Light In The Dark: Constantine's Sword (2008)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Constantine's Sword (2008)

In an empire united under the Cross, Jews were now in danger. The Church fathers decided the Jews should wander in misery forever without a home. The Roman empire fell despite it embraced Christianity. The Western world descended into chaos that lasted for six centuries. Then the Pope cried "God wills it", calling for a crusade, a war of the Cross against Islam."

James Carroll, a former Catholic priest, looks at the bad side of Christianity from Constantine the Great to the U.S Air Force Academy.

I suppose James Carroll is still a theist, he claims that Christianity turned violent after Constantine, and the documentary is not about fighting against Christianity, but is a good source to see the bad influence of Catholicism through history and the indoctrination of the evangelist movement among the Air Force Academy today.

The most touching moment of the film is that Carroll reveals Edith Stein's letter for the first time. Edith Stein was a brilliant young Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1922. She wrote a letter to Pope Pius XII for protection from the Nazis, but got no answer. That Pope was the one who called "Hitler's Cardinal".