TV Note: "Doubt" (1/8)
David Shasha
"Doubt" will be screened on Starz in Black Tuesday, January 8th at 7:06 AM and 2:18 PM
https://www.directv.com/Channels/Starz-in-Black-HD-530
Review Essay: The Dangerous Christian Phallus: From Mystical Penetration to Child Molestation
“Doubt” (John Patrick Shanley, 2008)
“Spotlight” (Tom McCarthy, 2015)
Traditional Christian doctrine holds that God had sexual relations with a virgin woman and generated a son.
This sexual act, the Immaculate Conception, is a Church “mystery” which both is and is not a carnal reality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception
The doctrine is rooted in the idea of Original Sin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin
Original Sin is the carnal sexual union of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible.
While the Church valorizes “spiritual” love along the lines of Platonic thought, the actual physical sexual act is frowned upon for those deemed holy to God.
This doctrine is fraught with difficulties, as we see in a text unearthed by the late Columbia University scholar Morton Smith known as the Secret Gospel of Mark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Gospel_of_Mark
The text was published in book form back in 1973 with Smith’s controversial analysis:
The extra-biblical Gnostic text is based on an episode in the canonical Gospel of Mark which involves Jesus and a young man dressed only in a flimsy linen cloth:
Mark 14:51 speaks of a mysterious encounter between Jesus and that young man:
A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
The Secret Gospel of Mark expands in a Midrashic-Mystical fashion on this episode:
And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan.
There is intense scholarly and religious controversy over the Gnostic Gospel which strongly reeks of the carnal and the sexual.
Indeed, while God impregnates Mary who delivers the baby Jesus in the usual manner, the subsequent history of carnal sexuality in the Christian tradition remains complicated and deeply troubling, as can be seen in the disturbing episode from the Secret Gospel.
From the very beginning of its existence, the Christian Church has had difficulty dealing with the sexual act as part of a normal and healthy human life.
The apostle Paul famously rejected the Biblical command to procreate:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+7&version=CEB
In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul sees sexual relations as a necessary evil which can and should be avoided by those seeking to lead a scrupulous life:
1Now, about what you wrote: “It’s good for a man not to have sex with a woman.”
2 Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband because of sexual immorality.
3 The husband should meet his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should do the same for her husband.
4 The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
5 Don’t refuse to meet each other’s needs unless you both agree for a short period of time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come back together again so that Satan might not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6 I’m saying this to give you permission; it’s not a command.
7 I wish all people were like me, but each has a particular gift from God: one has this gift, and another has that one.
8 I’m telling those who are single and widows that it’s good for them to stay single like me.
9 But if they can’t control themselves, they should get married, because it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.
10 I’m passing on the Lord’s command to those who are married: A wife shouldn’t leave her husband,
11 but if she does leave him, then she should stay single or be reconciled to her husband. And a man shouldn’t divorce his wife.
12 I’m telling everyone else (the Lord didn’t say this specifically): If a believer has a wife who doesn’t believe, and she agrees to live with him, then he shouldn’t divorce her.
13 If a woman has a husband who doesn’t believe and he agrees to live with her, then she shouldn’t divorce him.
14 The husband who doesn’t believe belongs to God because of his wife, and the wife who doesn’t believe belongs to God because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be contaminated by the world, but now they are spiritually set apart.
15 But if a spouse who doesn’t believe chooses to leave, then let them leave. The brother or sister isn’t tied down in these circumstances. God has called you to peace.
16 How do you know as a wife if you will save your husband? Or how do you know as a husband if you will save your wife?
Paul’s text has become standard teaching in the Church, which sees sex and procreation quite differently than does the Halakhic Jewish tradition:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-purpose-and-meaning-of-sex-in-judaism/
Sex in Judaism is rooted in the Biblical command in Genesis 1 to “Be Fruitful and Multiply”:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A28&version=KJV
Though there are many laws setting limitations to the sexual act, the Talmudic tradition does not seek to proscribe the activity as Paul does.
Judaism and Christianity have very different viewpoints on God’s carnality and the manner in which human beings reproduce and love one another.
The Secret Gospel points to a Mystical-Gnostic Christian tradition of Jesus passing over “mysteries” in a hidden sexual fashion that blurs the line between the physical and the spiritual.
The Church promulgated a doctrine of Celibacy for those men and women who chose to devote themselves exclusively to God:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy#Christianity
Rooted in Pauline doctrine, Celibacy renewed the problematic nature of God’s carnality and its “Incarnation” in his “son” Jesus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarnation_(Christianity)
Nuns are “married” to Jesus in a Mystical Union:
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/what-is-it-like-being-married-to-jesus
They even wear “Wedding Rings” to signify the union:
https://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu935.htm
The priest is not permitted to marry or have sexual relations as he is consecrated to God alone.
It is interesting to note that in 1983 the (in)famous Art scholar Leo Steinberg wrote a shocking essay published in the journal October entitled “The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion”:
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3469512
An expanded version of the essay was published in book form by the University of Chicago Press in 1996:
Steinberg reproduces numerous images of artworks depicting Jesus without clothing, clearly showing his exposed phallus.
The essay sets out to examine a clandestine artistic tradition that remains troubling to a Church which suppresses sexuality and the carnal impulse.
Indeed, we can point to the seminal play written by the Converso gadfly Fernando de Rojas called “Celestina,” first published in 1499:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Celestina
The work was published in a new English translation by Penguin Books in 2009 with an introduction by the great Spanish iconoclast Juan Goytisolo, a man who knew well of Andalusian Jews and Muslims and their wicked Christian persecutors:
I have discussed the book in the following SHU post:
The title character of this very bawdy and disturbing work is a procuress who runs a very popular whorehouse.
In his article “The Sexual Landscape of Celestina,” the scholar Joseph Snow provides us with a very enlightening discussion of the text:
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2443242.pdf
As he states there:
However, despite the presence of humor in the work and the not infrequent characterization of Celestina as a "funny book," the work is widely read as one which propels us headlong toward a fascinating and revealing face-to-face encounter with the dark side of our humanity. The world of Celestina and her hedonist band of prostitutes, corrupt servants, clerics and officials, swaggering pimps and ruffians, bibulous boon companions and numberless clients, all seeking her services in one or more of her semi-clandestine "officios" is—when all is seen and revealed by the work's tragic close—not morally inferior to the behavior of the obviously more noble, opulent and material world of the families, say, of Calisto, Melibea and their kind. Indeed, through the reader's vivid involvement with the intimate lives—the thoughts and actions—of all the principals of Celestina, the reader comes away from the experience as much impressed by the senselessness of the actions that lead to the individual deaths that take place as by a sense of awe before the artistic achievement that invites us to witness up-close the smallness of spirit that shuts the door on acts of altruism, loyalty and grace. Celestina's characters are so successfully realized, so well-rounded and fully-dimensional that they succeed—in ways profound and permanent—to inscribe themselves upon our own conscious lives. The lessons they inadvertently teach us are, for that reason, immediate and deeply serious.
“Celestina” is about elusive love between young people and the endemic corruption of a Spain in the throes of Inquisition and Purity of Blood mania.
“Good” girls are being pursued by men and boys in a lurid manner that inspired the following article entitled “Girls Gone Wild: Medieval Spain Edition”:
http://parnaseo.uv.es/Celestinesca/Celestinesca33/03_Cloud_Christine.pdf
The whoremonger Celestina is an expert on catering to the friars, as we see in the following conversation between the madam, Sempronio, and the whore Elicia:
“Hush, my lady. Do you think absence can douse my deep love for you or the fire burning in my heart? Wherever I wander, you go with me. Don’t feel so sorry for yourself and don’t torture me any more than I’ve already suffered. But tell me, who are those footsteps I can hear upstairs?”
“Oh, it’s only a lover of mine,” replied Elicia.
“That’s not hard to believe.”
“I bet! Why don’t you go and take a look!”
“I’m on my way.”
“Drop it Sempronio, ignore the crazy Jane. She’s moody and upset because you’ve been away so long! Go on up and she’ll act even crazier. Come and talk to me and let’s not waste any more time,” suggested Celestina.
“So who is upstairs?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Naturally.”
“A lass waiting for a friar.”
“Which friar?”
“Don’t ever try to find out” (Penguin edition, p. 12)
I have written about the complex literature of the Conversos in the following article on the excellent book by Manuel da Costa Fontes, The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain:
Though Rojas was writing fiction, his words resonate in a world
of Church clerics who brazenly sought to violate the prohibitions on sexual
activity; prohibitions that form the basis of two very important movies on the Church
Child Molestation scandals, John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” and Tom McCarthy’s exposé
of the Boston diocese
“Spotlight.”
The great playwright Shanley burst onto our cultural radar in 1987 with his brilliant Screwball Comedy “Moonstruck”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstruck
That movie looked at the many foibles of Romance as its multiple protagonists sought love amidst betrayal, debased lust, and duplicity in a tightly-knit Italian clan setting. We saw how adultery sought to compensate for the fear of human mortality, and how family life could be upended and torn apart over sexual liaisons.
In 2008 Shanley adapted his play “Doubt” which took on the Sex Abuse scandals of the Church and its Priests:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubt_(2008_film)
The late Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest actors of his generation, played a too-warm priest who was a product of the feel-good touchy-feely 1960s and its open emotional attitudes. His Father Flynn took a “special” interest in a young African-American student at the parish elementary school. Sister Beauvier, played by the brilliant Meryl Streep, suspects that Flynn is molesting the vulnerable boy; the only Black student in his class, and who apparently exhibits Homosexual tendencies.
Shanley’s examination of the matter is maddeningly ambiguous and vague, filled with implication and innuendo, but without actual substantive proof of criminality.
“Doubt” became controversial over its attack on the Libertine Counterculture of the 1960s:
http://thecresset.org/2009/Michaelmas/Ostwalt_M09.html
As this post states:
The two protagonists, Flynn and Aloysius, battle over her claims of his alleged improprieties. On a grander scale, these two characters represent a battle waging in the Catholic Church in the midst of Vatican II. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) brought revolutionary changes to the Catholic Church, challenging traditional liturgy, theology, and authority within the church. Vatican II could be seen as a struggle of tradition versus innovation. In this film, Sister Aloysius represents the tradition-laden pre-Vatican II church, while Father Flynn is a progressive pastor intent on bringing reform to the congregation and school he serves. One wonders how much of Sister Aloysius’s allegations might be motivated by her disdain for the progressive reforms Flynn represents. In any event, the struggle between these two strong characters represents the larger struggles of the church of that time and the doubt those struggles created in Catholic communities. The typical blue collar Catholic community represented by Flynn’s congregation in 1964 must have been struggling: the tradition built on certainty and continuity was changing; the most powerful Catholic in America had been assassinated; certitudes had been questioned; innocence had been shattered; questions of race and gender surfaced in the film and society. This is the doubt the film captures and investigates.
The controversy is rooted in the Church teachings on Sex and Celibacy that we have just examined. “Doubt” implies that the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s impacted the Church as well, but that the Church was ill-prepared to deal with those changes because of the dogmatic strictures against sexual activity in the clerical class.
We all know how this tragic story ended.
In the Oscar-winning 2015 film “Spotlight,” Tom McCarthy expertly tells the story of the Child Molestation scandals in the Church by presenting the reporters of the special “Spotlight” investigative unit at The Boston Globe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_(film)
McCarthy shows us an incestuous world of Church domination in the Boston diocese; a bastion of traditionalism and of tight control by a corrupt hierarchy led by Cardinal Bernard Law:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/world/former-boston-cardinal-bernard-law-dead/index.html
Going back to those same 1960s, the Globe reporters in 2001 uncovered a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse of minors and a conscious cover-up perpetrated by the Church leadership and lay members of the community.
A new editor Marty Baron, played with skillful subtlety by Liev Schreiber, comes to the paper and pushes the special “Spotlight” team of crack reporters to investigate a case involving Father John Geoghan; a case that leads to the gruesome discovery that scores of other priests have participated in the serial molestation of children.
These crimes were eventually found out to be known by the Church officials and covered up in tandem with a tightly-controlled group of defense lawyers and craven set of local government prosecutors. The Globe’s reporting led to the discovery that the Church had set up a formal system to “deal” with the pedophile priests and used specific “secret” nomenclature in official lists to identify them internally.
The head of the “Spotlight” team Walter Robinson, played with atypical understatement and furious intensity by Michael Keaton, is forced to confront his own complicity in the matter when it is learned that many of the facts of the crimes were reported by victims and their advocates years earlier, but ignored by the newspaper, which did not connect the dots and see the massive conspiracy to cover the matter up.
“Spotlight” presents a corrupt socio-religious culture under the stranglehold of Da’as Torah Catholic authoritarianism.
The Church leadership is seen as perfect, beyond criticism and reproach. It took so long to finally get to the truth of the horrifying sexual crimes of these degenerate pedophile priests because the community of devout believers refused to countenance any discussion of the matter.
Silence in this case was indeed complicity and served to empower and embolden the Church, and to undermine and stigmatize the innocent victims and prolong their intense pain and suffering.
Keaton is forced to confront not only the Da’as Torah stone wall of the community, but his own past weakness in being unable to speak truth to power. He must deal with his own personal complicity in the matter. As his reporters continue to uncover the incontrovertible evidence of these unspeakable crimes, he is challenged to confront his friends who have knowingly participated in covering up the degeneracy.
As we saw in “Doubt,” the Church responded to these crimes by shuttling the Priest-molesters from parish to parish, often rewarding them with better and more lucrative positions in the process.
Law himself was moved up to the Vatican itself after he was forced to resign the Boston archdiocese in December 2002:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law#Move_to_Rome
Overseeing the Vatican cover-up was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would eventually become Pope Benedict XVI:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-pope-benedict-knew-about-abuse-in-the-catholic-church
As we read in that New Yorker report:
The news received widespread attention not only because of its disturbing content but because the director of the Regensburg boys' choir from 1964 to 1994 was Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger was the Archbishop of Munich from 1977 until 1981, when he went to head up the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which establishes theological orthodoxy and was also one of the branches of the Church that dealt with priestly sexual abuse.
Cardinal Ratzinger was part of a Right Wing reactionary group within the Church that took corruption and hypocrisy to a new level of debasement, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/gods-rottweiler-silenced-many-head-doctrinal-congregation
As we ponder the depressing history of sexuality in the Church, Ratzinger presents a uniquely troubling example of how a culture of corruption served to structure a doctrinal hypocrisy: Criminal priests were molesting innocent children en masse, and yet the Church’s most Conservative wing continued to prosecute ideological “deviants” and protect the molesters.
A number of those ideological “deviants” rightly questioned the very Celibacy rules that helped to enable the molestation and were “rewarded” by more persecution from Ratzinger when he became Pope:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1343736bdc4.html?eng=y
“Spotlight” is thus a deeply cautionary tale of religious hypocrisy rooted in power and social prestige; a starkly brutal reality for those of us who seek the truth and who demand justice from our religious leaders.
The movie shows us how long it took those who presented these charges to the public and government to get retributive justice, and how brutally they were treated by those in power.
That power structure sought to protect itself rather than the victims of the predatory behavior of the clerics.
Christianity has been deeply tainted by the stain of sexual repression, and has generated a clandestine culture of carnal profligacy which was exposed by a persecuted Converso like Fernando de Rojas way back in the 16th century.
Tellingly, the “mystery” cult of Christianity sought to supplant the Jewish Law with the Law of Grace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism#Supporting_Pauline_passages
The apostle Paul, who himself famously refused to marry and procreate, demonizes the “Letter” of the Torah in the following oft-cited passage:
He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)
There has been much blather of late from scholars about how Paul did not really seek to end the Covenant of the Law, but it has been clear for many centuries of Church history that his pronouncements were taken quite literally; forming a doctrinal orthodoxy that has led us to aberrant sexual values among the “holy” orders. We must never use the ambiguities of ancient history to distort religious reality in the practical sense.
Rather than embracing the natural impulses of human biology in a reasonable manner, Christianity has sought to set out a magical process of the mystical occult which turns carnal sexuality into a zone of moral incoherence and religious mystification.
From a God who impregnates a virgin woman, to a “son” of God who has sexual organs but is said not to use them, to an apostle who counsels the unmarried to remain so, the Church has demonized the erotic while at the same time, as Leo Steinberg has expertly shown in his controversial book, elevating a denatured sexuality that extols the “holiness” of an Incarnate god/man who has served as a model for those who wish to turn copulation into a sacred mystery.
It is therefore only “natural” to find out that the Church has had such a long and tortured history of sexual deviancy, which has finally been exposed to the public, allowing its victims to achieve Justice in the face of a corrupt power hierarchy.
Those Jews who continue to embrace the Christian Fundamentalists and seek to make doctrinal connections between the two religions should keep these things in mind as their movement subverts the integrity of our Torah and its sacred moral values.
David Shasha