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By Linda Hanick

Imagine a time in the life of the nation when a deep disconnect between the old and the new is opening. As the writer Joan Borsynko would say, it is “a time between no longer and not yet.” What is to come is indiscernible and what was is done. One inclination might be to grab hold of certainty to stave off fear of the unknown.

In Doubt , John Patrick Shanley’s cinematic version of his Pulitzer-winning play, a tug- of-war between certainty and the unknown unfolds. The movie’s setting is a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx and the year is 1964. Martin Luther King, Jr. is about to walk to Selma, and the Beatles will soon step into American living rooms through The Ed Sullivan Show. The Roman Catholic Church is just two years into reforms brought about by Vatican II. In the opening scenes at St. Nicolas Church, Father Brendan Flynn, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, celebrates the Mass in English facing the congregation.

Sister Aloysius Beauvier, portrayed with ferocity by Meryl Streep, is certain that Father Flynn is engaging in an inappropriate relationship with the parish’s first African-American student, 12-year-old Donald Miller (Joseph Foster). Sister Aloysius slyly hints at her certitude as she presides over a meal shared with her fellow Sisters of Charity. She asks the sisters why a priest would preach a sermon on the topic of doubt. “I want you all to be alert,” she says. “I am concerned, perhaps needlessly, about matters at St. Nicholas’ School.” Sister James, a young nun played by Amy Adams, picks up on the suggestion, becoming the unwitting accomplice of Sr. Aloysius. Accusations fly, denials mount, and a battle between Streep and Hoffman intensifies.

But here’s the catch: audiences emerge from the dramatic experience with as many certain the priest is guilty as not. Shanley won’t say who is right, but he has declared his intentions in the preface to the play. “We have to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty—there is no last word.” For Shanley, certainty is violent. Certainty ends the conversation.

The most riveting character in the movie is Donald’s mother. Sr. Aloysius decides to confront Mrs. Miller. The nun is shocked to discover that motherly love doesn’t readily embrace the picture of good versus evil that the she presents. What if it is true, asks Mrs. Miller? That would mean Donald’s father’s suspicions about his son’s sexuality are true, and that Donald is not safe from his father. That would mean Donald would be pulled from school – his ticket to a better future, losing the one affirming male figure in his life.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Mrs. Miller says.
“He’s got your son,” Sister Aloysius hisses.
“Let him have him. It’s just until June,” she whispers.

Donald’s mother has no use for Aloysius’ certainty. She is living in that middle ground of no longer and not yet. For her it’s a place of hope mixed with compromise and dread.

People of faith have wrestled with doubt and religious belief for centuries, and this movie, as Shanley intended, is a provocative conversation-starter. What is truly certain in our lives? What is the difference between certainty and belief? In the secular world, doubt is often seen as a force that stifles creativity and action (Just Do It). What is it about faith in God that makes doubt itself a creative force of good?

For people of faith, a doubting creature is a more vulnerable creature, and perhaps a creature paradoxically endowed with more power to act on behalf of those diminished by society. Regardless of your stance on the priest’s guilt, this movie is about how easy it is to not see to the interests of the most important person in the story (even as you think you are). As the Gospel writers would assure us, the most important person is the least among us, the most vulnerable. In Doubt, the most important character is the little boy, the first African-American child in an Irish parochial school in the autumn of 1964. That his interests were not served we know for certain.

Linda Hanick is vice president for communications and marketing at Trinity Wall Street.