“The Priest” and Other Nonsense
Peter Harper, Smoke Signals #6, May 1995
Have you seen the movie? Well, I have. I felt that if it had been condemned by both the American and French bishops, it must have some redeeming value. And besides, the publicity promised nothing less than "a world of ritual". How could I resist?
It was great fun and helped me get through a vast volume of popcorn, but in last analysis it was a pretty stupid movie. I cannot really see why the bishops got so excited. Under the disguises, I could not find a single priest. None of these guys even comes close to knowing what the priesthood is about, so gross is the caricature. Though I suppose there are "priests" like that around. And what to say about the crafty bishop, what an ass,... and he can't even wear his pectoral cross properly on his zimarra! - What is a zimarra (or simar), you ask? well it's a kind of housecoat for clerics. It looks like a cassock, but it has a pair of short silly sleeves over the regular sleeves and a short silly cape on the shoulders (just like the Pope wears). The cross should be worn over the cape, not under... which immediately identifies the so-called "bishop" in the movie as a fraud.
But then when was a real priest last pictured in the movies? That is hard to tell, but probably never better than when Georges Bernanos' "Journal d'un curé de campagne" (The diary of a country priest) was set to the screen by Robert Bresson. This was the portrayal of the battle of the soul against the forces of the devil, a battle which informs all our daily lives, but which rages with particular intensity in the soul of a holy and faithful priest. Having "the divine ignorance of the saints", the priest painfully discovers the pervasiveness of evil in his parish, and through his own excruciating spiritual agony strives to liberate the possessed... None of this in Priest, I am afraid... except a bit of howling at a crucifix!
Well, others have written more knowledgeably about the movie, and I am being too harsh, so I should restrict my comments to the liturgy. What liturgy? the few bits that were shown were all right, I guess, and conformed to the current rubric "Anything goes!" Actually, they were rather conservative, compared to what one can find around here in RC churches.
Did you pick up the old theological puzzler in the movie? It goes like this: you are a priest about to say Mass; a man comes to confession and accuses himself of having poisoned the wine you are to use. What do you do? You discard the wine and open a fresh bottle? Right? - Wrong! You go and say Mass as planned, drink the poisoned wine, and become an unacknowledged martyr of the secret of the confessional. You see, a priest may not use for any purpose whatsoever, including saving his own life, the information he hears in confession. I wonder if the puzzle is still around and whether present day seminarians still worry about it. Father Simons should know, and the Anglican version must be even more "fun"... because then, not only do you poison yourself, but you also kill off your whole congregation...
While we are on the subject of poisoned chalices... There is a lot of casuistry built around the topic. Do remember that such information could at one time come in handy when there were Borgia popes about. And it still could; a lot of people still believe that Pope John Paul I was helped to his grave by his evening tisane (despite his notoriously blocked arteries).
Here are some of the rules:
If you learn of the poisoned wine before the Consecration, you throw it away, get a fresh cup and go on with the Mass.
If the poisoned wine has been consecrated, you put it aside and consecrate a new cup. After Mass the poisoned wine is soaked up in linen or in cotton wool, and left to evaporate and become vinagry. The cloth is then burned, and the ashes poured into the piscina (a drain that goes into the ground).
If you have drunk the poisoned wine, immediately begin the prayers for the dying... Well, not exactly, you are allowed to use an emetic or a stomach pump. You must then collect the rejection, burn it and throw the ashes in the piscina.
But a poisoned chalice is a rare occurrence, The Cunning Man, (Robertson Davies' novel) notwithstanding. There are a lot of other situations which the casuists have presolved for the unwary priest. Here are a few examples:
A fly or a spider falls into the consecrated wine. Option 1: you gulp it down with the wine. Option 2: you take the beast out, rinse it with fresh wine over the chalice, and wrap it in a purificator. After Mass, you burn it and throw its ashes in the piscina. I have once seen one of our priests use option 1, when a ciborium was found to be infested with flour beetles.
You have just taken the consecrated bread, and you vomit. If the bread is still recognisable in the rejection, you must eat it again. If you cannot without vomiting again, you collect the rejection and dispose as above.
You are passing communion, and drop a little consecrated wine on the floor. You must kneel, and collect it with your tongue.
The chalice freezes during Mass. The server must bring in a large bowl of hot water and the chalice is put in to thaw or else is wrapped in warm wet cloths.
A bird or a squirrel swipes the consecrated host from the altar. You get a new host, and reconsecrate. Some books suggest the same solution if the holy bread ever should disappear by "miracle".
If the wine is found to be vinegary at Communion time, new wine must be procured and consecrated, because the Sacrament cannot be celebrated with vinegar.
If there are drops of wine on the outside wall of the chalice after Consecration; no worry, they are not consecrated. Same thing for wafers put on the altar but outside of the corporal.
If the church catches fire, or if terrorists burst into the church, or if a notorious heretic (!) walks in during Mass, the priest should immediately consume the Sacrament and leave the altar.
A priest is allowed to interrupt Mass even during Consecration to give the last sacraments to a dying person (but it must be resumed within an hour, and someone must keep guard of the Consecrated elements).
If a priest dies or becomes ill during Mass, another priest must complete the service if one or both elements are consecrated.