The Significance of Ash Wednesday from Fr. Mike Schmitz and Ascension Presents

Enculturation (2/14/17) Apostleship of Prayer

A day late, but hopefully still useful for you all.

The Secret (of Fatima) from the Apostleship of Prayer (2/13/17)

The Story of the Apparitions in Lourdes

A piece on the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Bernadette at Lourdes, produced by Rome Reports in 2010

Confusing the MacGuffin for the Point: A Reflection on Martin Scorsese's "Silence"

Kichijiro facing his trial, once again

For a synopsis of the plot and a run down of the main characters of Silence I invite you to read my main review here. Unlike the review, this reflection will contain SPOILERS.

(Today is the memorial of St. Paul Miki and the Japanese Martyrs of Nagasaki, Japan. It wan't my plan to post this reflection today, but Divine Providence has a way of pushing things in a certain direction.) 

In film there is a story telling device called the MacGuffin, classically defined by Alfred Hitchcock (who may have also coined the phrase) as the "the thing that the characters on the screen worry about but the audience don't care." It's an object, a person or goal that the characters are after, but in the end is rather incidental apart from keeping the plot moving forward. Think of the plans for the Death Star in Star Wars or the enameled bird in The Maltese Falcon. In both movies the characters could just as easily have been chasing after an egg salad recipe or a sled, and it really wouldn't have made that much of a difference to the over all plot. In James Bond movies it's common to walk out at the end and not even remember what 007's adventure was all about, yet still having enjoyed the ride.

My advice for anyone seeing Martin Scorsese's new motion picture Silence, a fictionalized account of Christian persecutions in 17th century Japan, is to not confuse the MacGuffin for the main points of the film. It is easy to think that the film is concerned with the question of the choice between apostasy and martyrdom. While this may not qualify as a MacGuffin in the traditional sense, I would argue that the points around which the plot revolves: the search for a missing Jesuit and the dilemma over whether or not to renounce the faith, are really vehicles to keep the plot moving along. Unlike a thriller or action film, these devices aren't meant to get us caught up in car chases and explosions, rather are meant to lead us into a deeper meditation on faith and the interior life. How do we know what God wants from us in a given moment? When does devotion become self aggrandizement? How do we know we are reading the signs of God's presence correctly? How do we know that God is really out there, let alone close to us, since when we pray all we hear is silence?

In reading commentaries on the film, and assessing my own response, I concluded that in many ways Silence is a spiritual Rorschach test. Because there are many themes running through the film, and none of them are dominant, audience members will be drawn to what their personal priority is. Bishop Barron, in his commentary, focused on the issues of modern secularization and the privatizing of religion: that the film presents a faith that is tolerated by the societal elites as long as it isn't openly practiced. A writer for the UK Catholic Herald thought Bishop Barron was watching the movie with "culture warrior specs on". He rejected the idea that the movie was commenting on current events, but rather focused on priests very much of their time, on fire with the urgency of the Gospel, not interested in being therapists but in saving souls. (In fairness, if you listen to the Bishop's words closely, he's criticizing certain unnamed commentators, not the film itself). Still others did focus on the issue of martyrdom and apostasy, criticizing the film for making the apostates look good while the martyrs are dismissed, if not mocked. 

It's certainly possible for different people to draw different, yet valid, conclusions about Silence. I must say though, that those who drew this last conclusion saw a different movie than I did, and I believe they got it wrong because, in part, they were focusing on the MacGuffin instead of on the real main points. The other reason is that many religious people won't accept anything but filmed hagiography, and while Scorsese's presentation is pious, it doesn't shy away from displaying the characters' failures in a nonjudgmental way. 

So, what is the real main point, or points? As I wrote, different people will see different things, but for me the character of Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka), is the thread, the key to the story. When we first meet him he is a Japanese stranded in Macau, China. He's drunk and stinks of BO (and Lord knows what else) half conscious on the floor of a tavern. The Jesuits are uninspired by their would be guide. Since he is the only one who can get our "heroes," Fathers Rodgrigues and Garupe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) to mainland Japan to begin their search for the missing Fr. Ferreira (Liam Neeson), they have no choice but to trust. Kichijiro vehemently denies that he is a Christian, but in time it is revealed that he indeed is. He is a Christian with a past, as well as an uncertain future. 

Kichijiro is an apostate who saw his family burned alive for refusing to step on a holy image, the public sign demanded by the authorities that demonstrates their renunciation of Christianity. He makes the decision to "trample" the image, and goes away free. But he isn't really free: not on the inside. Beside the trauma and attendant guilt that follows him after seeing his loved ones immolated on a beach, he is haunted by the faith that he continually rejects externally, yet still lives in him internally. He brings the priests to a remote village where Christians live in secret. The secret Catholics are overjoyed that they can once again celebrate the Eucharist and have their confessions heard, albeit under the cover of night. Kichijiro stands aloof, longing to partake in the Bread of Life, yet doesn't because of the treacherous sin that clings to him.

Eventually Kichijiro does go to confession to Fr. Rodrigues, who compassionately absolves him. But each time Kichijiro is faced with the choice of affirming or denying the faith, he either desecrates a holy image or betrays other Christians to the authorities. After each denial he seeks Fr. Rodrigues out for absolution (one such request adds a hint of unexpected levity to an otherwise tense situation). Each time absolution is given, more reluctantly than the time before, until the last time the priest refuses (which we'll get to in a bit). 

Within Kichijiro there is a war being waged. He had accepted the faith once, but even though the seed was sown on rocky soil (Mt. 13:3-9), withering away under the heat of persecution, it hasn't died completely. He wanders the earth like Cain, never at peace: his betrayal is always fresh, his sin always before him. Though he continually repents, his conversions are always short lived. Like Herod who was captivated by the words of John the Baptist, he is enchanted by the Gospel, drawn to the Sacraments and reaches for sacramentals. Yet like the tetrarch of old, he can't get himself to overcome his limitations and surrender to the Lord. 

Meanwhile, Rodrigues is captured, encountering Ferreira, and the reports are true: the senior Jesuit, his mentor, has apostatized. Not only that, but Ferreira has assumed a Japanese identity, complete with taking his namesake's widow for a wife. He is now a Buddhist, writing tracts detailing the errors of the faith he once tried to spread. His mission is now to convince Rodrigues to follow him in abandoning Christianity. He is very convincing in his appeals to Rodrigues, telling him that the people of Japan never really accepted the faith because their understanding of God is crudely naturalistic. Japan is a swamp, he explains to the young priest; its soil too corrupted to accept the tree of Christianity. 

Rodrigues too apostatizes, but not for any intellectual argument Ferreira makes. Some may want to judge Rodrigues and Ferreira for their apostasy, but this would be, again, to miss the point. Both men are based on historical figures, and that they did apostatize is fact. Scorsese is trying to do get inside their minds and souls. Their betrayal isn't a simple case of trying to save their own skins. Rodrigues is told by Ferreira, the Translator (Tadanobu Satō) and, the Grand Inquisitor (brilliantly played by Issey Ogata) that his fidelity is really pride, mistaking himself for Christ on the cross. While he sits in a cage Christians are being hung upside down over pits, slowly bleeding to death from tiny incisions made behind their ears. All he has to do is "trample" the holy image. He doesn't have to mean it. It's only a formality, he is assured. If he were really like Jesus he would have "acted" already to alleviate these people's suffering. Instead, he is told that the "price of your glory is their suffering." 

He is told that these people have already denounced the faith, but that is unimportant to them. They want him to renounce the faith publicly. They have learned their "lesson:" all killing priests does is create more Christians. But when a priest apostatizes, the faith of the people dies with their renunciation. He is finally brought to the breaking point. He has witnessed stylized crucifixions, beheadings, and drownings. He hears the screams, and the animalistic grunting and groaning of those being hung over the pit. In the end he tramples, abandoning his faith. While it is true that nothing excuses apostasy, anyone who would say they know for sure what they would have done in that situation, either way, is self deceived. 

As I wrote, both Rodrigues and Ferreira live out their days in Japan as public apostates, kept in relative comfort for the sake of remaining perpetual signs of the falsehood of Christianity for the native people. Both men work as customs officials, checking goods being brought in by Dutch traders (the only Westerners allowed into Japan before 1853). Each parcel and container are checked for religious articles or images. Even the most opaque, minute Christian symbol on cups or trinkets are identified for confiscation and destruction. Rodrigues who lives into his 80's is said to serve in this role with distinction.

In spite of their acquiescence, both men are weary. They take no joy in their work, and know that their life is one ongoing humiliation. They are not respected by their "hosts" and looked on as traitors by the Dutch. They are made to repeat their renunciation by publicly trampling an image and writing a letter of apostasy periodically (both men learn to speak and write Japanese very well). Kichijiro is always hanging around the peripheries it seems, and one day he visits Rodrigues at home and begs the defrocked priest to hear his confession. This time the priest refuses, not wanting to risk his life for anyone, much less for a man who could be setting him up yet again. Rodrigues denies that he is a Christian much like Kichijiro did all those years before in Macao, but now it is the Japanese who is unsure of the Jesuit's true feelings.  

Silence ends with Rodrigues' death, and a touch added by Scorsese. As his body is being cremated in a Buddhist ceremony the camera brings us inside the round coffin to glimpse a tiny wooden cross, given to him by one of the Christian martyrs years before, cradled in his lifeless hands. The voice over narration of a Dutch trader, as well as the visual cue, is meant to remind us that only God sees the he heart. This is my only real quibble with the movie in it's treatment of the story. I saw this as a tip of the hat to contemporary sensibilities that was unnecessary, and maybe counter productive. The reality is that he did turn his back on what he believed. He denied Jesus in front of others, and Jesus' words on this point are rather harsh. 

Contrary to our egalitarian age, I do believe that the public sins of a priest are more serious than the failures of others: in the context of the film Rodrigues bears a greater burden than Kichijiro since his apostasy contributed to the denial of others and the general rejection of the faith in the culture. Kichijiro's treachery cost him personally, but in a way led others to eternal life. It's the paradox of Judas that Scorsese is fascinated with: Jesus' mission couldn't have been completed without Judas, yet he is reviled, and, in the words of the Gospel, it's better had he never been born.

I want to be clear — I make no judgments on who's in heaven and who's in hell, even in the matter of fictional characters. I also freely acknowledge that if I were in Rodrigues’ sandals there's a good chance I would have done the same thing he did. At the same time, human beings are complex, God is simple. He is simple in his being, simple in His commandments and, thankfully, simple in his mercy. I have no problem reconciling the ideas that Rodrigues’ choice was at once understandable and wrong, that I can feel compassion for him and condemn his actions, leaving the ultimate judgment to God, who is mercy. 

I am human, after all, and like Kichijiro there is a war going on inside me. I reach for Christ, but too often pull back when I count the cost. In the case of Rodrigues he was ready to die, but the thought that he could save others, end their torture, by trampling was too overwhelming. Again, it's a choice I understand and could easily see myself making. But it's a choice that denies the transcendence of Christianity, the urgent indispensability of the Gospel. Do we believe that there are worse things than torture, even death? Do we believe in Divine Providence for those who are left behind, who we may feel are being abandoned? Isn't it true that the choice to trample may have saved a few lives temporarily, but condemned generations to darkness?

In the final analysis the themes of apostasy and martyrdom are probably more than just simple MacGuffins. Though not incidental to the plot of Silence, I would still argue that to stop there is to miss the deeper points. And I could write a lot more, but will end it here. I've seen Silence twice, and I'm guessing my next viewing will happen when it comes out on home video. Maybe I'll revisit it then.

Challenges (2/6/17) from the Apostleship of Prayer

Salt and Light (2/5/17) from the Apostleship of Prayer