Holy Cross: Jesuit, not Catholic

This semester, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture will sponsor a series of four film screenings coordinated by Rev. Lloyd Baugh, S.J., International Visiting Jesuit Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Holy Cross College. The films will be shown at 7 p.m. in Rehm Library.

As you know I try to filter so much of the information coming in on the Pro-Life and Christian Religion (especially Catholic) front, as I understand if you read something in my emails or on my blog it is usually understood to be a recommendation from me. With that in mind, and my history of being critical of some of the happenings at Holy Cross College (It’s a Jesuit College – it’s just not Catholic!), I will still pass along the following information about a movie series the Jesuits are presenting. I really can only recommend the first film, the others are for the guy with black turtle-neck and pony-tail crowd.

Jan 27 Tue in the Reim Library, Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini is not a believer, but followed the text of St. Matthew. Roger Ebert said in his movie review, "Pasolini's is one of the most effective films on a religious theme I have ever seen, perhaps because it was made by a nonbeliever who did not preach, glorify, underline, sentimentalize or romanticize his famous story, but tried his best to simply record it."

Jan 29 Thu Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (French 1989). They love Arcand at the Cannes film festival, but this allegory of Jesus’ life and passion through the acting group portraying Jesus’ life and passion really sounds like a film for pseudo-intellectuals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_de_Montreal

Feb 2 Mon. Valerio Zurlini’s Black Jesus (Italian 1968) another allegory by this former Italian Resistance fighter, Communist party member, and eventual suicide, this time Jesus is an African Anti-Colonial leader; based on Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was an African anti-colonial leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Congo Republic after he helped to win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered under controversial circumstances.

Feb 4 Wed. Mark Dornford-May's Son of Man (isiXhosa, English and Setswana, with English subtitles 2006) Jesus as South African man preaching non-violence during the civil war.
Dornford-May told Reuters "We wanted to look at the Gospels as if they were written by spin doctors and to strip that away and look at the truth," - so this would be the Gospel of Mark Dornford-May, not the Gospel of Mark.


If you want a good movie, I do recommend joining Lisandra’s efforts to bring Not Easily Broken, to Worcester. http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/noteasilybroken/site/
She needs 1000 people to commit to seeing the film in order to get Show Case cinemas to bring the movie here. Please advise if you'd be interested to add your names to our list. It won’t cost anything until you go to the movie.