“A Love Divided” opened today in select theaters. Produced by the BBC, the movie is based on an allegedly true story about a Protestant woman, married to a Catholic, who brings her children up Protestant in Ireland in the 1950s after pledging to bring them up Catholic. As the story goes, when a local priest objects, the woman flees to Northern Ireland. Irish bishops then join a boycott of all Protestant goods and services and a national uproar follows.
Catholic League researcher Louis Giovino saw the film in New York today. According to Giovino, “cruel caricatures” of the Catholic clergy abound. The first caricature is of “an arrogant bishop,” followed by “a demagogic priest.” Giovino agrees with Stephen Whitney of the Newark Star-Ledger who said, “it rather strenuously portrays the Catholic Church and the Republic of Ireland as a haven for bigots and bullies.”
Catholic League president William Donohue offered his own thoughts:
“I await a movie produced by the BBC about the life of Oliver Cromwell and how he ‘interacted’ with the Irish. In the meantime, it must not go unmentioned that the producer of the film, Gerry Gregg, has been described by the Sunday Business Post as having produced documentaries which ‘have dumped on Sinn Fein or the Catholic Church, or both.’ Gregg is on record for saying that Ireland is a ‘corrupt, hypocritical, inegalitarian society.’ His base point of reference being, no doubt, his gentlemanly England: his home still outlaws marriage between its splendidly egalitarian princes and lowly Catholics. Then we have Orla Brady, the actress who played the victimized wife. She is on record saying that the pope is ‘a voice for evil.’
“When Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart’ and ‘The Patriot’ were released in England, the WASPS went mad. Indeed, after ‘Braveheart’ was released, there reportedly was an outbreak of anti-English prejudice in Scotland. Fortunately, America is more civilized which is why the Catholic League does not expect an outbreak of anti-Catholicism in the U.S. now that the anti-Catholic film, ‘A Love Divided,’ has been released.”
