The latest ‘Knives Out’ film takes place in the Court of the Gentiles

As we come close to Christmas, I watched a mystery film unexpectedly wrapped in the Catholic Church.

“It’s storytelling. The rites and the rituals. Costumes, all of it. It’s storytelling. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that’s profoundly true, that we can’t express any other way except storytelling?” Father Jud Duplenticy says in Wake Up Dead Man, the third film in the “Knives Out” movie series, just released on Netflix.

This got me thinking of a speech made by Pope Benedict XVI a few days before the holiday in 2009.

He was giving the annual Christmas greetings to members of the Roman Curia and Papal Representatives on Dec. 21 that year.

The pontiff remarked that in the Czech Republic, there was now a majority of agnostics and atheists, and Christians “are now only a minority.”

Although a traditionally Catholic nation, decades of Communism led it to being less than 10 percent Catholic, with a majority being atheistic or agnostic.

Benedict had visited the country earlier that year, and told the Vatican staff he had been “surrounded everywhere by great cordiality and friendliness, that the important liturgies were celebrated in a joyful atmosphere of faith; that in the setting of the University and the world of culture my words were attentively listened to; and that the state authorities treated me with great courtesy and did their utmost to contribute to the success of the visit.”

This was when the Bavarian pope brought up his idea about a new “Court of the Gentiles” being needed for the modern Church.

The Court of the Gentiles was the place outside the Temple in Jerusalem that was accessible to non-Jews. It was the place where animals were sold and currency was exchanged – notable in the New Testament because it was where Jesus threw out the moneylenders in all four Gospel accounts.

Historically, it was where Gentile “God-fearers” – those who accepted the Hebrew religious teachings but wouldn’t be circumcised to become Jews – would go to worship the Lord.

In his 2009 address, Benedict said the Court of the Gentiles was a place of prayer for people “who know God, so to speak, only from afar; who are dissatisfied with their own gods, rites and myths; who desire the Pure and the Great, even if God remains for them the ‘unknown God.’ They had to pray to the unknown God, yet in this way they were somehow in touch with the true God, albeit amid all kinds of obscurity.”

“I think that today, too, the Church should open a sort of ‘Court of the Gentiles’ in which people might in some way latch on to God, without knowing him and before gaining access to his mystery, at whose service the inner life of the Church stands,” the pope said.

“Today, in addition to interreligious dialogue, there should be a dialogue with those to whom religion is something foreign, to whom God is unknown, and who nevertheless do not want to be left merely Godless, but rather to draw near to him, albeit as the Unknown,” Benedict explained.

“I consider most important the fact that we, as believers, must have at heart even those people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists. When we speak of a new evangelization, these people are perhaps taken aback,” he said.

“They do not want to see themselves as an object of mission or to give up their freedom of thought and will. Yet the question of God remains present even for them, even if they cannot believe in the concrete nature of his concern for us,” Benedict said in 2009.

As can often happen in the Vatican, when the pope offers a reflection, the office apparatus takes over.  In this case, the Pontifical Council for Culture began a “Court of the Gentiles,” that was a discussion with atheists, and often looked at art and science.

In many ways, the project was stillborn. It was officials speaking to officials from their papers at meetings: “Official Christians” speaking to “Official Atheists” about faith and reason. It hasn’t seemed to lock onto the people Benedict – who died in 2022 – had in mind, those who “might in some way latch on to God, without knowing him and before gaining access to his mystery.”

This entered my mind when watching Wake Up Dead Man. Writer and director Rian Johnson’s series involves inspector Benoit Blanc, an eccentric detective in the style made famous by Agatha Christie. Although religion wasn’t really touched on in the previous movies, in the one released this month, Blanc investigates the murder of a Catholic priest.

Johnson was raised protestant, and now says he is a nonbeliever.

“I don’t know if I classify myself as atheist. I would say I’m just nonreligious. I’m not a Christian anymore,” Johnson told RNS.

In his movies, Blanc is not a believer, and he sees his purpose as solving mysteries.

“I am a proud heretic. I kneel at the altar of the rational,” he says.

In the film, he is assisted by the innocent priest who is suspected of the murder. There are scenes where Father Jud stops investigating to assist those in need of spiritual help. At one point, the priest even wants to stop trying to solve the crime and instead concentrate on serving Christ.

Yet in the end, Blanc’s decision—though not an affirmation of faith—signals a deliberate and meaningful respect for it. The detective accepts personal ridicule in order to help a person in need of mercy.

The film was made by a nonbeliever, but it is soaked with religious longing.

At the end of the story, Blanc refuses to stay for a Church service, but it is like he has entered his own Court of the Gentiles.

It seems – and I admit this might just be an optimistic opinion – the fictional detective is “dissatisfied with [his] own gods, rites and myths; who desire the Pure and the Great, even if God remains for [him] the ‘unknown God’ … [and is] somehow in touch with the true God, albeit amid all kinds of obscurity.”

Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome