythological images with reference to the Kingdom and emphasizes its hiddenness
from human observation [“Like a seed planted in the ground, etc…]
The Synoptic
Gospels represent Jesus as proclaiming the imminence of the Kingdom of God from
the beginning of his public ministry. According to Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP, in
JBC, (#44:125), he writes: “Luke writes, therefore, in some way , the Kingdom
has been and always will be ‘WITHIN you’. The unusual phrase "γαρ η
βασιλεια του Θεου εντος υμων εστιν. [“for the Kingdom of God is within you”.
(lk.17:20).
In an
earlier letter of St. Paul to the Colossians [ca.57AD], he writes: “It is [my]
task of fully proclaiming [Christ’s] ‘good news’ which is the secret he hid
through all past ages from all mankind but has now revealed to his people.
God’s plan is to make known to his people, this rich and glorious secret which
he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you.” (1:26-27) In his letter to the Corinthians (ca. 52AD)
Paul wrote: “Put yourself to the test and judge yourselves, to find out whether
you are living in faith. Surely you know that Christ Jesus is in you? – unless
you have completely failed.” [2Co 13:5]
Now this is
very difficult to believe because it is truly impossible to understand. Our
understanding comes from our intellectual processing of data received from our
outside world of sensory experience. We cannot see this, nor hear it, nor touch
it, taste it or smell it; nor can we imagine this nor perceive it; but we can
believe it. Why can we believe it? Only because someone truly trustworthy
attests to it. We believe our mother when she tells us something. Why? Because
she is our mother and Mom never lies, we can hopefully say, Our belief
in the immanence of the Kingdom of God depends upon how trustworthy Jesus
testimony (and that of the evangelist) is viewed. This also explains why so
many who hear this good news reject it and instead substitute some more
conceivable interpretation. This explains why early Christians were in a
quandary concerning whether Kingdom of God was already come, or would come at
the end of the world. Paul addressed this confusion in his letters to the
Thessalonians.
In A Marginal Jew, Vol2 1994, John P. Meier
gives the greatest coverage of the difficulties in interpreting this particular
text in Mark, and also that of Lk17:20. [See Meier, pp. 430-434; 484-487;
484-488]. “Sentences with the Kingdom of God as the subject and a verb of
motion (come, arrive, draw near) as the predicate are characteristic of the
historical Jesus, while they are practically absent from the Jewish writings
before him as well as the rest of the NT outside of the synoptic gospels. [p.431].
…The precise meaning of the word “eggekin” (“has dawn near”) has been a
battleground for exegetes for a good part of the 20th Century…our problem stems
from the fact that the form of the verb used in Mk.1:15, is not the present
case but the perfect tense in the Greek . It denotes an action (1) that was completed in the past but (2) whose effect lasts into the present. “Thus,
Meier cannot refer to this Kingdom of God as “either/or”, but as “both/and”. It
is close to what a person says while awaiting a train at the station when he
says, “The train is here”, meaning it is “coming into and already here”, or
when a person in danger might cry out, “the wolf is at the door!”
Since it is
impossible to distinguish, then I believe it is perfectly acceptable to
recognize the difficulty and to accept both meanings, such that “The Kingdom of
God is within you” is acceptable, as well as the belief that "the Kingdom
of God is coming".
Two other
factors encourage me to use that expression. In Mk. 1:15, the text continues by
having Jesus say: ‘Repent!’ and believe this ‘good news’”. The word repent is
commonly translated as “Be sorry for your sins and do the things required to
seek forgiveness”.” This indicates that before we can be baptized, it is
necessary for us to be forgiven. This presumes that we all need to be forgiven.
In the
development of dogmatic theology, this need for repentance by all was seen as
sin transmitted to each of us by birth. It’s cause was seen as the punishment
for Adam’s sin at the origin of mankind. It is difficult to appreciate how this
could be referred to as the "good news' by Jesus.
In 1898, a
book The
Great Meaning of METANOIA was written by Treadwell Walden. In it, he
explored the history of the “mistranslation” of the Greek word “Μετανοια” by
early Church Fathers. The first meaning of the word is from the Greek
“Μετανοεο”, is “to perceive afterwards, or too late” about something". A
secondary meaning is “to change one’s mind or opinion”, and last of all “to
repent “. If we translate Mark1:15 with “change the way you think” it fits the
context much better for it means to change your mind about the way you think
about reality itself, especially as to where you can find God, and God’s Kingdom. It is to be found within you AND within
everyone else. It seems to be the heart of Jesus’ message, his ‘good news’ as
to how we are meant to live, to pray and to appreciate others, even the “least
of our brothers”.
This
doctrine of the INDWELLING of God has been the most neglected of Church’s teachings throughout thousands of years except in the
teachings of the mystics and monks, although this teaching was itself often
considered crackpot and heretical. It seemed to be similar to that of Buddhism
and Zen. In the twentieth century, in the past 40 years, Catholics have been
evidencing their growing belief in the indwelling of God with a regrowth of
interior, centering or contemplative prayer. Writers like the late Thomas
Merton, the 92 year old Thomas Keating,
and very successful interreligious dialogue have been most successful at
drawing believers into this practice. [See Reflections
on the Unknowable, by Thomas Keating (2014)].
In
conclusion, I am NOT a scripture scholar nor a Catholic preacher, but I do practice
silent prayer in which I begin with a recitation of Mark 1:14-16, and try(!) to
go into my inner room and pray there in secret and silence to my Father who
hears my prayer.
Thank you
for your comment and reading all of this. ---Charlie Mc
P.S. I think
the Mk.9:42 quote is correct.
