Church Decries Film's about St Teresa of Avila

The Church is facing another onslaught from filmmakers.

After the furore of the controversial account of Jesus in The Da Vinci Code, it is now having to contend with an allegedly blasphemous account of the life of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Saint Teresa was a mystic who said that Christ frequently conversed with her, and four centuries after her death her writings are revered as spiritual masterpieces. But filmmakers do not do spirituality as easily as sexuality and, in exploring the saint's sex life and virginity, they now find themselves being accused of treading sacrilegiously.

The film was denounced on Thursday by Benedicta Ward, a nun and reader in the history of Christian spirituality in the theology faculty at Oxford University, who wrote the introduction to a recent edition of the saint's most celebrated work, Life. On being told about the film's content, she said: "It's just imagination.

"The stress on her virginity and her sexuality are entirely modern interests as if she were living now," she said. "That's not fair.
"She is the greatest of the mystics. She has visions and writes about them and analyses them in an extraordinary way.
"It seems strange if they're treating her as a saint you pray to, but are inventing things about her."

When we read of these things, we should not be surprised. We should recall the words of our Lord as recorded in the Gospel of St. John:

15:19. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

15:20. Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.

15:21. But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake: because they know not him that sent me.

15:22. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin.

15:23. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

We can still show our disdain for films such as these by boycotting and/or protesting them.