The Conflict

Along with his monks, the Abbot (Trevor Howard) who heads the remote Irish monastery of Mork in Eire, decides to defy an edict from Rome forbidding all Catholics to celebrate the Mass in Latin. Refusing to bow down to Papal pressure and use English for their Mass, the monastery of Mork soon becomes a place of international pilgrimage. Alarmed by the Abbot's populist move, Rome moves to quell the dissent and the Father General sends his representative Father Kinsella (Martin Sheen) to Eire. As the two men confront each other's religious beliefs and interpretations, the Abbot is forced to face up to his own personal quandary: it is not just the teachings of his Church that he has come to question, but the very basis of his own belief in God.