Calvary

The Boston Globe reviews movies on Friday. I read the reviews and, if positive from my perspective, I add the movie to my list of Netflix movies that I put on my queue. By the time I actually am ready to request the DVD from Netflix, I actually forgot what the film was about. And so it was is watching Calvary tonight. It was astounding, especially given my background.

Essentially, the story based in Ireland focuses on a person who confesses to a local parish priest that he was molested by a priest (now dead) when he was young, not occasionally, but every other day. The priest queried him about his confession, but the person was not interested in any forgiveness. He told the priest that he wanted the priest to come of the ocean on the following Sunday when he would kill the priest. There was no relationship between the person's history and this priest. The point was that there was no point in why the priest molested this person when he was young.

The film focuses on the priest between this Saturday and the following Sunday when the priest is expected to come to the beach to be killed. The story is fascinating for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that the man became a priest after his wife died. His daughter's presence with her Dad is poignant because of her problems in coping with the physical death of her mother and the "death" of her father who assumed a role that separated her from his presence.

The priest, assigned to what appears to be a very rural parish, is most human in his relationships with his parishioners. The people interacting with the priest are clearly less than the perfect Christians. Their Catholic heritage, at this point, marginally influences their behavior. He, as their local priest, seems most "real" given his past background. Ultimately, however, the ending results in his murder.

Why I am writing about this film is my personal reaction to the interaction between the priests and many of his parishioners who were very jaundiced by their personal experiences.

As I have written before, religion has become less of a direct influence on people's behavior. It does not mean that their lives are not influenced by moral considerations. Their spiritual orientation is important to them. The religious indoctrination is not.

The film portrayed the week between the man's "confession" and the following Sunday's planned murder. Each day found the priest interacting with others whose lives were less than noble. Her relationship with his daughter who was visiting from London was most touching. And then we see him walking on the beach as his stalker comes towards him. The ending was horrific, but strikingly emblematic of current trajectory of organizational religions.