Article by Julia Grimer
Illustration by Ivan Grimer

OCTOBER ELEVENTH is the Feast of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. An antiphon in the Second Vespers of this great feast reads "Beata es, Virgo Maria, quae omnium portasti Creatorum—Blessed art thou, O Virgin Mary, who didst bear the Creator of all things." The life, the example, and the mystery of the Blessed Virgin provides a source of inspiration and meditation for every faithful Catholic. How could it be that the Creator of the Universe who existed before time began could take on a human existence in time within the womb of a humble virgin in Nazareth? How could it be that this virgin brought forth the God who made her, and yet remained forever a virgin? These same Vespers remind us that this indeed took place—"Genuisti qui te fecit, et in aeternum permanes Virgo." The antiphon at the Magnificat states truly that this Feast of the Motherhood of Mary has announced joy to the whole world—"gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo":

We truly consider Our Lady to be our Co-Redemptrix, and say, with the Church:

Before the Protestant Reformation our country of England bore the proud title of "Dowry of Mary." Nowhere in Christendom was she more revered, nowhere in Christendom could the devotion shown to her by our English forebears be excelled. Our national shrine at Walsingham was as renewed throughout Europe then as Lourdes and Fatima are today. Then came the Reformation, characterized above all by a twofold mark of satanic inspiration—hatred of the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and hatred of His Virgin Mother. Throughout the length and breadth of England, shrines of Our Lady were violated and effaced, statues and carvings of her in churches and cathedrals were smashed and defaced in an outbreak of diabolic frenzy. Let anyone who has the least doubt about the true nature of the so-called Reformation visit the Lady Chapel in Ely Cathedral.

It would appear only natural that English Catholics would always consider the Feast of Our Lady's Maternity as a cause of great joy. But on October 11th this year it was a cause of deep and unprecedented shame for all of us. This was the day that was chosen for the first public showing in London of the film Hail Mary, by the French director Jean-Luc Godard. Even the most fanatical of the Protestants who smashed the statues of the Blessed Virgin in Ely Cathedral would not have dreamt of perpetrating the blasphemous attack made upon her by this French Protestant. The film Hail Mary is not simply an attack upon the Virgin Mother of God, it is an attack upon every mother and every decent girl who has ever lived.

I shall say very little about the film since it would be unseemly to do so. The actress portraying the Mother of God is not simply depicted totally nude time and time again, but is filmed in poses of an overtly pornographic nature. She uses language containing a level of blasphemy and obscenity so disgusting that to describe it as coming from the gutter would be a gross understatement. It came straight from hell! St. Joseph is depicted not as the most chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin but as a foul-mouthed moron. The Angel Gabriel who attacks Joseph physically is some sort of unshaven pedophile who travels around in the company of a very young adolescent girl. Some of our leading secular papers accepted that the film was offensive to Catholics and was pornographic. I can only conclude that it depicted the sexual fantasies of a very peculiar middle-aged man who is in urgent need of psychiatric help. I should add here that even the ultra-permissive authorities in swinging London considered material in the film unsuitable for anyone under the age of eighteen, and gave it the most restricted rating possible.

It might reasonably be asked why I have remarked that this film should be a cause of shame for every English Catholic. After all, it was made by a French Protestant. English Catholics must feel shame not because of the film itself, but because of the reaction of our Catholic hierarchy. There is a beautiful hymn to Our Lady which is rarely sung in English Catholic churches today. It is entitled, "I'll Sing a Hymn to Mary," and contains these words:

"To live and not to love thee
Would fill my soul with shame;
When wicked men blaspheme thee,
I'll love and bless thy name."

To the eternal shame of English Catholics not one English bishop felt sufficient love for the Virgin of all virgins to make a public protest concerning this film. When wicked men blasphemed her the English bishops maintained a cowardly silence as individuals, and actually praised the film through their official spokesmen. A special showing of the film was arranged prior to its public premiere to which representatives of the hierarchy were invited. It was jointly arranged by the film's promoters and our official Jesuit periodical, The Month. The editor of this publication gave the film fulsome praise, and went as far as to claim that it inspired him to pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary! Can it be that the Jesuits will soon be recommending Playboy as an aid to devotion? The hierarchy was represented not by a bishop but by an ex-priest named Nicholas Coote who is the assistant general secretary of the Bishops' Conference. He told the press that he would inform Cardinal Hume that there was nothing to worry about. "What's all the fuss about?" asked Father John McDade, a Jesuit theology professor. Another Jesuit, Father Patrick Purnell, who is adviser to the hierarchy on religious education, described the film as "deeply respectful." Those who wrote to Cardinal Hume begging him to intervene were told that he was actually glad that an important truth about the Faith was being taught in this way, but that if there were things in the film which were unacceptable, he regretted it—if there were things in the film which were unacceptable! The Mother of God, the Virgin of all virgins, the woman undefiled by any sin who has England as her dowry, is depicted totally naked in pornographic poses, using the foulest language it is possible to imagine, and Cardinal Hume is not even sure that the film contains unacceptable material, and is, in fact, glad to see our Faith depicted in this way!

Young Catholics like myself should normally look to our elders, particularly to our bishops, for inspiration, sound teaching and firm leadership. All that we receive today is cowardice and compromise. These men do not fear the judgments of God but criticism in the secular press! How can they expect young Catholics who love their Faith to take them seriously? They are pitiful creatures who need our prayers. Is it surprising that our organization of young traditionalists looks to Archbishop Lefebvre for truly Catholic leadership? During the Protestant Reformation there was only one English bishop who had the courage to uphold the Faith, St. John Fisher. He said of his apostate colleagues: "The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it." In October 1985 it was apparent that the situation here was even worse than during the Reformation. Not even one bishop was prepared to break ranks and act like a Catholic. It might appear uncharitable to apply St. John Fisher's dictum to the present hierarchy, but it would be unrealistic not to.

As President of the Young Roman Catholics I was asked to organize our members to join with a group of the faithful who had decided that for the honor of English Catholicism and Our Lady some public protest must be made at the first public showing of Godard's blasphemous film. Those organizing the protest were conservative rather than traditional Catholics, but we were only too pleased to join them. There was much frantic phoning around as there were only a few days before the protest. On the evening of October 11, I made my way with a group of other members of the Young Roman Catholics to Rupert Street in the heart of London's West End. The blasphemous film was to be shown in the New Metro Cinema, a cinema sponsored by the Marxist-dominated Greater London Council. The film was due to be screened at 8:00 p.m. and by 7:15 at least 250 Catholics had assembled outside. Two priests had come to lead our devotions, one a diocesan parish priest and one a Jesuit. I had better not name them to protect them from possible retribution from their superiors. We had brought along a banner of Our Lady. Other banners were also on display, and also placards quoting the words of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, who had described the film as distorting and reviling the spiritual significance of the Mother of Jesus. The Vicar of Christ offered a public Rosary of Reparation in Rome for the blasphemous attack on Our Lady. He did not fear the abuse and the ridicule of the liberal and so-called intellectual establishment, and his vigorous intervention resulted in the film being withdrawn from the cinemas in Rome. When the English bishops wish to discredit traditionalists they make profuse protestations of loyalty to the Pope, but this loyalty is rarely evident in any adherence to his moral teaching. Pope John Paul II has dedicated his pontificate to the Blessed Mother. As we gathered outside the New Metro Cinema on that rather damp and chilly evening we were sure that the Pope was with us there in spirit.

A handful of very friendly policemen moved us across the road opposite the cinema to avoid congestion. Those lining up for the film looked at us in a variety of ways. Some appeared embarrassed, others professed to be amused, and a few were abusive. Our vigil lasted for two hours during which we prayed several entire rosaries of reparation, and sang Marian and other hymns. It was a prayerful and spiritual occasion. Many of us who had arrived with feelings of anger at the showing of this blasphemous film, and the cowardice of our bishops, felt recollected and at peace as the evening proceeded. As we prayed the Fatima prayer between each decade we could not help feeling that those filing into the cinema must be numbered, together with the English bishops, among those most in need of God's mercy. It did indeed seem that the entrance to that cinema resembled the mouth of hell and the warning of Our Lady of Fatima that countless souls will enter hell as a result of impurity took on a painful reality.

It is evident that these warnings are not even of interest to our bishops, so preoccupied are they with such pressing topics as nuclear weapons, Nicaragua, unemployment and South Africa. They abandoned the Mother of God whose dowry is our country, to insults of her enemies. In the August 1985 issue of The Angelus there was an article entitled "Bishops, Where are You?" It chronicled the failure of the French episcopate to condemn Hail Mary. Had it not been for the Society of St. Pius X there would have been virtually no public opposition whatsoever to this blasphemy in France. I was in Paris visiting our sister organization the MJCF (Movement of Young French Catholics), when the Godard film was first shown there.

On Friday, 11 October 1985, we echoed the French lament in London. "Bishops of England, where are you?" we were forced to ask. But at least we were there, representing the true faithful of England of our own and earlier generations. We felt united with our ancestors of that glorious period of English medieval Catholicism when the name England was synonymous with Marian devotion. Small as our numbers were on that night, we had no doubt that in heaven countless generations of English Catholics were uniting their prayers with ours.

The last Rosary had been prayed, the last Salve Regina sung, and its solemn notes still echoed in the squalid surroundings of Rupert Street as we knelt to receive the blessing of the truly saintly Jesuit who had led us in prayer throughout the evening. "Some of you must come back each night to pray the Rosary," he suggested. And some of us did. We were able to mount another large-scale protest, led this time by Father John Rizzo who was ordained in Ridgefield very recently, and who is chaplain to the Young Roman Catholics. We count it a great blessing that he was assigned by his superiors in the Society of St. Pius X to work in England.

After only about six weeks the film was withdrawn. It had not proved to be the attraction its sponsors had hoped for. Can it be that within the dowry of Mary there still exists an instinct which make an obscene portrayal of the Mother of God repugnant even to the ordinary non-Catholic citizen?

We shall probably never again spend the Feast of the Motherhood of Our Lady as we did on October 11, 1985. It was an evening that we shall never forget. It was a privilege to be among that little band outside the New Metro Cinema, and, in a paradox which our own G.K. Chesterton would have seized upon immediately, at least some good came out of what was manifestly evil. Wicked men had blasphemed the Queen of all the Angels, but we had loved her and we had blessed her name. When we ask for her intercession on the dreadful day of our judgment this is surely something that she will not forget.

O noble tower of David,
Of gold and ivory,
The ark of God's own promise,
The gate of heav'n to me.
To live and not to love thee
Would fill my soul with shame;
When wicked men blaspheme thee,
I'll love and bless thy name.