Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
July 5, 2015
Spiritual Ponderings
Faith & Film: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Since the beginning of my Spiritual Pondering columns, I have dedicated the month of July to looking at spiritual insights into movies. The first movie I would like to spiritual analyze is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This is the second Captain America movie and takes place within the larger Marvel cinematic universe with other movies like Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Avengers. In this movie Captain America has been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. since the events of the last Avengers movie took place. He is working hard trying to make the world a better place not knowing that hidden in S.H.I.E.L.D. are members a neo-Nazis group called HYDRA. HYDRA believes that they have developed a computer program and weapon system that will allow them to target any threat (present or future)and destroy it before the threat becomes a real threat. It is up to Captain America, “Black Widow” Natasha Romanoff, and Nick Fury to stop HYDRA from activating their ultimate weapon.

The first spiritual insight about the movie comes from the questions that the movie raises about what freedom is. HYDRA is justifying its actions with the belief that freedom comes from limiting people’s choices. If people cannot choose what is bad then they cannot do the bad. In their plans for the world people would not be able to do what is wrong because their tendency to commit a crime would be detected by their ultimate weapon computer and the person would then be eliminated before they could do the wrong. Captain America and the other good guys realize that the flaw in this logic is the questions that is raised “Who gets decide what is right or wrong?” and “how far do you go, do you kill people only if they have the potential to commit murder or do you go so far as to kill people for littering?” HYDRA does not ask these questions because they assume that they are going to be the ones making those decisions. Scripturally speaking the people of HYDRA have a lot in common with King Herod who willingly had John the Baptist killed despite knowing it was morally wrong because it threatened his power as king since he had made an oath to his niece. Captain America and others are more Christlike because they are determine to do what is right no matter what repercussions their actions may have on them (like martyrdom).

The second insight that I thought was woven into the movie was true good leadership requires willingness for self-sacrifice. HYDRA has no problem with sacrificing others if it gets them what they want. Captain America, Black Widow, Nick Fury, and Hawk on the other hand are willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in. In our culture today there are many who declare that we need to sacrifice others euthanasia (because we don’t want to serve those who are suffering), abortion (because children will change our lifestyle), and capital punishment (because we are afraid to love, forgive; reform those who commit violent acts). True love requires a sacrifice of self and not a sacrifice of the other.

A third spiritual insight that is closely related to the second one is the evils of human experimentations even if done for self-proclaimed noble reasons. While Captain America turned out to be a good result of human experimentation, we discover that Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) was taken advantage of for human experimentation. Human life needs to be seen as sacred and no one should experiment on a human person period. Some exceptions can be made for attempts for medical cures but no healthy person should be experimented on. This is why the Church is against embryonic stem-cell research. Human being can too easily turn other human beings into objects and when that happens eugenic mentality (a person is only as good as they are valuable to me) are not far behind.

The fourth insight from the movie that I would like to share with you is how the seven deadly sins are like HYDRA. Pride, Envy, Wrath, Avarice, Sloth, Glutton, and Lust can hide inside us mixed with our virtues if we are not careful in the same way HYDRA hid within S.H.I.E.L.D. It takes a daily examination of conscience, frequent confession and a lot of grace to rid our lives of sin. It is a job that is never complete on this side of the grave.

The final insight in the movie shows that power of turning the other cheek. After all the bad guys are defeated Captain America refuses to kill his old friend Buck Barnes (the Winter Soldier) and basically says “Do your worse but I will always be your friend!” At first Bucky does his worst but when he realizes that Captain America is serious he ends up saving his life. No matter how much force or pressure Captain America could have placed on Bucky, he would not have converted Bucky as he did with gift of friendship.