La realidad
supera a la ficción
El Dr. Jorge
Erdely opina sobre El Crimen del Padre Amaro para el diario The Times de
Londres.
Mexicans
ignore church ban on 'sinful' priest film
The Times. David Adams.
A FILM
about a Roman Catholic priest who seduces a 16-year-old girl is
breaking box-office records and taboos in Mexico, despite efforts by
the Church to block its release.
The Crime of
Father Amaro has been
labelled blasphemous and sacrilegious by bishops, and some priests have warned
parishioners they will be sinning if they watch it.
But Mexican
audiences are not offended. More than 42,000 people took part in a survey by the
television network Televisa and 72 per cent said the film should be shown.
The film’s
distributor, Columbia Pictures, said that Father Amaro, which stars Gael
Garcia, 24, a rising young Mexican actor, brought in £5.3 million in the first
ten days.
It tells the
story of a recently ordained priest who seduces Amelia, a beautiful 16-year-old
girl, in a rural Mexican village. As Father Amaro wrestles with his guilt he
discovers that he is not alone. One fellow priest is having an affair with a
woman while accepting "donations" from drug traffickers to fund a new
hospital. Another priest supports an armed guerrilla movement.
"The
reality goes beyond the film’s portrayal," Jorge Erdely, a Mexican
theologian, said. He cites the case of Bartolome Carrasco, Archbishop of Oaxaca,
who wrote a report to the Vatican in 1990 saying that 75 per cent of the priests
in his diocese were not celibate. "Narco-charity" is an open secret in
the drug-infested northern border region. "Liberation theology"
priests on the Church’s liberal wing are also deemed to have played a role in
stirring up rebellion in the Chiapas state.
The bishops have
focused their criticism, however, on scenes that they say are disrespectful. In
one, Father Amaro kisses a teenage parishioner under a portrait of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, Mexico’s most revered religious figure. In another a woman feeds a
Communion wafer to her cat.
"This movie
makes fun of the most sacred religious symbols of the Catholic community,"
the Catholic Bishops’ Conference said.
Fuente: The
Times, London.
Fecha: 02 de
septiembre de 2002
Por: David Adams
Sección: World
