CULTURAS IN VITRO - Church rediscovers sin in cinema: But it is the hysterical reaction to The Sin of Father Amaro, which had its European premiere at the San Sebastian film festival, that has brought memories of the bad old days of the Papal Index, when Catholics were threatened with damnation if they read a book or saw a film that had not been given the imprimatur of the Pope.
There were protests outside the film's screening in San Sebastian, but these were of a small-scale, unoffiical kind.
The film is a transposition of a 19th century Portuguese novel by Eca de Queiroz to contemporary Mexico. A tale of a young, idealistic and heterosexual priest who lets himself sink into the institutional corruption of the church after getting his young lover pregnant, the film was found to be tame by most critics.