With its seamless blend of compelling autobiographical material and
laser-sharp political analysis of Christian fundamentalism past and
present, “Constantine’s Sword” impressed film critics almost universally
when it was released last year. This was one of those rare occasions
when the movie was even better than the praise lavished on it. Now
available on Netflix and other venues through the auspices of First Run
Features, a distribution company specializing in bold independent
fiction and documentary film, this movie is an absolute must for anybody
concerned about the growing influence of rightwing Christian sects on
the body politic today, including the world’s most powerful and sinister
sect: the Catholic Church.
Based on narrator and co-script writer James Carroll’s 750 page book of
the same name, the documentary flows from the personal and political
transformation of a most unlikely critic of organized religion. Born in
1939, Carroll had two passions as a youth: the Air Force and the
Catholic Church. As a teenager, he had the same passion for Jesus Christ
that others his age had for Mickey Mantle.
His father was Joseph P. Carroll, a working-class Irish Catholic
Chicagoan who went to night school after his shift in the stockyards
ended. After getting a college degree, he went to work for the FBI as an
Elliot Ness type gang-buster. His crime-fighting renown attracted the
attention of the U.S. Air Force which recruited him as a Lieutenant
General to head up their newly formed top-secret intelligence-gathering
unit after WWII. General Carroll was the Pentagon official responsible
for alerting President Kennedy to Cuban missile bases in 1962, thus
unleashing a chain of events that came close to ushering in nuclear
Armageddon.
James Carroll’s mother probably would have been ready for Armageddon
given her fanatical devotion to the Catholic Church. In 1959 he
accompanied his mother on a trip to Trier in Germany in order to witness
a rare unveiling of the robe that Christ allegedly worn during the
crucifixion. This garment was the theme of the cheesy 1953 movie titled
“The Robe”, excerpts of which are seen in the documentary. I distinctly
remember Victor Mature as a muscle-bound convert to the Cross.
As Carroll explains, the Cross was not the original symbol of the
Christian church. In its earliest years, it was the fish or the loaf of
bread that symbolized eternal life, an altogether positive image in
comparison to the blood-soaked icon that inspired Mel Gibson and the
Roman Emperor Constantine as well.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/constantines-sword/
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