The Cardinal

We watched The Cardinal (Otto Preminger) last evening. What a difference a few years makes! This was the third time I watched the movie. The first was when I was in junior high, when it was on television. The second time must have been about 10 years ago. I saw the movie very differently last night. The Fermoyle family struck me as being very disfuncional. Three adult children were still living at home, none married. When Florie and Mona fought, though he had been studying in Rome for presumably a number of years, Mother sent Steve off to comfort Mona instead of reacting to the fighting herself. Dad also remained silent. Mona expected Big Brother the priest to make all of her decisions for her, and in turn blamed him for the painful consequences. At Mona and Benny's engagement party, Benny and his Jewish parents acted as if that was the first time they had addressed the issue of Benny's marrying a non-Jewish woman. Their indifference to the interfaith marriage until then was out of keeping with the time period. After Mona's death another woman, one of his students (No ethical eyebrows raised there) falls in love with Fr. Fermoyle, and he with her. Then suddenly he decides to return to the active priesthood, no explanation given. She was so "in love" with Fr. Fermoyle that she was never able to love her husband, and after her husband commits suicide, she has no desire to live. Throughout the movie Fr. Fermoyle never looses the guilt he feels in following the Church in moral decisions. His guilt implies that there is something wrong with the Catholicism that he must practice, rather than a deficiency in those who make bad choices, and then suffer negative consequences.

The film does show some good shots of traditional Catholic liturgy, and even goes so far as to show tonsures on the newly ordained men. Except cursory references to to prayer, however, neither Fr. Fermoyle nor the other clergy in the movie are portrayed as deeply spiritual men, and are even presented as being a bit callused, ambitious, and greedy. It takes Fr. Steve to save them from their errors.

We've decided this film is not a keeper.