Catholic groups target film about clerical misdeeds

“The Crime of Father Amaro,” a movie that caused an uproar among conservative Catholics when it was released this summer in its native Mexico, has prompted a flurry of protest among some Catholic groups in the U.S., with hundreds of angry letters and postcards flooding the offices of the film’s U.S. distributor in the last few days.

A conservative Catholic lay group, American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, has mounted the protest, and its members say they intend to picket theaters when the film rolls out in the U.S. beginning Nov. 15.

Nearly 80,000 people have been asked through mass mailings to participate in the first phase of the protest, which involves signing and sending postcards to Samuel Goldwyn Films. The American Society, known as TFP, targeted Latino Catholics for the letter-writing campaign.

The film, which became Mexico’s highest-grossing native film, is based on a 19th century Portuguese novel by Jose Maria Eca de Queiroz but is set in contemporary Mexico. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal as an ambitious priest who begins an illicit affair with a young parishioner, with tragic results. The movie also deals with issues confronting many Mexican priests, including accepting large donations from drug dealers and aiding guerrilla activities in more rural and impoverished areas.

Robert Ritchie, director of the TFP-affiliated America Needs Fatima group, concedes he has not seen the film but has read from newspaper accounts that some of the scenes could be considered blasphemous.

He finds particularly offensive a scene in which the priest and the young woman make love under the mantel of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“There are millions of Catholics who are offended by this film,” Ritchie contended from his organization’s headquarters in Hanover, Pa. The group’s postcards, which arrived by the hundreds at the Los Angeles Times as well, list several objections to scenes in the film, including one in which the priest urges the woman to have an abortion and one in which a communion host is eaten by a cat.

Ritchie claimed the organization has an additional 250,000 members who will be asked to participate in the protest in coming days. He plans to turn the protest into a moral crusade of sorts, asking Catholics nationwide to boycott the movie.

“We will continue to protest this and will go out in front of theaters when this film is shown. There will be a lot of negative publicity for the studio,” Ritchie said. “We will make this into a moral decision, and that is where a lot of people won’t go; all of a sudden it is not just fun entertainment anymore.”

Director Carlos Carrera defended his film.

“This is a fictional film. We know there are good priests and bad priests,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

But he acknowledged that much of the story line is adapted from from widely reported scandals besieging the Catholic clergy and hierarchy in Mexico and elsewhere. “All of this behavior seen in the film has happened in reality,” Carrera said. “None of this is a lie or a part of our imagination.... I think it’s very healthy for the Catholic Church to discuss some of these problems and not let this questionable behavior off the hook.”

Meyer Gottlieb, president of Goldwyn, said he has received scores of letters and is alarmed by their anti-Semitic tone.

“What I find offensive is that they are taking the leap that I am only doing this because I am Jewish,” Gottlieb said.. “Everyone can have an opinion about a film. But the thing that I object to [is the insinuation] that ... if I wasn’t Jewish I wouldn’t be releasing this movie, which is of course absurd.”

One such handwritten letter from a man in Manchester, Conn.: “I am sure you don’t plan on showing rabbis or Jews in a compromising position, but your hatred is vented against the Savior who gave his life to redeem mankind for their sins.”

It is unclear how much sway the American Society holds among mainstream Catholics. Even fellow activists like William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, a watchdog organization that keeps tabs on what it considers anti-Catholic messages in the media and popular culture, dismiss the American Society as a “fringe cultish group.”

Donahue’s group has spearheaded protests against the Brooklyn Museum for a controversial art show and Kevin Smith’s film “Dogma” and plans to campaign against Miramax’s “The Magdalene Sisters,” the Venice International Film Festival prize-winner about an asylum run by Irish nuns, due out next year.

In August, Donahue wrote a letter to Gottlieb asking to see “The Crime of Father Amaro.” He said he will decide if his organization will participate in a protest after his representative sees the film Nov. 4. Donahue said he doubts he will ask for picketing of the film outside theaters, although he is concerned about the tone of the film, which bishops in Mexico unsuccessfully pressured the government to ban: “There are a number of things there that raised our eyebrows,” he said.