Posted by Frank Reynolds at spider-we034.proxy.aol.com on November 28, 1999 at 15:40:04:
In Reply to: Question for any Catholics posted by BenDy on November 28, 1999 at 15:18:46:
DaMadFlava and Ebert basically got it right. END OF DAYS doesn't make any Catholic necessarily question his/her beliefs. In that film, the Devil can do evil things simply because he's the Devil, and since Arnold is not a practicing Catholic, it's ok for him to go around and shoot everyone. But God is still, God, Christ is still Christ, God is good, and good will win. Makes Catholics feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Unlike DOGMA, which makes Catholics question their beliefs.
STIGMATA, however, is a little tougher for me (a lapsed Catholic) to write off the way I can write off END OF DAYS though. In STIGMATA, Patricia Arquette gets the stigmata (the wounds that Christ received on the cross) simply because she received a cross of a person who had the stigmata. No way. Sorry. Even assuming that you believe that God gives people the stigmata, to receive the stigmata you must be an incredibly good person. You don't get the stigmata by holding the cross of someone who had it. It's not a contagious disease. I also think "posessing" Patricia Arquette was a weird was for Christ to reveal a hitherto "unknown" Gospel to the world. The basic plot of STIGMATA was interesting: the Vatican trying to withold from the world a Gospel that would contradict the Church's teachings. (There have always been rumors that the Church had done things like this over the centuries.) But it got lost in a lot of MTV shit.
However, there is a movie coming out called THE THIRD MIRACLE, starring Ed Harris, which is basically the plot of STIGMATA done right. I saw it a few weeks ago at an Academy screening, and highly recommend it to all DOGMA fans, and whoever wants to know what the inner political working of the Catholic Church is like.