Movie about errant priest creates buzz in Mexico

Los Angeles Times

MEXICO CITY - The Roman Catholic hierarchy in this fervidly Catholic country prefers silent ways of confronting scandal. Last month, after learning about "The Crime of Father Amaro," several bishops arranged to watch a private screening of the unreleased film at Interior Ministry headquarters.

One bishop was so offended he walked out before the end. Carlos Carrera's movie portrays a small-town Mexican priest who struggles with his celibacy vows and has sex with a 16-year-old girl. Senior clerics quietly urged the government of Vicente Fox, Mexico's first openly Catholic president in more than a century, to ban the film.

Instead, the movie is opening Friday in 358 theaters across the country, the widest release ever for a Mexican film. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, one of Mexico's hottest young actors, as the errant Father Amaro, it has created a buzz of clerical outrage and liberal counterattack on the airwaves and in news columns here.

No event since Fox's election two summers ago illustrates more clearly the paradox of the church's new place in Mexico: After chafing for seven decades under a rigidly secular one-party state, the bishops enjoy a higher public profile and easier access to the corridors of power. Yet, on many things that matter to them, their voices are heeded no more, and sometimes less, than before.

"El Crimen del Padre Amaro," as the film is titled in Spanish, is premiering at an awkward time for Mexico's Catholic clergy, which has not escaped the real-life pedophilia scandals shaking the church in the United States and elsewhere.

The Mexican Bishops Conference, which has condemned the film as "an insult to the religious beliefs of Catholics," won nothing more than a brief delay so that "Father Amaro" wouldn't draw attention from Pope John Paul II, who visited Mexico from July 30 to Aug. 1.