Movies Depicting the Church Incorrectly

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Jenniferolg

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My daughter is doing a college project where she is investigating how the media portrays the Catholic Church. Can anyone think of some recent movies and or TV shows where aspects of the Church are portrayed incorrectly? She has to watch a lot of movies and any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
 
Evil, its on Netflix. Only one season out yet but it’s already a wonderful show, it does make a few mistakes in portraying the catechism but so far its hard to tell where the producers stand with Catholic faith.
 
Thank you! I wondered about that one. I’ll have to check it out.
 
If your daughter’s project is “how the media portrays the Catholic Church”, why are you only looking for examples “where aspects of the Church are portrayed incorrectly”? Would it not be useful for her also to have some examples of media where the Church is portrayed in a broadly accurate light? If it would also be useful to have examples of movies or TV shows that depict the Church accurately, I have some suggestions…
 
Jenniferolg said:
My daughter is doing a college project where she is investigating how the media portrays the Catholic Church. Can anyone think of some recent movies and or TV shows where aspects of the Church are portrayed incorrectly? She has to watch a lot of movies and any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
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'The New Pope might be one. Warning - there is sexual content.

Two things that struck me are
  1. Pope is in a coma.from.whicb doctors do not think he will recover. While he is still alive, a replacement is elected and installed. Of course comatose Pope recovers and trouble ensues. Would.never happen given that it is not that uncommon for people to come.out of a coma - an election simply would.not take place until the Pope was.dead.
  2. An English Catholic Cardinal is ‘Sir’ John. Assuming this is a title awarded by the Queen of England and not a Pontifical Knighthood, I don’t think a Catholic cleric.would be allowed to accept.
 
Oh my goodness, OP aside I would love to hear your suggestions on this. I’m a convert to Catholicism and my family (and friends) keep suggesting I read books or watch films that I can already tell in advance depict Catholicism inaccurately.

Please do provide that list of ‘good’ films.
 
MaryAugustine said:
Evil, its on Netflix. Only one season out yet but it’s already a wonderful show, it does make a few mistakes in portraying the catechism but so far its hard to tell where the producers stand with Catholic faith.
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A couple of months ago, the executive producer of that show created a thread on the forum.
 
Y’know, first thing to jump to mind can be found on YouTube (user Joshua Henry), titled:

‘The Confession (Best Short film of International Catholic Film Festival)’

This one drove me nuts because the ending is a ‘subverted expectation’ type that I think most audiences considered ‘deep’ (spoiler alert: the priest lies to the penitent so the penitent doesn’t feel so bad about one of his sins, and that’s played as a virtue on the priest’s part)… but on my viewing it was really annoying because it totally side-stepped the deeper (potential) message about how the truth always sets us free. Thomas Aquinas argued in the Summa that a lie is never justified (even to save someone else’s life), and while Catholics aren’t bound to agree with that (we’re permitted to hold multiple perspectives on the topic of lying), I thought this film took the really lazy route that a secular culture would understand, as if ‘truth’ was the default and lying to make someone feel better was ‘brave’ – whereas clearly lying to make someone feel better is the temptation most of us would have by default, and telling the truth and trusting that God will work through that for the best, and maybe even accomplish more healing than He would otherwise, takes actual faith in God. And this film wasn’t brave enough to go down that route.

This one especially drove me nuts because it was allegedly given an award at a Catholic Film Festival.
 
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The Cardinal Archbishop of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea was knighted by Her Majesty, as that country has the Queen as Head of State.

His name is Sir Cardinal John Ribat.
 
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The Two Popes on Netflix. Bishop Robert Barron and George Wiegel have both blasted it for basically being a hit piece on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
 
Thank you! I hadn’t heard of “The New Pope.” I will pass this along.
 
She has a list of the well portrayed examples…those are abundantly listed and easily found on the Internet. The actual project has to do with the ways directors and writers “use” Catholic tropes without fact checking for accuracy.
 
catholic03 said:
The Cardinal Archbishop of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea was knighted by Her Majesty, as that country has the Queen as Head of State.

His name is Sir Cardinal John Ribat.
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Oh wow. Learned something today then! Thanks.

But the Cardinal IMHO should definitely come first - to me it would even sound better if it did.
 
I remembered another confession issue from “Godfather III.” Michael confesses, but his confessor recognizes that he is not going to change his life (not repentant) and lectures him about it. Yet the confessor gives him absolution anyway. This scene has been discussed before on CAF and many Catholics feel it was not a valid absolution because Michael was not truly repentant and was going to continue with his criminal life. I’m on the fence about it because Michael is crying and seems repentant for the sin he did confess (killing his own brother), but I agree that if a confessor thought someone was going to just continue committing mortal sin he probably would not give the absolution.
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Question about The Godfather III's confession scene Popular Media
For those who have seen The Godfather trilogy, I struggle to understand the confession scene from a Catholic perspective. I know it’s just a movie and not going to be 100% true to liturgy, and the Sacraments aren’t the focus of the movie, but I’m just curious. Was Michael given absolution or not? After talking about hardness of heart, and yet insisting that Michael keep going with his confession (despite Michael flat-out asking “Why confess if I’m unrepentant?”), once Michael eventually confess…
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I’ve been watching a show on the History channel called Vikings. The first two seasons are on Netflix. Its portrayal of the historical church is awful, and mendacious in some parts. In the second season, a bishop crucifies an apostate (seriously, what the …!?). It also distorts the character of St. Heahmund, bishop of Sherborne, depicting him as a brutal murderer of another bishop in a church. St. Ansgar, the “Apostle of the North” is shown to have been ineffective. The Norse are portrayed as settling Iceland, without any sign of the Irish monks who were there first. It’s just historical revisionism in the worst way.
 
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OP, if your daughter should ever be interested in including French sources, there was a series called Ainsi soient-ils which purported to depict the lives of five young candidates to the priesthood going through “seminary” (a really weird seminary without classes or teaching or homework or any kind of spiritual direction). Full of inaccuracies, tropes and – needless to say – sexual content. With the obligatory background fight between the “good” progressive director of the seminary and the “bad” conservative cardinal who wants him away.
 
Here’s another past thread we had discussing episodes of TV shows where a priest was shown without vestments while performing liturgy or sacraments that would normally call for vestments. Note that it was mentioned in the thread that the “Modern Family” character might be Episcopalian, not Catholic.
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Is Hollywood afraid of the Church? Popular Media
I’m a major TV geek and I watch a lot of TV shows. If it involves themes of spirituality and religion all the better. But I’ve noticed a weird trend in two TV shows I’ve been watching, where what’s clearly identifiable as the “Catholic Church” is represented without any actual “Catholic” markers. In Modern Family one of the main characters is Catholic and it’s mentioned many times that she goes to Church often (in spite of being divorced and remarried). So when we finally see the BAPTISM of he…
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