Miracle of Marcellino
Director: Luigi Comencini * Cast: Nicolo Paolucci, Alberto Cracco, Alfredo Landa, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Didier Bénureau, Ernesto Lama, Fernando Fenán Gómez, Francesco Scali. (1991. 92 minutes)
This remake of an earlier highly popular Spanish movie is drawn from a medieval legend of an orphan brought up in a mediaeval monastery. Claimed to be based on real-life events, the story is partly narrated by Marcellino, a foundling whom a band of Franciscan friars rescue from a forest. Their attempts to find the real or adoptive parents fail, forcing them to raise him among the monks. Despite the trouble, they take delight in the little one and even compete for his love. The child grows up innocent, self-effacing and yet mischievous. But he longs for his mother and is told by his mentor that Virgin Mary is his mother. When he is six years old, a powerful count wants to adopt the beautiful Marcellino, claiming that the child is probably his child by his late wife. He takes the little boy to his castle. Marcellino, however, is repelled by the arrogance and coldness in the count’s household. He is put off by the cruelty involved in hunting. Dodging his pursuers with their hunting dogs, Marcellino manages to return home to the monastery. The monks hide him in the attic of the belfry where he suddenly comes across a life size crucifix. In his innocence he feels pity for the man on the cross and talks to him. The Lord converses with him. Marcellino steals bread from the kitchen to feed Christ on the cross and he takes the bread. Again the count’s men come to break into the monastery to take him by force. Marcellino gets back into the attic where he talks to Jesus again. Jesus offers to grant him what he asks for. Marcellino wants his mother. His wish is granted in a miraculous way at the climax of the film.
Padre Pro: Father Miguel Agustin Pro Martyr of the Lord
Director Miguel Rico Tavera * Cast: Pedro A. Reyes S J, Eric del Castillo, Juan Antonio Edwards, María Aura, Anabel Ferreira. (2007. 104 minutes)
This is a biopic of the Blessed Miguel Pro, the Jesuit priest martyred by the Mexican revolutionary regime of Plutarco Elías Calles in the 1920s. It vividly recalls the heroic life of a devout priest who stood up to brutal persecution under the Calles Law, unleashing an era of unprecedented violence in the dominantly Catholic country. Under the Calles government that took power in 1924, religious persecution assumed systematic ferocity. Under the inspiration of Marxist ideology and the recent success of the recent Russian revolution, it considered the Church as an ally of the former governments and a hindrance to the revolutionary ideals. Churches were forcibly closed, religious rituals and sacraments and catechism banned, priests and religious and anyone who opposed were murdered or expelled. Such extreme measures precipitated the Cristero War undertaken by the Catholics.
Miguel Agustin Pro was born in a devout Catholic family in 1891 in Guadalupe de Zacates as the son of a mining engineer. He was a jovial, witty entertaining and mischievous prankster in his youth, deeply attached to his family and his faith, with a special love for working class people. At twenty, he joined the Jesuits. He went first to the U S, and later to Spain and Belgium, where he was ordained priest in 1925. He returned to Mexico in 1926. Undaunted by the raging persecution against the clergy and the Church, Pro moved around in various disguises—as a street sweeper, prosperous businessman and many other characters, catering to the spiritual and material needs of the faithful, visiting the sick in hospitals and even prisons to administer the last sacraments to the condemned who awaited execution. He and his brother Roberto (who was later released) were caught. Under the direct orders of the president, he was sentenced to execution on a trumped up charge of attempted assassination of the President. In their attempt to show Pro’s punishment as an example to the people a public execution by firing squad was arranged on November 23, 1927, in front of cameras and the general public. This attempt backfired. During his last moments, holding out a rosary and a cross in his outstretched hands, Father Pro prayed and forgave his killers and died with the shout of “Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long Live Christ the King!). During his funeral vast crowds filled the streets to attend the funeral. The event turned world opinion against the regime and the resistance to it increased.
Prof Gigy Joseph
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