Join the clubbed: Catholics know pain of being bashed
In these movies, priests are suicidal, corrupt and/or lascivious. Nuns are heartless and sadistic.As a young boy, I found it very easy to spot when an actor was not Catholic. When a Catholic makes the sign of the cross (touching the forehead, chest, and then each shoulder), inside your head you are saying "In the name of the (touch head) Father, and of the Son (touch breast), and of the Holy Spirit." Well, in truth probably most of them shorten it to "'Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." But there's a little pause when you hold your hand on your chest, before you make the horizontal stroke. When non-Catholics do the sign of the cross, unless they have been coached by someone who knows better, they rush that horizontal motion -- it looks like slashing. So it was always clear to me when an actor was only pretending to be Catholic.Before you run to your keyboard: yes, I'm aware of scandals, past and present, involving the church. And yes, some of the films listed above are powerful, important works based on true stories.
But a lot of this stuff is just exploitative garbage. And no other religious group gets bashed with such frequency. Can you imagine a similar number of films with Jewish leaders playing villains and moral weaklings? --Richard Roeper --Join the clubbed: Catholics know pain of being bashed (Sun Times)
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