The Mission and Man for All Seasons
Stalin famously asked how many battalions had the Pope. Today, with the Catholic faithful numbering over a billion, the answer might be, “Not battalions but billions.” In every age the secular power has known the sacred power to be its real enemy. When church and state conspire together the state ultimately wins, for the church’s real power can never be of this world, and any true believer who is involved in the clash between secular and sacred power will have to face stark choices.
The tensions and personal cost when this clash reaches a climax are perfectly pictured in two classic films written by English dramatist Robert Bolt. Bolt returned time and again to the themes of the individual conscience in conflict with a ruthless and utilitarian establishment. Bolt himself was imprisoned for protesting nuclear weapons, and his heart for the idealistic individual pitted against those who accept “the way of the world” influenced his work on major films like Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan’s Daughter and Gandhi. Bolt’s two most famous works, however, focus on the clash between sacred and secular power within a Catholic context.
A Man for All Seasons, was first written as a radio play, Bolt expanded it into a successful stage play and adapted it to become a fine film directed by Fred…