Kappler: What is important is the Reich. Not Rome. What is Rome? All its greatness is over. All that’s left is a picture postcard, a playground for whores and priests. There will be a new order in Europe. We are evacuating Rome now, but that means nothing. We will be back. The Third Reich… is the future.
O’Flaherty: How many murderous dictators have talked that kind of rubbish? Just look around you, Kappler. You’re standing where your ancient friends entertained themselves, watching lions tear the Christians to pieces, but the Church is still here. A lot of broken stones like these, in a few years, that’s all that’ll be left of your Third Reich.
Screenplay, The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Go here to watch the film The Scarlet and the Black (1983).
The evil that men do make many a blood stained page of History, but the Church survives throughout History as Caesars, Emperors, Kings, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Commissars, Fuhrers, Caudillos, Duces, General Secretaries, would be fake messiahs, etc, pass away.
The Scarlet and the Black (1983) is one of the better films dealing with the Catholic Church. Gregory Peck is brilliant as Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, who during World War 2, hid 4000 escaped Allied POWs and Jews from the Nazi occupiers of Rome. Christopher Plummer gives the performance of his career as Obersturmbanfuhrer (Colonel) Herbert Kappler, the head of the Gestapo in Rome. John Gielgud gives a stunningly good performance as Pius XII. At one point when he confronts a Nazi delegation he merely stares at them with steely disdain until they get the hint and leave. I imagine the actual Pius XII used a similar look of disdain when, on March 11, 1940, his response to a complaint by the Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop that the Church was siding with the Allies, was to read to Von Ribbentrop a long list of atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland, which had been compiled by the Church. This is a superb film that should be seen by every Catholic.
The one real negative of the movie is how badly it misrepresented Pius XII. It portrayed him as an aloof cleric who cared more about the material wealth of the Church than the plight of Allied soldiers and Jews, though the truth was the exact opposite. Pius XII historian Ronald Rychlack pointed that O’Flaherty’s activity was carried out with the pope’s full knowledge, support, and oversight.
The Church will also survive a heretical pope.
Growing up watching the Sound of Music, I was confused watching Christopher Plummer as a Nazi.
Currently reading “My Father’s House” by Irish author Joseph O’Connor. It is a recently published, well-written, fictionalized account of Monsignor O’Flaherty’s work.
Peck played the role so well that I forgive him for the puff portrayal he gave as MacArthur in that other war film.
I actually liked the MacArthur movie. I thought he captured Big Mac well, warts and all. Loved the fact that they got in Ike’s statement that he studied dramatics under MacArthur for four years in the Philippines and Mac’s quip after Ike got the nomination in 52: “He was the best clerk I ever had.”
“All that’s left is a picture postcard, a playground for whores and priests.” That’s been Rome for 2500 years.
If I am not mistaken, Kappler was eventually baptized and received into the Church by Msgr. O’Fllaherty, who often visited him in prison.
Yep, in 1959.
The head rabbi in Rome converted also. I thought Italian actor Raf Vallone as a priest jailed and executed by the Nazis was good in his role. My then 7th grade son enjoyed the film so much that he received permission to bring the video home so that we could watch the film as a family.
I used the Scarlet and the Black for my confirmation classes.