Catholicism and Poetry #6: Samuel Menashe: A Jewish Poet a Catholic Should Love

Can a Jewish Poet write poetry a Catholic should love?  Did not St. Paul say we were spiritual Jews?  Our Bible begins with the Hebrew story and continues onto our unique beliefs and our Catholic poetry is rooted in the bible.

A Jewish poet who has labored in relative obscurity for years, Samuel Menashe, won Poetry Foundations Neglected Masters Award in 2006 and since he has become the darling of a New York literary scene that once snub him.  He writes terse, even taut poems with Zen like clarity and pointedness, but they are often on biblical or other Jewish themes.  He rhymes his short little poems, something now unconventional, and yet in many other ways his poems are completely modern.  Modern in language and influenced by existentialism, yet they touch the ancient additudes of the Hebrew people.

My favorite poem is  Adam Means Earth.    Are we not all born of the earth?  Menache plays on the fact that in the ancient semetic tounges Adama was earth, while Adam meant man.

The poem can be found at:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181927

In this poem he draws out the essential humility of the human condition, when we chose to embrace it.  When he  speaks of "the man  whose name is mud" is am reminded of the scene in Francesco where Mickey Rourke, playing St. Francis, rubs his face in the mud and says "I am so low, I am lower than the dirt."
Menache says "dust Adam became" aluding to our death, and yet also speaking ou our life, what we are made of.  He asks "Was he his name" which perhaps we should all ask of ourselves.  Have I lived up to my humble origins?


In august of 2006 NPR carried a wonderful audio story on Menasche, below.



Here is a wonderful u-tube of Menashe talking and reading



Here is a brief biography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Menashe

And great little interview recored on a blog.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/culture/a-visit-with-samuel-menashe/

And some more poems of Menashe.

http://www.archipelago.org/vol8-4/menashe.htm

Catholicism and Poetry #5 Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899) was a English poet and Jesuit priest. He converted from the Anglican church to Catholicism while studying at Oxford under the influence of John Henry Newman, one of man important people with whom he maintained correspondence. He developed at Oxford a friendship with the poet Robert Bridges, later poet laureate of England.

When he entered the Jesuits he burned all his poetry, but when his religious sentiment called forth a new kind of poetry he wrote while telling almost no one about the poems. While never abandoning Aquinas Hopkins began studying Duns Scotus who places emphasis on the uniqueness of each thing and person and in having exacting perception. This fit Hopkins temperament and guided the way he looked at things in his poetry. His poetry is a fusion of Aquinas, Scotus and the world that he sees before him to the service of the God he loves. Because he studied Scotus, however, when he took his final theological exam in the Jesuits, he failed, not relying solely on Aquinas for his answers, and he could not advance in the order. He studied Welsh, but gave it up when his superior suggested that unless he was going to use it in his mission in Whales to draw closer to people, it might not be a worthy pursuit. Yet the Welsh language enriched his poetry in the same way that it enriched Dylan Thomas's. He also had studied Old English and the poetry in that language, which , similarly to the Welsh, relied on internal rhyme devices, like alliteration and assonance. Hopkins did not publish his poetry, sharing them with Robert Bridges and a few others, mainly other poets whom he knew. Bridges revered him through he sometimes criticized his poetry, and in 1918, years after Hopkins death, Brides, as poet laureate had them published.

This U-Tube embed is a five part documentary on Hopkins, so start with the first and click onwards.

Lets take a look at one of the poems read on this documentary:

As Kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame

As kingfisher catch fire,dragonflies draw flame

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring;like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves-goes itself, myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me:for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices:

Keeps grace: that keeps his goings graces

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is-

Christ-for Christ plays in ten thousands places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Hopkins here, as in most of his poetry, uses a sprung rhythm, that is the same number of beats as a regular line, but sprung from there position in the line to fall in differing places. This technique falls between classically metered poetry and the loose rhythm of free verse, such as in Whitman. However in this poem some of his lines have a more regular meter. Hopkins often mixed the two as if to place emphasis on why his meter varies in the other lines. He uses assonance and alliteration to spring the meter free and make it fall where he may it. (To spring free my grammar to make my point!)

In this poem Hopkins begins, as he often does showing the action and beauty of God in creation. But that is just a begging point. But then Hopkins does something different, swinging on the cord of a bell he carries us from the natural to the human world. Just as each natural thing serves it's purpose for God, so to does each human being, doing for me , that I came for. Each just man justices, and by that he is Christ for others, part of Christ playing in ten thousand places that the Father can see him lovely in limbs, see him through the features of men's faces.

Wikipedia on Hopkins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

Poems of Hopkins

http://www.bartleby.com/122/

Time line for Hopkins Poems

http://www.google.com/search?aq=1&oq=Gerard+Ma&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gerard+manley+hopkins+poems#q=gerard+manley+hopkins+poems&hl=en&prmd=ivbo&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=3OrETIXxJoX0swO6i92bDA&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=11&ved=0CF0Q5wIwCg&fp=973e9f93f0f871cc

Catholicism and Poetry #4 Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas is not in any was a Catholic poet, and yet because of time in Welsh churches as a youth, the reading of the Bible, and an unfulfilled attraction to the Catholic faith, many of his poems show a deep spirituality. Thomas was the son of a failed Welsh poet and school teacher who raised his on great literature, hoping not vainly that his son would succeed where he had failed. Thomas's poetry was marked strong cadences derived from internal rhyme: alliteration and assonance. Although his meter was more regular than Gerard Manley Hopkins, his poetic energy was similar. His topics vary widely, but many of them come from his youth and others are spiritual in nature. Some dealt with death. He was one of the most brilliant poets and playwrights of his day, popular with British and American audiences as a reader, and with the British radio listening public.

In spite of his intellect and spiritual leanings, Thomas was also a notorious drunk and a con artist who would talk people out of money, justifying it as necessary to support his writing.

Here is a U-Tube animation with Thomas's voice that tries to recreate what it would have been like to here him read the deeply spiritual "And Death Shall Have No Dominion".

And here is the text of Thomas poem:

And Death Shall Have No DominionAnd death shall have no dominion

Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion

Thomas drew on Romans 6:9 "We know that Christ raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him." and Revelations, chapter 17, which promises that Christians on rising shall receive new bodies. Another biblical source may be Daniel 12:2-3 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever."

However Thomas's reference from the stars may be partially scientific, in that we are born in the stars, or a reference in part to Orion the hunter who has stars in his knee and shoulder.

Thomas also makes reference to love in this poem. He seems to make a reference to the old tradition that sailors shall be tossed from there graves in the sea at the resurrection. An attempt to pin down exact meanings for this poem is futile, but I can say that the poem seems a definite statement of belief on Thomas part.

More on Thomas at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas

And Dylan Thomas Home:

http://www.dylanthomas.com/

And other poems by Thomas:

http://www.internal.org/Dylan_Thomas

Catholicism and Poetry #3 Soto

Gary Soto is a contemporary American Poet, raised in Fresno, Ca who writes about growing up as a Catholic migrant farmworker kid. Not all of his poems, of course, are on this topic, but no one in America today has explored this area so well or so deeply. Soto has authored many books, poetry, novels and children's books. A complete list can be found on Wikipedia. I highly recommend his "Home Course in Religion and I tried to find some U-Tube readings from that, but u-tube posting are not infinite. Only in heaven will we have infinite u-tube posting.

Here is a poem that touches a little on being a Catholic School Boy.

Here is another poem that touches more simply the question of being a young boy:

But neither of those poems give us much of the Catholic feeling of Gary Soto. So I found a link to a poem about confession:

http://www.akoot.com/garysoto8.html

In this poem Soto sees his Catholic Childhood with very old eyes and gets us to look at our own childhood with our own old eyes. He talks about the Monsignor he knew as a boy, a character in several of his poems. Another poem, from Home Course in Religion that talks about the Monsignor is Pink Hands

http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2009/02/24/by-gary-soto-2/uncategorized/

In this poem Soto gets at a lot of what the culture of Catholicism was when he grew up, and what it is now. And beneath the changing culture we see the spirituality of the religion.

Soto is a free verse narrative poet, but it would be wrong to accuse Soto of being chopped up prose. Read some of this poems out loud and listen. Soto knows that poetry is rhythmical and he knows how to tell a narrative story with rhythmical phrasing. I believe Soto is on the better living American poets, and I love his poetry, even though it's style is very different than my own.

Gary Soto's website has some great photos and biography:

http://www.garysoto.com/index.html

Wikipedia on Soto:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Soto

Here is a link to some more Soto poems:

http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/poet_Gary_Soto/SamplePoemsSoto.htm

Catholicism and Poetry #2 Southwell

St Robert Southwell, SJ, martyr priest and poet is perhaps best known, as a poet, for his Christmas poems. These poems were set to music years ago, and below we have Sting's rocking version.

Southwell, in his poetry, relies quite a bit on elements of antithesis and paradox, as well as fanciful elements. His literary goal in that is to create more religious emotion or passion, a passion Sting plays so well with in his rock version.

Queen Elizabeth had passed a law that made it a capital offense for a Catholic priest to be in England longer than 40 days. Yet Southwell requested to become a missionary to England in 1586, the next year. After six years of visiting English Catholics in their homes and providing the sacraments he was arrested for his visits to the home of Richard Bellamy who was connected to Jerome Bellamy. Jerome had been executed for treason and his daughter had been arrested. Southwell, at trail, admitted to the facts pertaining to his priesthood, but denied plotting against the throne. His stated innocence of treason. Yet he was convicted, then hanged, drawn and quartered. He was beatified in 1929 and canonized in 1970.

The Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, though scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames, which with his tears were fed.
"Alas," quoth he, "but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts, or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas Day.

Belong are references for further research on St. Southwell.

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southwell_(Jesuit)

More biography:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/southbio.htm

Poems:

http://shakespeareauthorship.com/xmas/soutwell.html

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/southbib.htm

G.K. Chesterton Society

I went to a meeting of Seattle's G.K Chesterton Society last night, and heard Dr. David Whalen of
Hillsdale College give a talk on Cardinal John Henry Newman. The talk was given, appropriately, in the Catholic Newman Center, by University of Washington, where the society is currently holding it's talks.

You may ask why I write about Cardinal Newman in a blog about the arts, but if you know much about Newman it is quite understandable. Newman was an advocate of Catholic education and liberal arts studies, holding that we must study each discipline separately, then integrate them to a whole. He argued for Catholic Universities on the grounds that theology was a necessary part of the liberal arts.

The evening began with a brief reading from Chesterton that fit the nights topic, then Dr Whalen's talk. Dr. Whalen was articulate, funny, and personable. He teaches on literature and the Great Books and is quite well versed in Newman's writings. Afterward there was a social hour during which I pressed further a question, part of which Dr. Whalen had artfully dodged and caught up with several old friends from Seattle's Catholic community. I recommend all my readers folllow this link to the society and check out there upcoming events.

http://www.seattlechesterton.org/

Catholicism and Poetry #1 Auden

I am writing here a set of commentaries on poetry in preparation for a class on Catholicism and Poetry I will be doing. In this class, at Blessed Sacrament, Seattle, I will be reviewing Catholic influence over poetry, by Catholics and non-Catholics, with a liberality of what is a Catholic influence. My first poem of concern is Lullaby by W.H. Auden Auden is reading this in a BBC special on his work, later posted on U-Tube.

And for closer examination here is the text:

Lullaby by W. H. Auden

Lay your sleeping head, my love,

Human on my faithless arm;

Time and fevers burn away

Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave

Proves the child ephemeral:

But in my arms till break of day

Let the living creature lie,

Mortal, guilty, but to me

The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:

To lovers as they lie upon

Her tolerant enchanted slope

In their ordinary swoon,

Grave the vision Venus sends

Of supernatural sympathy,

Universal love and hope;

While an abstract insight wakes

Among the glaciers and the rocks

The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity

On the stroke of midnight pass

Like vibrations of a bell,

And fashionable madmen raise

Their pedantic boring cry:

Every farthing of the cost,

All the dreaded cards foretell,

Shall be paid, but from this night

Not a whisper, not a thought,

Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:

Let the winds of dawn that blow

Softly round your dreaming head

Such a day of welcome show

Eye and knocking heart may bless,

Find the mortal world enough;

Noons of dryness find you fed

By the involuntary powers,

Nights of insult let you pass

Watched by every human love.

In the first verse Auden lays out both the sleeping innocence of the child, and the waiting sin, the original sin, summed up the the phrase, mortal, guilty, but to me the entirely beautiful." The child we see to Auden is "ephemeral>" Time will take it's innocence and life as "Time and Fevers burn away." In the middle verses Auden explores more deeply the contradictions of human life, "Gave the vision Venus sends" he says suggesting both death and love at once. He alludes to tarot cards in a manner similar to Elliot's reference--dreaded cards Auden says, predicting the worst for us no doubt. Another contradiction -the hermits carnal ecstasy, showing that we both alone and subject to union through ecstasy. Finally he says, "Beauty,midnight pass.."and gives us our progress towards death.

10 More Films Ever Catholic Should See after You Get Done With the First Batch

The first ten films (plus alternatives) that I posted yesterday were in response to a request from someone in the parish I go to to recommend ten must see films for Catholics. Occasional film showings there have usually been successful. But for those of you following my recommendations, why stop at the first ten. Here's the next ten in importance.

1. The Decalogue directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. This is actually a set of 10 films originally made for Polish television. Each of the films is under an hour. Kiewslowski is influenced by existentialism and the polish situation as much as he is by Christianity in these films. They were made shortly before the fall of communism, but he didn't seen to be censored significantly, although he had great difficulty getting permission for the filming. The films take place, each to varying extents, in and around a very large housing project so that they have there "coincidence" some overlapping characters. Film V, about a brutal murder of a taxi driver and the equally brutal application of the death penalty is the most accessible of the films, so I recommend you start there.

See http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/kieslowski.html and also http://www.lumiere.net.nz/reader/content/features/decalogue_the_1.html for more information.

2. Luther directed by Eric Till, starting Joseph Fiennes. Why should a Catholic see a film about the man who split the church in the west? For understanding, so that dialogue could ensue. This films shows Luther as passionate and intense and shows his falls and regrets an his accomplishments. While it has some falls in historical emphasis, it doesn't show the Catholic Church as all wrong or Luther as all right. If I were making a list of greatest films, I would not recommend this one, but given the subject, I recommend it.

3. The Passion of Joan of Arc, directed by Carl Dreyer. Silent, black and white. The complete edition was a lost film, destroyed in a fire like Joan. Finally a copy with the directors cut was found in broom closet in an insane asylum. Dryers account minimizes the unnecessary details and focuses on the trial and execution, based on the actual trial transcript. Renee Faconetti, in her only screen performance, portrayed Joan better than anyone before or since. The film jars us with close ups, odd angles, sweeping movements, intense facial expressions and deliberately odd editing. One of the greatest of the silent films.

4. The Mission , directed by Roland Joffe, starting Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. The Mission , winner of the 1986 Cannes Film Festival Best Picture Award, including best picture shows the brutal colonial subjugation of South American Indians, and the Jesuit opposition to their treatment. It deals with penance, service, violence and non-violence. It's visually a stunning movie.

5. The Quarrel , directed by Eli Cohen. Now I'm recommending Jewish movies for a Catholic film study. This is a wonderful film about a chance reunion of two Holocaust survivors in 1948. While it deals with a question in the Jewish community, I see parallels in the Christian community. One character has become a deeply religious rabbi, and the other a novelist and journalist who, once religious, has turned his back on God. In there disputation they examine good and evil, faith, redemption and friendship.

6. The Passion of Joshua the Jew, directed by Pasquale Scimeca. a brillant film dealing with relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians. The action starts in 1492 Spain and moves to Italy. It traces the journey of a young scholar an important rabbi thinks is the Messiah. Drawing from the Qur'an, the Torah, the Gospels and historical circumstance it portrays his parallel fate to Jesus of Nazareth.

See http://www.italianfilmfestival.co.nz/films/2006/film11.htm for more information.

7. Therese by Alain Cavalier. French with English subtitles. Winner of the 1986 Cannes Film Festival Jury Award. This is a wonderful and focused examination of St. Therese Martin, the Little Flower, who at 15 became a Carmelite nun by special intervention of the Pope. She was called the greatest saint of modern times by Pope Puis XI. Unlike the more recent American film of the same title, this film doesn't deal much with what proceeds Therese's vocation, and focuses on fewer incidents in her life. It therefor portrays her with a greater intensity, more focused on the essentials. It meditates on these essentials.

See http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=5046 for more information.

8. The Message, directed by Moustapha Akkad. Yes, this is the film about Mohammad starting Anthony Quinn. Every Catholic should be well informed not only on their own faith, but about Islam, Judaism and Protestantism. This is the best film ever made about the birth of Islam and whatever one thinks of Islam, one cannot avoid it. As always with Quinn, well acted,

9. The Ninth Day, directed by Volker Schlondorff. German in English subtitles. There are a lot of excellent films as alternatives to this dealing with the question of the Holocaust, like Schindler's List. A Catholic film study should review at least one of them, dealing with one of the greatest moral challenges of our times. But this particular film deals with the true story of a Catholic priest, furloughed from Dachau. Fr Henri Kremer was in the priest block in the infamous concentration camp, clinging to life and struggling with faith. He was released and asked to persuade his anti-Nazi Bishop to surrender to Nazi occupation. He is told that to fail means his death and his families death, and is given nine days.

10. Entertaining Angels, the Dorothy Day Story, directed by Michael Ray Rhodes. Again here is a picture I wouldn't put in my 100 greatest films of all time, but it survives a useful purpose. Ever Catholic film study should examine what the church does about social justice and this film does that very well. It portrays the life of Dorothy Day, a co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. In her unbending concern for the poor, she has often been called the "American Mother Teressa."

There are more great films a Catholic should see, and my two lists are insufficient. The Vatican, several years ago, created a recommended film list which overlaps some with mine. Here is the link: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=5046

10 Films (or More) Any Catholic Should See

I was asked recently to recommend 10 films for a Catholic film group, picking 10 must see films. I decided to post them on my blog and provide alternatives in cases where I was uncertain I would meet agreement. These films are not all Catholic or even specifically religious, but are all films that could be viewed and discussed profitably by a Catholic film study group.

1. Winter Light by Ingmar Bergman. It is the second in Bergman's famous Trilogy of faith, along with Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. The film explores the doubt and existential angst of a pastor alarmed by China's development of the atomic bomb. Alternatives by Bergman, besides the other two mentioned, might include Wild Strawberries, dealing with the question of loneliness, aging and death, a film recommended by the Vatican in it's famous list a few years ago. A supplement to the first film on the Criterion Collection edition is "Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie", one of the best "making of" films I have ever seen, about Winter Light.
See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Light, The Criterion Collection, http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/89

2. The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Pasolini. Made in BW 35 MM, raw, faith to the language of St. Matthew, controversial in part because Pasolini was a Marxist and a homosexual, yet generally conceded to be the best film ever on Jesus.
See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_St._Matthew_%28film%29 and also: http://www.glyphs.com/words/film/95/stmatt.html

3. The Color Of Paradise by Majid Majidi. Majidi is not a Christian, but an Iranian Muslim, influenced at least by Sufism. This film is the only discussion I know of in film of the theme of the Beatific Vision. It tells the story of a young blind boy and his suffering as his father betrays his interests. It explores the question of what it really means to see. An alternative would be his The Willow Tree, if it has been released to DVD yet, dealing with a blind professors who regains sight through an operation, but faces a challenge to his faith as a result. See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majid_Majidi

4. A Man for All Seasons, the 1966 Academy Award Best Picture is on just about every list of favorite Catholic films. An alternative could be Becket, also an Academy Award Winner, exploring similar themes about a different saint.

5. The Flowers of St. Francis by Roberto Rossellini. It is based on the book The Little Flowers of Saint Francis and is the best film on this saint I have seen. The DVD extra includes an interview by his daughter that explains carefully the relationship between Rossellini's spiritual films and his earlier political/historical films. An alternative would be Francesco, with Mickey Rourke playing a manly St. Francis.

See Criterion Collection, http://www.criterion.com/films/874 and Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flowers_of_St._Francis

6. Andrei Rublev by Andrei Tarkovsky. This may not be his greatest film, but it explores very well the connection between art and religion. It tells a tale based loosely on Russia's greatest icon painter, about whom very little is known. See Wikipdia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film)

7. Into Great Silence by Phillip Groning. The best treatment of Monastic life I have seen . Gronning lives in the Grande Chartreuse, were almost total silence is practiced, for one year, without a crew, doing all the filming by himself. It,s simple and poetic.

See http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=intogreatsilence and also Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence

8. The Tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermano Olmi. It is on the Vatican list mentioned above. It deals with the life or rural peasants in Northern Italy about 1900. It deals with poverty, justice and religion, particularly the devotion to the rosary that Italian women had.

See http://decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/1907

9. Babette's Feast by Gabriel Axel. This film is based on a short story by Isak Dinesen and deals with the lives of poor pious Danes in small protestant sects. It deals with the return of a woman from Paris long gone from the community who proposes the scandalous-- a gourmet French meal. Is it about earthly pleasure, or the Eucharist? you decide.

See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast

10. Finally, Robert Bresson, one of the greats of French film, with films strongly influenced by his Catholicism. Itt's hard to pick. His Diary of a Country Priest? His Trail of Joan of Arc ?
His Baltazar about a donkey as a type of Christ? Certainly for a Catholic study, one of those three.

See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bresson and also http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/24/bresson.html