The following is a review of "For Greater Glory" by a Carmelite Sister:
We rarely go to a movie theatre. Yet, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was offered my community, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, to be a part of a premiere showing of "For Greater Glory" on May 31st in Beverly Hills. 75 of our sisters immediately said "yes" to the gracious invitation of Archbishop Jose Gomez. Why? Because it was during those days, the days of the horrendous religious persecution in Mexico in the 1920s that our community began. Mother Maria Luisa Josefa of the Most Blessed Sacrament, affectionately known as Mother Luisita, had already accepted 55 sisters into the new community
It was on July 31, 1926, that President Plutarco Elias Calles enforced the anti-clerical laws throughout Mexico. The following day, August 1, 1926, all religious services were stopped throughout Mexico. No more Masses. No more marriages. No more first Communion. No more religious practices of any kind. This is where the movie begins. And that is why we are so interested. Our community was just beginning at that time also.
Regular folk, people like you and me, felt the loss of their religious freedom all the way to their deepest soul. In the region of Los Altos, where my community and the cristeros originated, a new group formed made up of these Catholics who protested the law. There was a boycott. There was a petition. When all these failed, there rose up a group known as "cristeros" who fought for three years to reclaim their churches and their religious freedom.
Now I had read about the cristeros, researched the elements of the persecution in Mexico, and a few times I've given talks on the beginnings of our community. I had read about how some of our first sisters had been put in jail. I had heard about sleeping on mats and having to get up at a moment's notice and take all belongings and escape over roof tops to safety. I had read coded letters in which our holy foundress, Venerable Mother Luisita, wrote in detail about current fashions. She was a very simple and austere soul and wore only a mended Carmelite habit. I used to think why such detail about current women's fashions, for heaven's sake. Well after seeing the movie, I understood. It was for the sisters to wear a better disguise so they would not be discovered and arrested. After I saw the movie, "For Greater Glory", it all became real to me. The blood. The torture. The injustice of it all. Above all, the faith of the people. What faith!
Some of you reading this column might know us, because your child is in one of our schools, or a family member is in one of our health centers. Or perhaps you participated in one of our retreats we offer. But, today, in this column you will learn more. Our community was born in religious persecution. Our first sisters and the people who stood by them were courageous, strong Catholics. When Mother Luisita arrived by train into the United States in June 1927, she stepped down from the train and kissed the ground of a free country with religious freedom She could wear her Carmelite habit.
Groups of sisters remained in Mexico, hidden by families who knew they would be killed if the Sisters were found in their homes. That's how our schools stayed in session during those dark years, with private lessons and small group lessons which took place in private homes. Our sisters following Mother Luisita's example became beacons of hope and helped God's people deepen their spiritual resources through prayer. That is our mission, "to promote a deeper spiritual life among God's people" Our mission is aimed at fortifying each one of you with the spiritual intimacy with God that will give you strength in hard times.
I urge you to see the movie "For Greater Glory" and when it is over, like me, you will probably see some parallels. Viva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the King!)
Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles has written a nice review of the movie For Greater Glory. The following comes from the Carmelite Sisters of Los Angeles:
The anti-Catholic persecutions in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s are long forgotten, it seems.
The reality is hard to believe. Just a generation ago, not far from our borders, thousands of men, women and even children, were imprisoned, exiled, tortured and murdered. All for the "crime" of believing in Jesus Christ and wanting to live by their faith in him.
So I welcome the new film, "For Greater Glory." It tells the dramatic story of this unknown war against religion and our Church's heroic resistance. It's a strong film with a timely message. It reminds us that our religious liberties are won by blood and we can never take them for granted.
That such repression could happen in a nation so deeply Catholic as Mexico should make everybody stop and think. Mexico was the original cradle of Christianity in the New World. It was the missionary base from which most of North and South America, and parts of Asia, were first evangelized.
Yet following the revolution in 1917, the new atheist-socialist regime vowed to free the people from all "fanaticism and prejudices."
Churches, seminaries and convents were seized, desecrated and many were destroyed. Public displays of piety and devotion were outlawed. Catholic schools and newspapers were shut down; Catholic political parties and labor unions banned. Priests were tortured and killed, many of them shot while celebrating Mass.
The dictator, Plutarco Elías Calles, used to boast about the numbers of priests he had executed. His hatred of organized religion ran deep. He really believed his reign of terror could exterminate the Church and wipe the memory of Christ from Mexico within a single generation.
He was wrong. In the forge of his persecution, saints were made.
It became a time of international Catholic solidarity. American Catholics opened their doors to refugees fleeing the violence. My predecessor, Archbishop John Cantwell, welcomed many here to Los Angeles — including Venerable Maria Luisa Josefa de la Peña and Blessed María Inés Teresa Arias.
We need to ask for the strength to be Cristeros. By their dying, they show us what we should be living for.
Ordinary Catholics became Cristeros, courageous defenders of Jesus Christ. Many felt compelled to take up arms to defend their rights in what became known as the Cristeros War. Others chose nonviolent means to bear witness to Christ.
"I die, but God does not die," Blessed Anacleto González Flores said before his execution. His words were prophetic.
Martyrs are not defined by their dying but by what they choose to live for. And the Cristeros' blood became the seed for the Church of future generations in Mexico.
Today, we need to know their names and we need to know their stories.
We need to know about the beautiful young catechist, Venerable María de la Luz Camacho. When the army came to burn her church down, she stood in front of the door and blocked their way. They shot her dead. But the church was somehow spared.
We need to know about all the heroic priests who risked their lives to celebrate Mass and hear confessions. Growing up, we had prayer cards made from a grainy photograph of one of these priests, Blessed Miguel Pro. He is standing before a firing squad without a blindfold, his arms stretched wide like Jesus on the cross as he cries out his last words: ¡Viva Cristo Rey! ("Long live Christ the King!")
We need to learn from the examples of all the Cristeros who have been canonized and beatified by the Church. And today especially, we need to pray for their intercession.
As it always has been, today our Catholic religion is under attack in places all over the world. In Mexico and America, we don't face suffering and death for practicing our faith. But we do confront "softer" forms of secularist bullying. And our societies are growing more aggressively secularized.
Already, sadly, we've accepted the "rules" and restrictions of our secular society. We keep our faith to ourselves. We're cautious about "imposing" our beliefs on others — especially when it comes to politics. In recent months, our government has started demanding even more — trying to coerce our consciences, so that we deny our religious identity and values.
We need to ask for the strength to be Cristeros. By their dying, they show us what we should be living for.
So, let's make that our prayer this week. That like the Cristeros, we might be always ready to love and sacrifice to stand up for Jesus and his Church.
And may Our Lady of Guadalupe — Mother of Mexico and the Americas, and the bright star of the New Evangelization, pray for us.
Lima, Peru, May 31, 2012 / 04:06 pm (CNA).- Latin Americans are greatly anticipating the release of “For Greater Glory” on June 1 in the U.S., as weekend box office numbers could determine its distribution in Central and South America.
The movie tells the story of the Cristero War in Mexico during the religious persecution carried out by President Plutarco Elias Calles against the Catholic Church in the 1920s. It stars Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Peter O’Toole, Panamanian singer Ruben Blades and Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui.
Many Latin Americans are hoping that the Hispanic community in the U.S. turns out in large numbers to see the film during its opening weekend June 1-3.
“Catholics ought to go to theaters so that the movie can reach more people in Central and South America, where distribution depends on the outcome in the United States,” the film's producer, Pablo Jose Barroso, said during an EWTN program on May 10.
Barroso noted that the movie is not only for Hispanics or Mexicans, but for everyone, because it clearly speaks of the defense of religious freedom. The persecution by the regime of Plutarco Elias was “bloodier than the Mexican Revolution,” he said.
CNA has received numerous emails from people in Peru, Argentina, Panama, Colombia and other countries in Latin America, who hope the film is shown where they live.
“For Greater Glory” has already been shown in Mexico, where it topped the box office on its opening weekend, surpassing films such as “Titanic” in 3D and “Wrath of the Titans” in 3D.
For Greater Glory tells a story of religious freedom and oppression that is far too little known, and that would be important and worthwhile at any time, but is strikingly apropos in our cultural moment.
The Cristero War or Cristiada of 1926 to 1929 was one of the largest insurgencies in Western history. Yet Americans in general, even Catholics and those of Mexican heritage, remain largely ignorant of this period of brutal suppression and desperate resistance, not to mention the long and contentious history of church-state antagonism in Mexico surrounding it.
For Greater Glory (Cristiada in Mexico) redresses this neglect. One of the most lavish and ambitious films ever produced in Mexico, it’s a breakthrough achievement for producer Pablo José Barroso (previously responsible for the curious but dull Guadalupe and the pious but flawed The Greatest Miracle). It’s also a milestone for faith-based productions generally: a sweeping, handsome epic with strong performances, solid production values and magnificent locations across Mexico.
Making his directorial debut, visual effects expert Dean Wright manages the sizable production capably, and if at times the first-time viewer may not always be entirely sure which mustachioed Latino is which, it’s another reason to see it more than once. (For the record, I’ve seen it twice — and my Reel Faith co-host David DiCerto has seen it four times — and we’ve both found that the film benefits from repeat viewings … which is a good thing.)
Its scope, early 20th-century Latin wartime milieu and Spanish-accented English dialogue invite comparison to There Be Dragons — but where that film centered on a dull protagonist and offered no real picture of the shape of the Spanish Civil War, For Greater Glory follows an ensemble cast through key events of the Cristero War. A pious, faith-friendly celebration of Cristero valor and the Catholic faith, it’s not exactly a history lesson, but neither is it a pseudo-historical fable à la Braveheart.
Opening titles and early scenes sketch some of the background: The 1917 Mexican Constitution included harsh anticlerical provisions that went unenforced until the regime of Plutarco Elías Calles, a fervent atheist, Freemason and virulent enemy of the Church. In 1926, Calles introduced legislation — the “Calles Law” — specifying penalties for violating the constitutional prohibitions: Clergy could be imprisoned for criticizing the government, fined for wearing clerical garb in public, and so forth. Calles also moved to seize Church property, close Catholic schools, seminaries and monasteries, and deport foreign priests.
Andy Garcia plays Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, an accomplished general-turned-businessman whose devout wife Tulita (Eva Longoria) is worried about their daughters’ religious upbringing in the current environment. When Tulita refuses to be comforted, Gorostieta asks defensively, “What do you want me to do?”
What indeed. Gorostieta opposes Calles’ excesses and favors a regime of greater religious freedom, but he’s an unbeliever — in fact, like Calles, he’s an anticlerical Freemason, though the film doesn’t spell this out. Now established as a soap manufacturer, Gorostieta is prosperous, but bored and ripe for a challenge.
There’s a nice moment when Gorostieta is approached by a representative of the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty (LNDLR), which stands behind the Catholic resistance, called Cristeros or “Christers” — originally (like the word “Christian” itself) a derisive nickname, echoing their battle cry, ¡Viva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the King!). Initially dismissive of the ragtag rebels, Gorostieta is caught short by the representative’s parting question and gesture: Taking a cake of soap from Gorostieta’s desk, the man sniffs it appraisingly. Is Mexico’s greatest general content to live out his days producing pink soap?
Peter O’Toole has a small but notable role as a foreign-born cleric named Father Christopher whose kindness and heroic virtue make a lasting impression on a youth named José Luis Sanchez (likable Mauricio Kuri, a Mexico City native). In another small role, Bella star Eduardo Verástegui plays Anacleto Gonzalez Flores, a lawyer who supports peaceful means of resistance to Calles’ campaign. Sanchez and Flores were beatified as martyrs by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Sanchez’s martyrdom is almost a miniature Passion of the Christ, complete withPietà shot.
Like many faith-based productions, For Greater Glory could have benefitted from a less heavy hand and more subtlety: less exposition, less intrusive scoring, more nuanced characters and more complexity all around. Take a scene in which Gorostieta introduces young José to his magnificent Arabian horse. It’s a nice character moment with an implicit father-son subtext — but then the filmmakers have to go and make it explicit: “I never had a son,” Gorostieta tells José, “but if I did, I’d want him to be just like you.”
For the most part, everyone does and says exactly what one would expect of a character like them. Every priest is devout, and every executed priest and layman dies with edifying grace, and not a single federale troop involved in executing even priests and children shows the slightest hesitation or conflict.
Father José Reyes Vega (Santiago Cabrera), an important Cristero general, takes up arms, contrary to the demands of his clerical state. Other than that, he is a picture of piety — in marked contrast to the historical Vega, a notorious libertine whose most infamous crime, involving a train holdup, is here depicted as an accident and then forgotten with unseemly haste.
Gorostieta displays some complexity as a leader fighting on behalf of a faith he doesn’t share but is willing to appropriate for his purposes. He wears a large crucifix and uses "God talk" with the troops, though it’s not always clear whether, or how, he believes what he’s saying or when he starts to believe it. When Father Vega says Mass at one point, Gorostieta pointedly sits aside, smoking a cigar. Yet rubbing elbows with God has a way of changing a person, and Gorostieta’s imperceptible transition toward faith is credibly depicted, whether or not it’s historical.
Along with the Cristeros, For Greater Glory honors the contributions of the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc, a covert women’s society that supported the war effort by smuggling supplies, information and even ammunition — the latter in custom-made undergarments. In this work, as a tense scene on a train illustrates, a wardrobe malfunction could lead to imprisonment or execution.
The film’s most intriguing character is a rugged rancher named Victoriano Ramirez (Oscar Isaacs, The Nativity Story), nicknamed El Catorce (The 14) in honor of an incident involving an ill-fated posse sent to kill him. Ramirez is basically a thug, but a thug with some noble impulses, and his character has the greatest potential for moral corruption or redemption.
That sequence involving the posse is one of the film’s best action set pieces, along with an ambush in a sleepy pueblo. Other action sequences, including an ambush in a valley, get the job done, but could have been staged with more imagination and drama.
Probably the most effective aspect of the film is its mixed depiction of the role of the Mexican hierarchy, the United States and even the Vatican. Early on, we hear that the Vatican is taking too long to weigh in on the Calles laws, though that’s quickly rectified. Bruce Greenwood is effortlessly authoritative as U.S. ambassador Dwight Morrow, a charming and effective negotiator whose main concern in Mexico is U.S. oil interests, though he gradually becomes aware of the enormity of what is occurring. (A nice exchange between Morrow and Calles (Rubén Blades) about mole poblano over one of their famous breakfasts together fleetingly shows another side of Calles.)
Morrow helped negotiate the tragic deal between Calles and the Church leadership that ended the Cristero Rebellion. The Cristeros were essentially sold out, and Calles conceded almost nothing to the Church, even breaking his promise of amnesty and proceeding to execute more Cristeros than died in the war itself. The ambiguity with which the Cristero conflict ended is indicated in the film, though the desire for a triumphant climax somewhat blunts what might have been more effective as a tragic ending (à la The Mission).
Visiting Mexico earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted ongoing restrictions on religious freedom in Mexico’s Constitution. In the United States, the U.S. bishops have made a top priority the defense of religious freedom against encroaching federal tyranny on a host of fronts, from immoral health-care mandates to acquiescence to same-sex “marriage.”
The magnitude of the conflict around religious freedom today is something no one could have predicted when production began on For Greater Glory. Some might call the film’s timing providential. I wouldn’t argue with them. For Greater Glory is the right movie at the right time.
Steven D. Greydanus is the Register’s film critic.
The following comes from Steven D Greydanus and the NCR:
Marvel’s The Avengers is awesomeness squared. It’s the apotheosis of the modern age of comic-book movies, the epitome of everything that the Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor movies were and were trying to be. It is grand and geeky and rollicking good fun on an epic scale, and it gets practically everything right and very little wrong.
It is, in a word, about the best Avengers movie that anyone could reasonably have hoped for or expected, which is all the more extraordinary when you think about how easily, almost inevitably, it could have been a failure, if not a disaster.
There is nothing transcendent or earth-shattering about it. It is not a new kind of superhero movie — not the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or even the Avatar of its genre. Some of the moves are overly familiar, including a climactic gambit telegraphed halfway through the film, followed by a plot convenience that was tired when George Lucas trotted it out at the end of one of the Star Wars prequels.
If The Avengers isn’t necessarily the best superhero movie ever made, it is unquestionably the most superhero movie ever made — and, in that capacity, it is more than well-made enough to take comic-book entertainment to unprecedented levels. We might possibly see a better film later this summer, but if there’s a more enjoyable popcorn action movie this year than The Avengers, I’ll eat my hat.
Historically, movie superheroes have been sealed off from one another, as if they each lived in their own world, one hero per world. In the comics, popular heroes have always inhabited their own monthly titles, but they’ve also gotten together with one another (and with less heavy hitters) in group books for larger-scaled adventures: Justice League on the DC side, with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and so forth, and Avengers on the Marvel side, with Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and so forth. Even Spider-Man and Daredevil have occasionally been drawn into the Avengers’ orbit, though they haven't been joiners.
There is logic to this. When the entire city — or the nation, or even the world — faces an existential crisis, how likely is it that Green Lantern or Iron Man will take a day off, leaving it to Superman or Thor to save the day? But these group efforts are easier to coordinate in the comics than on the big screen.
What’s unprecedented about The Avengers is not only that Marvel managed to put all these heroes together on the screen, but that they pulled it off in continuity with existing franchises: this Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.); this Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans); this Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Through six coordinated films, Marvel Studios has crafted a cinematic universe of overlapping franchises, much like the comic books.
Along with the familiar costumed heroes, Marvel’s big-screen universe is held together by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Clark Gregg’s Phil Coulson — the men behind S.H.I.E.L.D., the homeland security and espionage agency that worries about existential crises on a national and global scale, and has been working on leveraging the logic of a superhero team for the past several films.
There’s also the treacherous Norse god Loki (Tom Hiddleston), previously seen in Thor, and a cosmic MacGuffin called the Tesseract (known to comic fans as the Cosmic Cube), which powered the Nazis’ supertechnology in Captain America, and in the hands of someone like Loki, could easily power a global existential crisis. Even the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) have been established, in Iron Man 2 and (just barely) Thor, respectively.
Only Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is new to us: This is now the Hulk’s third big-screen appearance in the last decade, always played by a different actor. All of them have done a good job: Eric Bana in the 2003 Ang Lee film and Edward Norton in the 2008 film directed by Louis Leterrier. But Ruffalo makes the most of his wild-card status, combining self-deprecating wit and intimidating self-confidence in an unpredictable package. (The one element of Hulk continuity is small-screen Hulk star Lou Ferrigno, who voices the computer-animated Hulk in the 2008 film and The Avengers.)
This is a lot — an awful lot — for any filmmaker to juggle. So many characters, so many tones — Tony Stark’s quicksilver screwball banter; Thor’s pseudo-Shakespearean grandeur; Steve Rogers’ old-school uprightness, etc. Joss Whedon, best known as the creative force behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, as well as the big-screen Fireflyspin-off Serenity, is probably as qualified as anyone to write and direct an ensemble like this, and he manages to capture the essences of each of the previous franchises in short bursts, then blends them together into something new.
Gwyneth Paltrow is as delightful and down-to-earth as ever in her brief appearances as Pepper Potts opposite Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. An elderly gentleman in a crowd in Stuttgart, Germany, with only two lines of dialogue, provides a stirring example of Greatest Generation-era dignity and courage in the face of tyrannical evil, providing the best possible context for Cap’s persona and worldview.
Agent Coulson’s sweetly comic fanboy adoration of Cap also helps establish the supersoldier’s legendary historical milieu — as well as sending up the Comic-Con crowd thronging the theaters. I am not, need it be said, holding myself above it all. When Thor brings his hammer crashing down on Cap’s shield, I am sharing the pure geek bliss.
Yes, the heroes square off against each other as well as against the bad guys. That’s a staple of Marvel storytelling going back to Marvel’s team-up titles, which seemingly invariably pitted the heroes against each other, often due to some forced misunderstanding, before joining forces to save the day. Of course, the heroes have to save the day. But, for devotees, the far more important question is the one of ranking: Who would win? Thor or Iron Man? Iron Man or the Hulk? Hulk or Thor?
All of those scenarios play out in The Avengers, as the characters jostle against one another not only physically, but verbally and personally. In any verbal exchange, Tony obviously has an edge, and the movie has a lot of fun with his quick wit as he pegs nearly every other character with an apropos movie-reference nickname, and even goes toe-to-toe, sans armor, with Loki.
Every character that matters gets a chance to shine, and if the movie doesn’t dig deeply into any of its characters the way one might hope for from Whedon, it points to the vagaries of politics and power in ways that few superhero films outside the Nolan Batman films seem interested in doing.
In the tension between Iron Man’s jadedness and Cap’s idealism, I wish the latter had a bit more punch. Obviously, Iron Man’s sensibilities are closer to Whedon’s own, but it would be nice if he had tried harder to give Cap his due. In particular, there’s a moment during the climactic battle that looked to me (I’ll have to see it again to be sure) like it might be intended as a kind of comeuppance for Cap’s nobility, which would be all kinds of wrong — and contrary to the character established in Captain America: The First Avenger.
On the other hand, Whedon — an unbeliever — allows Cap a throwaway one-liner about God that’s kind of wonderful, and that resonates nicely with that elderly gentleman’s response to Loki. Loki’s pitch is that human beings are cattle who are most comfortable simply submitting to someone who will offer them some semblance of peace. “In the end,” he says, “you will always kneel.”
The answer he gets is not a repudiation of kneeling, but a repudiation of kneeling to the likes of Loki. In the annals of anonymous citizens confronting supervillains in comic-book movies, this brief, quiet moment in a noisily frenetic film is my new favorite.
Welcome to the Blog! I am a Catholic Priest and was ordained to the priesthood on August 26, 2000. I hope this site is a place of interest for you where you will find ideas and information on the Catholic faith and the Church.
