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PAGE 8 — The Southern Cross, September 5, 1985
Programs Of Note-TV Film Fare
BY HENRY HERX
NEW YORK (NC) — Benito Mussolini, dictator of fascist
Italy, led his country to ruin and defeat in World War II.
The tragic history is recounted in “Mussolini: The Decline
and Fall of II Duce,” a two-part dramatization appearing
on the Home Box Office cable channel.
Part one airs Sunday, Sept. 8, 8-9:30 p.m. EDT and the
concluding segment is to be shown Monday, Sept. 9, in the
same time period. HBO will repeat both parts of the
miniseries several times in September.
Athough a narrator and newsreel footage supply the
historical context, the viewpoint for the dramatization is
provided by Mussolini’s daughter, Edda. The result is a
family portrait of a petty tyrant and his squabbling brood.
There is nothing here of the early Mussolini, the leader of
a totalitarian movement that took power in 1922 and
refashioned Italy into a fascist state by ruthlessly
eliminating all opposition.
Edda’s husband, Galeazzo Ciano, was an aristocratic
fascist leader who became Mussolini’s foreign minister and
negotiated Italy’s military alliance with Nazi Germany.
When the war began to go badly for the Axis powers, Ciano
tried to persuade Mussolini to break with Hitler and sue for
a separate peace.
Overthrown and imprisoned by a new Italian govern
ment, Mussolini was rescued by German paratroopers and
made the figurehead of a puppet regime in German-
occupied northern Italy. Ciano was arrested and put on trial
as a traitor to the fascist cause.
Edda pleaded with her father to free her husband but
Mussolini feared Hitler’s displeasure more than that of his
daughter. Ciano was executed and Edda escaped with her
children to Switzerland before her father was dealt sum
mary justice by partisans.
This chronicle of the Mussolini family is not without in
terest but sheds little light on the larger issues of the war.
Pope John Paul
Book Is Cardinal's
Personal Opinion
BY BILL PRITCHARD
NC News Service
Pope John Paul II has said it is Cardinal Joseph Ratz-
inger’s “own opinion’ ’ that the church has deteriorated
since the Second Vatican Council. The pope added that
the council was a positive influence.
Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, said in a book titled “Report on
the Faith” that a “progressive process of decadence”
has developed over the past 20 years “under the slogan
of a so-called ‘spirit of the council.’” The book was
published in Italy May 30.
Responding to a National Catholic News Service
question on the cardinal’s comment at the beginning of
his Aug. 8-19 trip to Africa, the pope said that “what
Cardinal Ratzinger said is his own opinion.”
“He is free to express his opinion,” the pope said.
“His opinion corresponds to many events, but it cannot
be understood in this (meaning), that the council,
Vatican II, was a negative influence, a negative mean
ing for the church—no, the contrary.”
In his book, the cardinal said that his views were
‘ ‘ completely personal’ ’ and “in no way implicate the in
stitutions of the Holy See.”
He defined the ‘ ‘spirit of the council’ ’ as the belief that
“everything which is new will always, no matter what,
be better than that which was or that which is. ” This is a
“pernicious anti-spirit”which discredits the council,
the cardinal said.
The pope in a May 18 address to the Belgian bishops
spoke of “disarray and division” in the church in some
cases caused by misinterpretation or misapplication of
the council’s basic principles.
But the pontiff has generally praised the council and
efforts to implement it.
Last Jan. 25, the pope called an extraordinary Synod
of Bishops for Nov. 25-Dec. 8 to discuss the applications
of the council.
On Oct. 17,1978, in his first major speech after being
elected pope, he promised to promote “with action that
is both prudent and stimulating” application of the
norms of the council.
Played by Susan Saradon, Edda is almost totally self-
absorbed in her own troubles which merit little sympathy
when compared to the suffering of a war-torn nation. An
thony Hopkins is more successful in his portrayal of Ciano
as an ambiguous figure whose shifting loyalties seem
calculated as much out of self-interest as out of concern for
saving Italy further devastation.
English actor Bob Hoskins in the central role convincing
ly conveys the strutting, bombastic II Duce of 1939 as well
as the broken man that he became at the end of the war.
Filmed in Italy, with a script by Nicola Badalucco and
Alberto Negrin, this is a large-scale historical re-creation
that succeeds best in capturing the feeling and look of the
period but fails to make us care about any of the characters
portrayed.
Much is made of the revelations in a secret diary kept by
Ciano. He called it his “life insurance” and the Nazis are
shown as intent on finding it. Whatever was in that diary
could surely have helped improve this script.
“QUEST FOR THE KILLERS,” SEPT. 9, PBS
“Quest for the Killers” is a new medical science series
that premieres Monday, Sept. 9, 9-10 p.m. EDT on PBS. The
first program, “The Kuru Mystery,” traces the links bet
ween a 1950s epidemic in Papua New Guinea down to the
latest research into the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.
The program starts with the outbreak of a new disease in
a New Guinea tribe. The natives call it “kuru,” their word
for “the trembling sickness.” Carleton Gajdusek, an
American pediatrician, came to study the disease and spent
the next 25 years trying to discover its cause.
After many false starts, the search centered on abnor
malities found in the brains of kuru victims. Gajdusek’s
discovery of the virus that infected the part of the brain con
trolling the central nervous system earned him the 1978
Nobel Prize in medicine.
Since then scientists in various parts of the world have
found evidence of other slow virus diseases that attack the
brain. Some recent research has uncovered traces of such
viral infections in the brain tissues of Alzheimer’s victims.
Now that the virus causing such brain disorders has been
identified, it is possible to find a cure. This is the task in
which medical scientists are presently engaged.
Taking us on this journey documenting this and other ex
amples of contemporary medical achievement is Dr. June
Goodfield of South Downs, England. Based on her book,
“Quest for the Killers,” the five-part series re-creates the
step-by-step process of research that resulted in recent
medical breakthroughs.
PROGRAMS OF NOTE
Sunday, Sept. 8,10-11 p.m. EDT (PBS) “The Beyond War
Spacebridge.” Linking Moscow and San Francisco is a live
satellite presentation of the Beyond War Award, honoring
the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War. The program also features performances by Soviet as
well as American artists.
Wednesday, Sept. 11, 4-5 p.m. EDT (ABC) “No Greater
Gift.” The story of a youngster who decides to become an
organ donor in an effort to save the life of a friend is the
season premiere offering of the award-winning “ABC
Afterschool Specials.”
Wednesday, Sept. 11, 9-11 p.m. EDT (CBS) “Brass.”
Caroll O’Connor stars in a drama about a New York City
chief of detectives who has remained actively involved in
street-level police work rather than becoming a high brass
bureaucrat.
TV FILM FARE
Friday, Sept. 13, 9-11 p.m. EDT (CBS) — “The Cannon
ball Run” (1979) — A banal and tedious cross-country car
race movie with Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett. Some
vulgarity and sexual innuendos. The U.S. Catholic Con
ference classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture
Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance.
(Herx is on the staff of the U.S. Catholic Conference Depart
ment of Communication.)
Secret Archives Opened On Two 20th-Century Popes
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope John Paul II has decided to
open to historians the secret archives of two 20th-century
papacies, those of St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XV, the
Vatican announced Aug. 29.
The documents, covering the period of 1903-1922, are ex
pected by scholars to yield important information about
World War I, the Russian Revolution and the rise of fascism
in Italy.
They also are expected to be of interest to students of St.
Pius’s battle, during his pontificate, with the intellectual
movement known as modernism, which attempted to apply
modern philosophical and scientific ideas to church doc
trine. The movement was fought with excommunications,
prohibition of books and the pope’s Oath Against Moder
nism.
St. Pius’ pontificate ended only a few weeks after World
War I began. The efforts of his successor, Pope Benedict, to
end the war were characteristic of his diplomatically active
pontificate.
Many of these efforts ended in disappointment, however.
His peace plan, proposed in 1917, was ignored by both sides.
He initiated important charity work for victims of the war,
but was forced to close the Vatican’s missing persons
bureau when it was accused of being a front for spying.
His impartiality during the war made him suspect by
both sides.
Pope Benedict also took important steps toward settling
the juridical relationship between the papacy and the
Italian state. His top aides met secretly with Italian fascist
leader Benito Mussolini, contacts that eventually led to the
Lateran Pacts of 1929, which made the Vatican an indepen
dent state.
Because of the technical preparation involved, not all the
archive material regarding the two pontificates will be im
mediately available to scholars.
In 1979, Pope John Paul made similar material from the
pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) available to ex
perts.
HONORING SAMANTHA — About 1,000 peo
ple jam St. Mary’s Church in Augusta, Maine,
for a memorial service for Samantha Smith and
her father, who were killed Aug. 25 in a plane
crash in Auburn, Maine. Although neither of the
victims were Catholic St. Mary’s was used
because it is the largest church in town and
Samantha’s grandmother is a member of the
parish. Samantha made news two years ago
when she wrote the late Soviet Premier Yuri
Andropov and traveled, at age 11, to Russia at
Andropov’s invitation. (NC Photo)