An Anglo-Irish Convert in "the City"

Old books and movies: created in a culture that was permeated with a Christian worldview

Catholic News Agency
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GOOD BOOKS
By Joseph E. Rendini

Old Books, Old Movies

Rather than a book, I am going to discuss some old feature films in this column. Most of these films are based upon novels or short stories so, while it is a stretch, I can just barely classify them as literature. Some of them are available on DVD; virtually all of them are shown from time-to-time on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. They are all worth watching.

No one needs to be reminded that today’s Hollywood movies lack Christian content. But there was a time not so long ago when the Christian worldview so permeated American society that it even popped up in the movies. And not merely in overtly Christian religious films, such as The King of Kings (1927), The Song of Bernadette (1944), The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952), The Ten Commandments (1956) or Ben-Hur (1959). The Christian understanding of life and death, love and marriage, sin, forgiveness and redemption peeked through some purely secular films, from the memorable to the relatively obscure and now forgotten. So, rather than moan about what today’s popular films fail to do, let us learn from what yesterday’s succeeded in doing, sometimes unconsciously or even despite themselves, in the hope that what has happened before can, God-willing, happen again.

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posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 8:45 PM