Wesley Viola

Religion
1/11/10
Reflection Essay

Assisi Underground Reflection Essay

Of all the Holocaust movies I have seen, this one was much different

from the rest in that it showed Catholic actions in the war. Up until seeing

Assisi Underground, I had no idea of the part, if any, played by Catholics. I

understand from class discussion that the Church remained officially neutral,

which I find to be really sad. I cannot understand at all how an institution

devoted to the work of Christ, that is, of benevolence and compassion, could

possibly choose to not get involved in such open acts of evil. I feel like if the

Church publicly declared opposition against the Nazi’s and their goals, more

people would have been united against Hitler. While the institution did not

prove to be very brave, members of Jehovah’s Witness and people like Padre

Rufino made up for it at least in part. I think these people say a lot about

the actual people of the Church. They demonstrated how incredibly good

some of these people are, risking their lives in supporting others even

though they were under no obligation while their Church is neutral. Because

of this, I especially admire the Catholics that did actually oppose the Nazi’s.
The efforts of people like Padre Rufino produced dramatic results in Italy,

helping to save 80 percent of the Jews from death.

I really loved Padre Rufino. He was extremely brave and willing when

asked by the bishop to help hide refugees, which seems fairly daunting to

me. I really look up to this courage, and was very impressed with how loyal

he remained despite the threat of being shot. The aspect I admire most

about Padre Rufino though was his consistently warm character, even in

times of distress, and I am certain that this helped keep the refugees sane

and calm. I loved watching him and the refugees sing the Jewish celebration

songs and was amazed that they could all be so joyful in such times. I really

hope that I someday meet a man as spirited and courageous as Padre

Rufino.

The only aspect of the movie that I found to be confusing was

the character Colonel Valentin Müller. As I understand it, Padre Rufino

persuaded him that he was sent by God with the mission of protecting the

Christian holy places and monasteries. Having been influenced by Rufino,

the Colonel asked a higher officer to declare Assisi an open city. I thought

this was all really great, but I was confused by the relationship between

Padre Rufino and Colonel Valentin Müller at the end of the movie. It seems
to me the Padre Rufino deceived the Colonel into doing many things that

would hurt the Nazi’s. Although I remember that by the end of the movie

the Colonel acknowledges that the war is being lost by the Nazi’s and that it

is not really worth it to continue fighting, I cannot tell I he still, or ever, felt

betrayed by Padre Rufino.

I was really shocked at one point in the movie when the nuns refused

to break their private prayer to let the refugees hide. When the Nazi officers

were about to search the convent and Padre Rufino was asking the Abbess to

help hide them, I was saying in my mind “hurry up, hurry up”. When the

Abbess refused however, I was just astounded. She claimed that there was

a very long standing tradition in convent that she would have to break to

help hide the refugees. Only the pope’s orders, she said, could allow her to

break this tradition. This and things like it really bother me. How can

someone that stands for Christ possibly endanger a group of people because

there is a “tradition” to follow? What else is there in a nun’s life except to

serve God? To serve God is to serve others, not to follow tradition. It

reminds me of the parable in which Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Jesus

technically violates Jewish law by healing, a form of work, on Sunday. The

lesson of the story, and of many of Jesus’ stories, was to put more focus on
the spirit, not the letter of the law. It seems to me that what the Abbess did

that day was not at all in keeping with one of Jesus’ most important

messages. I am very curious as to whether or not the Abbess ever regretted

these actions of hers.