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May 26

The Song of Bernadette - "We have religious, not priests"

In the 1943 film The Song of Bernadette, there's a scene where Bernadette (Jennifer Jones) transmits a request from The Lady to her confessor, Father Peyramale (Charles Bickford). The request was along the lines of requiring "the priests" to do something or other (the detail isn't important). On hearing this, Peyramale countered with words to the effect of "That proves your Lady is a fraud. The Catholic Church has religious, it does not have priests".

That always stopped me in my tracks. The church does indeed have religious (nuns, brothers, etc), but it most certainly also has priests, and the higher grades thereof (bishops and archbishops). Peyramale himself was a priest.

So, was this dialogue in Franz Werfel's original book, or did the screenwriters take a liberty, and if so, why? If Werfel wrote it, what point was he trying to make? Or were these words actually spoken by Peyramale, and has something been lost in translation?-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the original book, the lady also asks Bernadette "Gehen Sie bitte zu den Priestern und sagen Sie ihnen, daß man hier eine Kapelle erbauen soll." ("Please go to the priests and tell them that one should build a chapel here")

When Bernadette repeats the words to Peyramale, he responds "Priester? Was heißt das? Deine Dame scheint eine ausgemachte Heidin zu sein. Auch die Kannibalen haben Priester. Wir Katholiken haben Geistliche, die jeder einen bestimmten Titel führen ..." ("Priests? What does that mean? Your Lady appears to be an outright heathen. The cannibals, too, have priests. We Catholics have clerics, each of whom bears a certain title ...")

When Bernadette repeats that the Lady had indeed said "Priester", Peyramale 'thunders' that she's barking up the wrong tree. Later on he tells Bernadette to deliver a message back to the Lady in which he refers to himself as "Pfarrer von Lourdes" ("Parish Priest of Lourdes" would be one possible translation).

I can't answer your actual question well, but those are the original words in Werfel's book. I guess one point he's making is that the Lady having referred to a vague group of "priests" (in the plural) showed ignorance or disrespect (he's annoyed with her anyway and the last part of the message Bernadette is to pass back to the Lady is a request that she leave him alone, once and for all.) ---Sluzzelin talk 08:26, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lost in - quite shoddy - translation. The word "geistlich" can mean spiritual (at a pinch, even religious), but in this dialogue it is used as a noun (der Geistliche) and denotes a cleric.

It is an example of an adjective + noun phrase where the noun gets dropped in time. From "a spiritual advisor" to "a spiritual". Probably a special case of nominal ellipsis.

I would have thought that in the Hollywood of this era there would have been hundreds of native German speakers to pick up on this nonsense. As you seem to have been somewhat confused by the term in a number of viewings, I assume that you recall the dialogue correctly. But then again, maybe it is just the Down Under synchronisation? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In 1943, how many people would have been eager to show off an idiomatic knowledge of German? Wnt (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just from Casablanca (film), 1942:

Michael Curtiz, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid, Max Steiner

If eager or not, I would not know. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:22, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The movie people might have started with an English translation of the book. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 19:19, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if our Religious (Western Christianity) article helps here. It can be a noun in English, although a religious is not the same as a priest. Alansplodge (talk) 21:02, 26 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so if I understand this, Peyramale was assuming the position of an authority figure who did not believe this unexceptional girl, and he focussed on the slightest diversion in "the lady's" reported choice of words from that which he would have expected from the real Mother of God, in order to demonstrate her fraudulence, if not her non-existence. That, combined with an execrable translation.
I've been wondering about this (not continuously, you understand) ever since I first saw the movie when I was about 15. Thanks for clarifying this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:01, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've got it. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:01, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Long time since I saw this film, but wasn't there a similar issue where the prelate took issue with the syntax of the apparition's response to his request to identify herself? The reported response was "I am the Immaculate Conception," where something more along the lines of "I am the result of the Immaculate Conception" would have been more expected. - Nunh-huh 21:07, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still puzzled. If ""Priests? What does that mean? Your Lady appears to be an outright heathen. The cannibals, too, have priests. We Catholics have clerics, each of whom bears a certain title ..." is a correct translation, then what was he on about? Do Roman Catholics not have priests then? DuncanHill (talk) 12:09, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that you are missing the context of the passage. I suspect that it is referring to the local situation rather than the entire denomination. Historically, it was quite common for Catholics in a local area to not have any priests present... but only non-ordained clerics. Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 29 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]