TOS035 Watching the Saints-John XXIII and John Paul II with Patti Brunner for audio: TOS035: Watching the Saints: John XXIII and John Paul II | Listen Notes
Episode TOS035 Truth of the Spirit’s “Watching the Saints”. Join Patti Brunner to look at Pope Saint John XXIII and Pope Saint John Paul II. In this modern age we expect to know all about public figures but you may be pleasantly surprised to watch the bio-movies about two popes of modern times who were rather quickly canonized. Exploring their youth and the time of their early priesthood draws us into a friendship with these two men.
Patti Brunner adds other interesting information as she reviews the various movies about Pope John XXII and Pope John Paul II and helps you decide which saints to watch! A recovering binge watcher, Patti Brunner takes these long movies originally broadcast as mini-series and shows how we are invited into these saints’ lives.
Truth of the Spirit Watching the Saints –John XXIII and John Paul II
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit and Watching the Saints. I’m Patti Brunner. On this episode we’ll discuss movies made about a couple of modern day saints who were chosen to be Popes of the Catholic Church, Pope Saint John XXIII and Pope Saint John Paul II.
Angelo Roncalli was the 23rd pope to choose John as his name. In the early days of the Church, many of the early Christians had pagan names, some that honored pagan gods, so the practice of becoming a new man in Christ also merited a new name. Modern popes often choose their name to honor a particular saint or previous pope. The first Pope John Paul was inspired to choose the names previous two popes, John XXIII and Paul VI, as his name so “John Paul”. His papacy only lasted 33 days. Society wondered if maybe God was correcting a mistake by the College of Cardinals, but when Pope John Paul II immediately chose his name it showed the world that wasn’t so.
I’ve chosen two movies about John XXIII, “The Good Pope: John XXIII” staring Bob Hoskins and “John XXIII: the Pope of Peace” with Ed Asner. They both cover the rotund pope who surprised those in the conclave, who chose him when he was 77 as a “transitional” pope, by stepping forward boldly to convene Vatican II, an international ecumenical council of the world’s bishops to streamline the teachings of the Catholic Church and to address the needs of the modern church. Calling an Ecumenical Council was a monumental event. Before Vatican II restated the teachings into 58 original documents with instructions, decrees, letters and followed by post conciliar documents, the Church had thousands upon thousands of documents from the previous 1900 years including those from16 previous ecumenical councils These teachings were not thrown out; you can look in the back of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and see the Index of Citations and see how many of the teachings are still integrated into the teachings of the Catholic Church. Addressing the needs of the modern Church is an ongoing process. Ok, back to the popcorn, “The Good Pope” was broadcast in 2003 as an Italian miniseries. It is dubbed into English which is much easier than reading subtitles, especially if you are watching the movie on your phone. Perhaps the voice actor is to blame but I think it may be the script is at fault. This movie is flat and seems like the writer was focused on dropping “Easter eggs” in the story to explain why the future pope wanted to change the language of the Mass from Latin to English and make sweeping changes. It doesn’t invest our emotions with the main character and we could have gotten to know the pope a lot quicker by reading a paragraph or two in a bio. Amazon said that the music score was reminiscent of the composers’ old Spaghetti Western themes. Perhaps this is an “Easter egg”, too; “spaghetti westerns” were imitations of the real American west. This movie was a poor imitation of a good movie and very disappointing. There is little in this mini-series that would call for canonization of John XXIII as a saint.
Thank goodness someone decided to take a look at his life on film with “John XXIII” broadcast one year earlier 2002 as an 8 hour mini-series. Don’t cringe at the length! I watched the movie on Formed.org and with all the previews, look backs and commercials cut out it was 3 hours and 23 minutes. Since I didn’t watch the original mini-series when originally broadcast, probably in Italian, I can’t tell you what else may have been trimmed to get this to current air time. I’ve noticed that many of the saint movies I watch are originally broadcast as a mini-series. Their lives are so rich and worth the telling the truth about them. Adding a little poetic license can allow the characters to really come into our hearts rather than be a dry historical figure. As a former binge watcher of various TV series with cliff hanger endings, the length of a mini-series movie doesn’t bother me at all!
I have watched a lot of “pope movies” on Formed.org including several who have not been canonized. It has been sweetly informative to watch the background and early days of Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I who, according to the movie, had a spiritual experience that promised him an early death after being elected, and Pius XII which reveals the truth of his fight against the Nazis that he did in a non-public way. There is also a docu-drama about Saint Celestine who was the first pope to resign his office at the end of the Middle Ages. Most of these Pope movies reveal a “behind the scenes” of the conclaves and the political posturing that takes place within the Vatican and outside, including those who criticize and seem to come against the popes. If watched in order of their pontificates these movies also show how modern times and modern technology has affected the papacy while continuing the basic stability and succession of popes. Formed.org is a fee based subscription service that not only includes movies but documentaries, books, audios, bible studies and other studies, and lots of catechetical talks and series by fabulous speakers. My local parish has opted to purchase a subscription for our whole parish and uses many of its Catholic teachings for formation. It serves fiction and non-fiction, adults and children, English and Spanish. Many of the movies I have reviewed are available on their Formed.org. Unlike browsing YouTube or other subscription sites, the Formed.org has already weeded out the unwatchable and the ‘shouldn’t watch’ movies!
Back to the popcorn. I liked the line in the Ed Asner movie where John XXIII, shortly before being selected as pope, says to a fellow cardinal on the conclave, “But we are not the ones who choose.” The cardinal replies, “then who does?” and Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, replies, “The Holy Spirit!” Later in the movie we find out that he has always been heavily influenced by the Holy Spirit, especially when he chooses to call the Ecumenical Council. These movies also show the differences of opinion by the advisors to the pope and the wise decisions that surface time and again. The phrase “poor country priest” turns up several times in the Ed Asner portrayal of Pope John XXIII. His family’s poverty gave him insight into the needs of the poor and his appreciation of the helping hand he received from his uncle necessary to leave his family to study for the priesthood made a difference as he continued his work as a priest and a cardinal and a pope. The movie shows his ecumenical love that reaches across cultural and religious barriers using his own meager resources to help others and how dialog between people who don’t normally get along is pertinent to his peace plan and his plan of evangelism in the Church. This movie constantly goes back and forth from the gathering of the conclave that would elect him and his time as pope and flashbacks to his youth and earlier priesthood triggered by key phrases. It is an effective way to tell his story. Like the first movie, this movie is dubbed with English, but their voice actors allow you to forget it is dubbed. Obviously Ed Asner’s voice must have been dubbed into Italian when it was first released—his lips match the voice. The music is regal, and the times you see tears in Angelo’s eyes, your own will be moist, too. This is the type of inspirational saint movie that I like. Historical in truth, but presented in such a way that you want to be like him and see how that could be possible. Pope John 23rd was born in 1881. He reigned as Pope from October 1958, to his death in 1963 and was canonized on April 27, 2014.
The next saint I will discuss is Pope Saint John Paul II. Karol Wojtyła was born in 1920 and elected Pope in 1978 when he was just 58 years old. He remained pope for 27 years dying in 2005 at age 85. He was pope for so long that many people gave him the nickname of JPII. Since his canonization some call him “Saint John Paul the Great”.
The three movies I have chosen are “Pope John Paul II”, “Karol the Man Who Would Be Pope” and “Karol the Pope the Man”. These were originally mini-series and later DVD movies and they are not rated by the USCCB’s movie review service. They have a PG rating, which is appropriate for the war violence that is too intense for younger viewers but a good reminder for us of the horror of war at the individual level.
Formed.org offers the 2005 movie “Pope John Paul II” starring John Voight as the mature pope and Cary Elwes as the young Karol. The other two are a sort of part 1 and part 2 since the same actors including Piotr Adamczyk as the pope appear in the movies broadcasted a year apart. I probably didn’t pronounce Piotr’s name correctly. He is Polish and I don’t speak Polish. All three movies are available on YouTube.
The Jon Voight movie begins with the assassination attempt in 1981 just three years after his election as pope then turns back to his young adult life, now played by Cary Elwes, as an student and actor as the Germans invade Poland, quickly progressing to his clandestine illegal training as a seminarian by the Archbishop who is a mentor and friend. The movie slips away from Karol several times to develop characters of the German and Russian armies and governments and the Polish underground that reveal the difficult times and interact with Karol as an adversary or as his friends. Karol Wojtyła is appointed Bishop of Cracow at age 38, approved by the government because they doubt his ability. God has played a trick on them! He quickly becomes a thorn in their side as he supports workers in a non-violent protest against the Russian government. Moving right along we then see Bishop Karol at Vatican II, shining for all to see. He then petitions the prayers of Padre Pio for healing of a dying friend who miraculously recovers. We then move forward to Cardinal Karol helping elect the first Pope John Paul, and then we return to the Conclave in 33 days for his own selection as Pope. Here Jon Voight takes back the role of the newly elected pope. Jon was 66 as he played the role and so he doesn’t look quite as young and vibrant that JPII was as he stepped into the papacy except when he climbs onto a window sill to speak to the youth in Poland, but later in the movie, through make-up, he certainly resembles the elderly years of the pontiff. Later the movie has some blurry real footage of his 1993 visit for the World Youth Day at Mile High Stadium in Colorado. I had the opportunity to attend that to take my CYO group, but I allowed others to take my place. The last 30 minutes focuses on the Pope dealing with the Parkinson’s disease which was crippling and affected his voice but not his spirit. The movie skips a lot of JPII’s papacy but how can you squeeze 27 years into a 3 hour long mini-series? Dubbed from English to Italian it was shown to Pope Benedict and 7000 others in 2005.
The other movie that is also excellent is “Karol The Man Who Would Become Pope” with a follow up movie with the exact same characters and actors: “Karol, The Pope the Man”. The DVD is also marketed as “Karol, A Man Who Became Pope and The Pope, The Man” including both mini-series for the complete life of Pope John Paul II” The Pope was played by Polish actor Piotr Adamczyk which gives it a flavor that brings authenticity to the bio movie. The first series shows Karol Wojtyła from age 18 through the conclave that elected him. This first part of was screened by JPII but was not released until after his death in 2005. The second mini-series followed quickly the next year that picks up at Pope John Paul II as he appears to the crowd after his election and goes until his death. A lot of the part one movie expresses his relationship with his father and with other students who enter the Polish underground always showing the traits that made him beloved throughout the world. I’m not sure how much poetic license was taken in this movie; there were many scenes of information totally new to me. It tends to try to romanticize his relationship with a fellow female student friend, but recognizing his teaching on Theology of the Body I could easily recognize that his love for her was the same love he had for me, whom he never met. It has a central character as a nemesis who recognizes Karol’s danger to the Communists government and also a young spy who works for the nemesis who even audio tapes the confessional trying to catch the young priest Karol in illegal activities. Listening to the tapes eventually converts the young spy. The violence of war and the menace of communism is a strong political statement in part one but also help us to comprehend the formation of the man who turned the world from violence toward peace. We see a small turning point for Karol in the turmoil as a character appears briefly as Karol seeks a hidden priest to have a mass said for the dead who advises him, “We will win with love not with guns…the Nazis will disappear for evil will destroy itself.” Karol then replies, “But if love doesn’t win out, the Nazis will just come back under a different name.”
The Part 2 movie “Karol, the Pope the Man” shows us his settling in at the Vatican with various staff members, the assassination attempt and injury, his relationship with Mother Teresa, his world travels and often we get to hear John Paul II’s own words as he writes letters and proclaims his thoughts to others. I did not research these to make sure that what was being said was truly said by the Pope, and I must say I wondered at the anti-war speech given about Kuwait and Saddam Hussein in the middle of movie. Later we see him in the hospital to have an operation to remove a tumor and he goes to the bedside of a dying boy. The angry mother says, “Tell God to go away!” And the Pope answers, “I can tell him but he won’t listen. He knows his place is here with you.” This saint is here with us, too. With real footage of a car bomb attack in Palermo we get JPII’s response for repentance and his constant pursuit of peace. There are a lot of political statements throughout. We then get our heart broken as he travels to Africa and see the kidnapping of children to be made soldiers and the struggle to repair bodies and souls. The pope tells a suffering young man dying of Aids, “Do not give up hope. Christ is with you.” We later see that when the Pope suffers he does not give up hope as he suffers greatly with Parkinson’s disease. The extreme vigor of the Pope as a young priest, bishop and pope, highlighted by his activities especially his love for the great outdoors of hiking and skiing provide a startling contrast to his condition in his later years.
We get a very beautiful small taste of his Theology of the Body as he responds to questions about abortion and contraception in connection with Aids. We see the continuing Spiritual maturity of our Pope as he gets older and constantly faces the problems of the world. A few times the Piotr as pope looks younger than the previous scene. I can forgive this, especially since there is a lot of time hopping in the movie. As in the earlier movie, we see up close the many physical struggles the pope underwent in the privacy of his inner circle. We watch the suffering of his friends who have also grown old. John Paul’s incapacity to move and speak freely reveals his embrace of the suffering of the elderly with grace and at times frustration. Hard to watch, but his determination is inspiring for an aging generation.
At his death we are treated to actual footage of his funeral and the future Pope Benedict XVI blessing his casket.
If you want more of Pope Saint John Paul II there are also many, many documentary film clips of JPII. A couple that seems to be geared toward children on YouTube includes “Saint John Paul II, the Life of a Holy Pope” by Catholic Link and a EWTN presentation “Pope John Paul II”.
During the next episode of “Watching the Saints” we’ll find some saints that are not quite as well-known as these wonderful pope saints.
You’ve been listening to “Watching the Saints” – a movie review series on Truth of the Spirit with Patti Brunner. I invite you to subscribe and come back for more. With the Holy Spirit there is always more!
Amen.
