The Mission

1986, Warner Bros. Directed by Roland Joffé, script by Robert Bolt, music by Ennio Morricone.
Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Aidan Quinn, Liam Neeson.

The film's most riveting sequence comes at the very beginning, when we see a crucified Jesuit missionary being tossed into the river and carried over the spectacular Iguassu Falls.

Father Gabriel ascends the mountains of Brazil to bring christianity to the natives. He is successful and brings about a golden age among them. Mendoza, a slaver, kills his brother in a fit of rage, and only Fr. Gabriel's guidance prevents his suicide. Gabriel brings Mendoza to work at his mission with the natives, and Mendoza finds peace and asks to become a priest. The church , under pressure, cedes the land to the Portuguese which will allow slavers in again. Mendoza breaks his vows and organizes the natives to resist while Gabriel warns him to help them as a priest. → Detailed Film Study

The film may be labelled anti-religious: it focused on cowardly 18^th-century ecclesiastical officials who sold out idealistic Jesuit missionaries and their converts to profit-minded Portuguese imperialists and slave traders. (Yet in 1995, the papal committee compiling the Vatican film list numbered The Mission among 15 films noteworthy for special religious significance.)

The Mission won the top prize at Cannes in 1986 and was nominated for a Best Film Oscar; but for many Americans, it was something of an enigma — there was some feeling that the film simply didn't hold together.

The story behind the story

In simplest terms, The Mission is a fictionalized account of a historical event that was both an atrocity and a tragedy.

In 1750 Spain and Portugal signed a treaty renegotiating a borderline between Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America, with Portugal taking control of a previously Spanish region on the Paraguay River. In this region were a number of mission communities, founded by the Society of Jesus, where thousands of native Guaraní converts lived. These missions (called "reducciones" or "reductions") were not simply spiritual centers, but thriving economic communities where converts worked together and prospered.

The two mentioned in the film are:

Mission San Miguel ... The oldest in the territory, on the southern Brazilian border, 200 miles ("2 weeks' march") up the river southeastward from Asunción(capital of Paraguay), with a large adobe(clay brick) baroque church.
Mission San Carlos ... On the nothern Argentinian border (Upper Paraná River), 100 miles away northwestward from San Miguel. (Is this the one described in the film with a log church built by Fr. Gabriel, above the Iguassu falls?)
... The Jesuit Province of Paraguay functioned almost as an independent state, in which the Jesuits exerted greater power than the Spanish or Portuguese king. ... [Jesuit Missions]

The Jesuit missionaries, who were ardent champions of the Pope, strongly opposed slavery, an institution long condemned by Rome. The Vatican had particularly condemned the enslavement of the newly discovered peoples of the Americas; but social acceptance of this teaching (as of the Church's condemnations of dueling in the nineteenth century or of abortion today) was limited and partial. Spain had anti-slavery laws, but Portugal didn't; and naturally the Guaraní — who even under the Spanish administration were already being covertly hunted by Portuguese slavers with the tacit support of opportunistic Spanish governors — deeply resented the transfer of power.

Once the Spanish withdrew, the only protection remaining to the Guaraní would be the Jesuit reducciones. The Portuguese, of course, wished to see the missionaries depart from the region together with the Spanish civil authority.

In spite of this, the Jesuit missions might possibly have been able to remain in the new Portuguese territories with Vatican support. However, some ecclesiastical officials apparently found this politically inexpedient. Because of the Jesuits' opposition to slavery and their strong defense of the papacy, the Order was already a political target in some European countries. If the missions succeeded in openly thwarting the Portuguese in South America, some officials feared that the Portuguese government would retaliate by expelling the Jesuits from Portugal, leading to similar setbacks throughout Europe.

Thus, in the name of protecting the Order on the Continent, the missionaries were ordered to abandon the reducciones and send their converts back to their native ways of life. (Ironically, both the ecclesiastical effort to protect the Society of Jesus, and the Portuguese effort to overcome the Jesuit agenda, eventually failed. Despite the withdrawal from South America, the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal, and within 25 years the order had been officially suppressed by the Vatican. On the other hand, the disputed territories were soon returned to Spanish control; and ultimately slavery was abolished throughout the entire region, and the Guaraní slaves emancipated.)

The Mission tells the story of one company of missionaries who defy the order to leave their mission, defending the right of their converts to remain in their new home. Some of these priests, led by a novice named Mendoza (De Niro), even actively lead the Guaraní in guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese forces who eventually arrive to expel them — despite bitter opposition from their own leader, Fr. Gabriel (Irons), who insists on a path of peaceful disobedience and spiritual devotion. Inevitably, "neither approach is effective"; and the conclusion is as tragic as it is inexorable. → Facts & Fiction

Seeking a center

The story divides readily into three acts, each with its own moral crisis. First, there is Mendoza's personal struggle between despair and redemption. Then comes the sad, foregone investigation of Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally), a papal legate nominally sent to inspect the work of the Jesuits in South America, but whose de facto mission is to rubber-stamp established plans to abandon the missions. Finally, there is the crisis between Fr. Gabriel and Mendoza over the issue of guerrilla resistance.

The whole film is tied together with scenes of the guilt-ridden Cardinal Altamirano dictating a barbed letter to Rome conveying both assurance and disapproval. Yet The Mission is about Fr. Gabriel and Mendoza: about the struggle for Mendoza's soul, about their campaign to save the Guaraní, and about the spiritual and moral implications of the two different paths of resistance they take.

Part of the reason some viewers may feel unsure "what the movie was about" is that, while it's apparent which of the two priests we're meant to side with, it's not necessarily obvious why. Both men, although sworn religious under vows of holy obedience, disobey their superiors: so why is it right for Fr. Gabriel to disobey Altamirano by staying at the mission, but wrong for Mendoza to disobey Fr. Gabriel by leading the Guarani in guerrilla resistance? The Church upholds just-war theory, and certainly the Guarani are the aggrieved victims, so why shouldn't they defend their home?

These are worthy questions, and they have reasonable answers, though unfortunately the film never quite makes these answers entirely explicit.

The first point is that the keeping of vows of obedience, although a normative moral necessity, is not an absolute necessity that applies in all possible circumstances. Given sufficiently grave reason — such as the endangerment of souls — religious can be justified in breaking holy obedience. For the Jesuits to abandon their Guaraní converts, to expel them from their mission homes and return them to the jungle without pastoral guidance or support, would be akin to endangering their souls; and not even a vow of obedience can require a priest to do that.

The second point is a venerable Catholic tradition that — just war or no — priests do not take up arms or engage in military exploits. Regardless whether the Guaraní are justified in violently resisting the Portuguese, Fr. Gabriel insists that, as priests, the Jesuits must provide spiritual support, not military support. "Help them as a priest," he passionately exhorts Mendoza. (Incidentally, there's another reason why even the Guaraní are not here justified in violently resisting the Portuguese: They have no hope of success. Just-war theory requires a just struggle to have at least a reasonable chance of bringing about a better state of affairs by resisting than by not resisting.) [Review by S. D. Greydanus]