Conspiracy of Silence

Directed and Written by John Deery

Starring:  Jonathan Forbes, Hugh Bonneville, Sean McGinley, Hugh Quarshie, Jason Barry, John Lynch and Jim Norton

90 Minutes Runtime

MPAA Rating:  Unrated, probably R for adult themes and occasional profanity

USA Release November, 2004

Rating (Out of 5 stars):  ****

Superb acting and powerful writing make this film more than just a critique of the Catholic Church, but a baring of men’s souls.  Jonathan Forbes, John Lynch and Jim Norton find themselves pitted against one another in a fight of truth against the establishment in this fine essay on morality by John Deery.  Not just another church trashing, “Conspiracy” extends the arguments of fundamental truths and virtues into a world of rapidly changing values and behaviors. 

Grappling with homosexuality, celibacy, suicide, conspiracy and HIV within the complex rubric of the Catholic Church is a lot to ask of any one film.  There simply isn’t the time and words to deal with the interlaced complexities of the issues.  “Conspiracy” takes on all of them and, although ending up on the bottom of the heap at times, comes through with a good old Hollywood ending that shakes the movie house, if not the church, to its fundaments.

Jonathan Forbes plays Daniel McLaughlin, a gifted seminary student in the modern day small town of Galcranagh, Ireland.  Committed to the priesthood, but yet to learn the dark side of the church establishment, Daniel plays the part of a world asking the church for answers.  Perhaps asking it to be more than it can be.  This is the first major film role for Forbes, his previous credits being in television, but he carries off his duties in fine form.  John Lynch plays Father Matthew Francis.  Openly gay, Francis is devoted to the church but has left the priesthood in protest over the church’s failure to address change.  We saw Lynch before in “Sliding Doors” with Gwyneth Paltrow and “The Secret of Roan Innish” and although he has only a few scenes in “Conspiracy,” his performance is superb.

Sean McGinley plays Rector Cathal, a Catholic priest trying to do the impossible in enforcing the increasingly arcane policies of the church amongst his young seminary students.  John Deery opens the film with a genius of a metaphor in using Rector Cathal’s students’ hurling match as a backdrop for the graphic suicide of Father Sweeney, who we learn is Father Francis’ partner and lover.

Deery portrays the complexity of the church by giving us not just one or two priests, but an entire spectrum.  At the conservative end is Bishop Quinn, the prince of darkness played to the hilt by Jim Norton.  Quinn is portrayed as a borderline psychopath who has been reduced to a gangland boss engaging in blackmail, extortion and threats of violence to achieve his ends.  He is the embodiment of absolute power that has been corrupted absolutely.  Narrowing his goals to the dogma of the church and limiting his associates to those who bend to his will; his incestuous world has made him all-powerful in his own mind.  He has committed that greatest of all sins (and that most bountiful of Hollywood plots); he has become God.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Father Francis, who has left the church rather than succumb to the evils therein, or so we are told.  Maybe he just wanted more sex.  We don’t know for sure.  But we do know that his long-time partner Father Sweeney has just committed suicide and Sweeney was found to be HIV positive.  The plot thickens.

The acting, screenwriting and cinematography carry the day for this movie, but the over-abundance of messages occasionally threatens to sink the ship.  The film has a hard time juggling the themes of homosexuality, celibacy, suicide, conspiracy and HIV and sometimes they pass in and out of the story line like so many uncommitted seminary students.  The tagline for the press package reads, “Secrets, Lies and Murder...” although this reviewer doesn’t recall a murder in the entire movie.  Thank goodness, that’s just one less theme to deal with....

In the end, the movie distills all of the themes down to the central theme of celibacy within the priesthood and that weighty subject proves more than sufficient to drive the storyline.  This movie will be criticized for portraying the issue of celibacy in exaggerated black and white terms, rather than grappling with the complexities of the issue.  Nonetheless, it does the right thing, because it doesn’t have the time, nor will the audience have the patience, to sit through the encyclopedic pedantry that would be required for a thorough treatment of the subject.

The fact that the reconciliation of the plot’s mystery lies in failures human melds nicely with the fact that the power of the church also lies in the humanity of its parishioners and not in the dogma of its rules.

According to the movie, the Catholic Church did not require celibacy of ordained priests until ca. 12^th century.  The reason for the requirement that is advanced by the film is that the church realized many rich and powerful priests were leaving their estates to their heirs and not to the church.  By demanding celibacy there would be no heirs and no alternative but for the priests’ fortunes (which were certainly gained at least in part through their association with the church) to go to the church.  Whether or not this makes sense or not largely depends on whether one assumes the church is all about money or not.

Putting that issue aside, the policy sets a trap that begs human failure.  To the extent the priests have secret sex, those partners and offspring are doomed to guaranteed pariah status by the church.  The questions the movie asks are these: “Is it moral for the church to assume that human beings are capable of subverting the fundamental instinct of procreation?  And, if illicit sexual drives result in illegitimate children or HIV, can the church justify a stance that these physical realities do not exist?  As spiritual as we may be, we are not spirits, or angels or saints.  We live in a physical world and it is a responsibility of the church to acknowledge the physicality of the vessel of the spirit.  Not a new message, but one that “Conspiracy of Silence” brings to the screen with feeling.