The Shoes of the Fisherman

Because of the recent death of Pope Francis I was reminded of the movie: The Shoes of the Fisherman.  I remember going to the theater with the folks to see it - movies weren't just comic book entertainment then, they tried to deal with real world problems in a fictional way.  Anyway I particularly remember this scene:

source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nci3x67K8uc

Anthony Quinn as the new Pope sneaks out of the Vatican in a priest's cassock and walks around Rome.  He comes upon this dying man, his family and the doctor - he tries to help by going to the pharmacy for the doctor and then starts to administer the last rites but when informed that the man is a Jew he sings/says the prayer: Shema Yisrael.  It's a very memorable and moving scene.

I listened to the audio book of The Shoes of the Fisherman (over 11 hours !), read by the formidable Alexander Scourby, who used to narrate those National Geographic specials on TV, again a memorable voice.  There are a LOT of characters in the book (I guess that's true with many modern novels) but the author, Morris West, is very eloquent (aided by the Scourby reading) and interesting.  

The only thing was that the book really is more of an opening part of the story, there were eventually two more books but I recall the movie moving more quickly.  So in that sense the book isn't as satisfying as the movie (which author West had a hand in writing) - it's kind of like reading The Fellowship of the Ring, there's a lot more to come in the last two books of The Lord of the Rings.

Shalom.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm