Doubt: Sermão do Father Flynn

Se não assistiu ainda, não perca: Doubt.

A screenplay by
John Patrick Shanley

INT. THE CHURCH ALTAR - FATHER FLYNN AT THE PULPIT - DAY

FLYNN
What do you do when you’re not
sure? That’s the topic of my sermon
today.

Last year, when President Kennedy
was assassinated, who among us did
not experience the most profound
disorientation? Despair?

Which way? What now?

What do I say to my kids? What do I
tell myself? It was a time of
people sitting together, bound
together by a common feeling of
hopelessness.


But think of that! Your BOND with
your fellow being was your Despair.
It was a public experience. It was
awful, but we were in it together.


How much worse is it then for the
lone man, the lone woman, stricken
by a private calamity?

"No one knows I’m sick."

"No one knows I’ve lost my last
real friend."

“No one knows I’ve done something
wrong.” Imagine the isolation.

Now you see the world as through a
window. On one side of the glass:
happy, untroubled people, and on
the other side: you.

I want to tell you a story.

A cargo ship sank one night. It
caught fire and went down. And
only this one sailor survived.
He found a lifeboat, rigged a
sail...and being of a nautical
discipline...turned his eyes to the
Heavens and read the stars

He set a course for his home, and
exhausted, fell asleep

Clouds rolled in. And for the next
twenty nights, he could no longer
see the stars. He thought he was
on course, but there was no way to
be certain

And as the days rolled on, and the
sailor wasted away, he began to
have doubts

Had he set his course right? Was he
still going on towards his home?

Or was he horribly lost and doomed to a terrible death?

No way to know. The message of the
constellations - had he imagined
it because of his desperate
circumstance? Or had he seen truth
once and now had to hold on to it
without further reassurance?

There are those of you in church
today who know exactly the crisis
of faith I describe.

And I want to say to you:
Doubt can be a bond as
powerful and sustaining as
certainty. When you are lost, you
are not alone.

In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost.