Re: insprational film - 'Molokai'

"Kendall K. Down" <webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e402e2aa4d.diggings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In message <q09ii1let216qenhqmbmtbu0bn235tic39@xxxxxxx>
> Richard Emblem <remblem@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > In answer to your inquiries about Father Damien, I can only reply that
> > we who knew the man

(davey, dissapointed that it now appears Richard didn't know Father D but
then realising that he would be incredibly old if he had met him...... ;-(
.........
><snipped

>> are surprised at the extravagant newspaper
> > laudations, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. The simple
> > truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted.
>
> I think you would need to be to do what he did.

The film didn't portray him as being dirty by nature but circumstances on
the island were far from sanitory - at least for a few years until his work
had some effect. Neither was he portrayed as being bigoted. Something more
accurate of his detractors maybe?

>> He was not a
> > pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of which he died
> > should be attributed to his vices and carelessness.

This was tackled twice in the movie; once when he resisted temptation on the
island and again when he was subjected to degrading treatment back in
'civilisation'
Also it was apparently an accepted theory at that time that leprosy
indicates the final stages of syphilis

> That is the first time I have heard this charge. If true, it was
regrettable
> but the greater sin lies with the Roman Curia who fulfil the words of St
> Paul by "forbidding to marry".
>
> > In the process of examining Damien's fitness for beatification and
> > canonization, the Roman Curia pored over a great deal of documentation
> > of published and unpublished criticisms against the missionary's life
> > and work. Diaries and interviews were scoured and debated. In the end
> > it was found that what Stevenson called "heroism" was indeed genuine.

> Was any rebuttal made of the charge of sexual impropriety?

Yes. By himself.

One of the themes of the movie was that he challenged vested interests;
political, commercial and 'religious'; solely by wanting to help the lepers,
unselfishly. Many appear to have worked to undermine him, stealing the funds
meant for the colony and spreading rumours about him. Generally disgraceful
behaviour by the 'great and the good'
Then again, I only have the film to go by!

peace
davey
.