The Cardinal (Otto Preminger, 1963)

 

Otto Preminger's three-hour The Cardinal may have come as close as was then feasibly possible to examining the church's personal and political morality, taking its protagonist through wrenching personal dilemmas (whether to authorize for his sister an abortion that will save her life but kill that of her child), and rendering him a close-up witness to the cowardice of the Southern US church in the face of racism and to the utter complicity of the Austrian church in the rise of Nazism (the film seems to exonerate the Vatican itself in that regard though). The focal point is Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon), who returns from a Vatican education to a pastoral position in his home town of Boston, first learning the ropes of parish priesthood and expanding his personal sense of sacrifice and humility; later on taking a leave of absence to deal with doubts about his vocation before being posted to Rome and rising within the structure, ending on his being named to the titular position and a pending return to the US (it's hard to buy into Fermoyle's final words, in which he asserts that the American precepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are entirely congruent with the philosophy of the church). Preminger provides a reasonable amount of doctrinal debate (such as whether evolution contradicts creationism or is only the medium of it), while leaving Fermoyle a rather opaque figure - for instance, the film throws little light on how he reaches his decision to recommit to his vocation, after falling in love  with a young woman (Romy Schneider) during his leave of absence. But then, the mystery of faith is one of The Cardinal's core subjects, satisfyingly navigated by Preminger in a film that ambitiously grapples with the church's immensity and complexity, while (very obviously) leaving much unexplored.