Can You Pass This Quiz?

09-26-2021Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

Pope Francis is fond of reminding Catholics that we were not baptized with vinegar. So, let’s have a little fun this weekend. Surprisingly over the last 70years or so there have been quite a few excellent films that highlight US Catholic culture and the priesthood in a positive way. These films certainly helped break down some of the anti-Catholicism that marred much of our history here in the US and made the Faith more attractive.

So, take the Quiz, and if you get all the answers correct, you win a free drink and donut at Bernadette’s Brew Coffee Shop in Madonna Hall!! (Hint: the younger among us will have to lean on the older for some of the answers and the older will probably need some help from the younger.)

1. What film featured this song by the singing Fr. O’Malley: “How would you like to swing on a star…carry moonbeams home in a jar…or would you rather be a fish?

2. In this based on a true story film Karl Malden starred as the parish priest who was trying to break the power a corrupt Union had over many of his parishioners. What was the title of this movie?

3. The 1947 film “The Fugitive” featuring Henry Fonda as the priest was based on an adaptation of which Graham Greene novel?

4. Spencer Tracy won the Oscar for Best Actor in the role of Fr. Flanagan in this 1938 classic?

5. Pat O’Brien was the hero priest Fr. Connolly in this film that also starred Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney?

6. This recent film featured Meryl Streep as the strong-willed Mother Superior who accuses the parish priest of pederasty?

7. Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby starred in this 1945 Award winning film?

8. Clint Eastwood plays an elderly widower who is challenged by a newly ordained priest to make a confession?

9. A young Boston priest confronts bigotry and his own inner conflicts as he rises through the ranks of the hierarchy in this 1963 film directed by Otto Preminger?

10. In this Alfred Hitchcock thriller because of the seal of confession a priest becomes the prime suspect in a murder?

11. In “The Exorcist” the exorcist was a priest that belonged to what Georgetown religious order?

12. The secular vs. the religious worldview is put on trial in this courtroom drama where a possessed girl dies while in the care of the priest-exorcist?

Love, Fr. John B.

P.S. Extra Credit: Though I became a priest and not a Film director “I coulda been a contender”! (Who uttered that line?)

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