apostatize

And Rorate Caeli, a traditionalist Catholic blog, claimed that “Silence” represents “renouncement of the Catholic Church by members of the Society of Jesus” due to its protagonist’s decision to apostatize.

The conundrum is one that has nothing to do with Rodrigues’s decision whether to lay down his life, but with his reluctance to apostatize, even in the face of others’ deaths.

In one of the more powerful sequences, three older men are hung from crosses positioned deep in the ocean’s waters - the thrashing waves killing them slowly for their refusal to apostatize.

The closing scenes of his “Silence” follow Rodrigues through the decades after he apostatizes.

He apostatized, and seems to have betrayed the names of his penitents.