Mark Batey introduces his screenplay about the life of Fr John Gerard.
Cancel culture, thought police, identity politics. These may sound like modern concepts. Yet across cent- uries and continents examples of radical social engineering abound, with the airbrushing of history and purging of tradition. Top-down cultural revolution, by a totalitarian state or a powerful supranational lobby, requires psychological manipulation, intimidation, threats, fines and even brute force. The imposition of sweeping new ideologies and the overturning of established ways of thinking and behaving generate predictable societal chaos and trauma, and often unanticipated resistance.
