Left, Right or Centre? (Part I)

According to Fr. Joseph O'Leary, I'm a NeoCath.

Me - I just prefer to be called a centrist with Fr. Richard Neuhaus:

I venture the suggestion, however, that, in trying to understand the
intra–Catholic disputes of the forty years since the Council, it is more helpful
to think in terms of two parties: the party of discontinuity and the party of
continuity. The party of discontinuity has both right–wing and left–wing
branches, but they are united in their agreement that the Council represented a
decisive break in the story of the Catholic Church. The one sees the Council as
deviation or even apostasy; the other sees the Council as liberation or even
revolution. Both see the Council as a break from what had gone before; both
speak of a pre–Vatican II Church and a post–Vatican II Church, as though there
are two churches; both are highly critical of the Church’s leadership, and of
this pontificate in particular—the one because John Paul II has failed to
restore what was, and the other because it thinks he is trying to do just that.
Such are the two branches of the party of discontinuity.

Guess who turned up in the news

Fr. David Cain - that's who! Fr. David is the assistant parish priest (soon to be Vocations Director for the diocese) at the St. Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham.

If you're ever in Nottingham on a Sunday, be sure to attend the 11:15 AM High Mass. We've got a great choir.

Discrimination if You're Unhealthy; Choice if You're Not

Thomas at American Papist makes a great point:

It's discrimination to kill a child with a disability, but "the parent's choice"
when killing a healthy baby.

Dead right.

Media Coverage of DVC vs. Passion

An excellent report by the Media Research Center on the clear differences and prejudices evident in media coverage of TDVC vs. that in Passion of the Christ:

The contrast in network news coverage between The Passion of the Christ and
The DaVinci Code sends a crystal-clear message on the network news take on which
view of religion they prefer, the orthodox or the unorthodox. The news media are
not obligated to genuflect to an orthodox Christian worldview. But they have
declared, at least in lip service, a devotion to accuracy and fairness and
journalistic skepticism. Coverage of The DaVinci Code displays how those
principles are routinely ignored.

Critics of the conservative reaction to The DaVinci Code have suggested
that it is hard to declare the book and movie are "out of the mainstream" when
it has sold tens of millions of copies. (They will now declare the same argument
using the box-office receipts.) But those sales have happened in part because of
very aggressive salesmanship on the part of the "mainstream" media, which played
up the "intriguing" elements and downplayed the insulting ones. Network
television news stars may boast at seminars that they are tough on everyone,
"without fear or favor," but in real life, their devotion to secularism is
almost religious in its intensity.

More TDVC Reaction

Amy's got a transcript of this nice interview with Fr. Jim Martin SJ (an associate editor of America magazine) - worth checking out.

TDVC: First Thoughts

Finally saw The Da Vinci Code.

There are a couple of nice reviews around in St. Blogs - I recommend the ones by Amy, Jimmy and Stephen.

First, I thought the movie wasn't as bad as it was made out to be. Sure, it drags for quite a while (especially the first two hours) and the main characters have about as much depth to them as an omelette. But the music was OK for me, and the settings were rather nice. I only managed to sit back and enjoy the movie after evil Opus Dei monk Silas and evil Opus Dei (or should it be "Council of Shadows") Bishop Aringarosa (is it just me or does anyone else hear a nursery rhyme in the background) are killed. I'm a little disturbed by that fact - considering quite a bit of the "Sang Real" (Royal Blood) revelation comes after it - like the fact that Sophie Nevue (Audrey Tatou) is the last living descendent of Christ (so who killed the other 3,994?).

Second, the film confirmed my worst fears about the depictions of a blood-thirsty Church and Opus Dei. I shudder to think how real-life Opus Dei members deal with the surreptitious glances of co-workers ("I knew there was something sinister about Mrs. Smith the school-cook there"). If ever an organisation had a great case for defamation - this is it.

Third, I think trying to do a point-by-point rebuttal of the historical "facts" presented in the book and the movie won't work practically. After all, how many viewers are going to remember terms like 'Constantine', 'Council of Nicea' and 'Malleus Malleficorum' half an hour after leaving the movie hall? What will remain with them is the overall sense of menace, duplicity and immorality of the Church - and that's what needs to be countered. Have no doubts about it - Catholics (even the "cafeteria" variety) will have a cross to bear in the public sphere. The "facts" in the movie have a cumulative effect (as does various other impressions about the Church that float around in popular perception) on anti-Catholic bias - what the movie (and book) does is to concentrate it all in a brief space of time, making concrete the bias into prejudice and hatred.

Fourth, the only part of the movie that really angered me was the depiction of the Early Christian Martyrs as violent trouble-makers in Ancient Rome. Now that is on par with saying that the Jews attacked the Nazis, or that the Africans jumped on to the slave-ships to beat up the poor sailors. It's a pure, malicious, inhuman distortion of history and an absolute denial of the horrific martyrdom of these Christians.

Truly, anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice in modern society.

Welcome

to all the Cap One folk reading this!

(Especially you two jokers by the Canal-side window)

It's been a while...

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