Saturday, March 26, 2011

Barabbas Goes Free

By Erik Rottman

Catholic-ometer: 2.5 of 5




Enjoyability: 3.5 of 5




Today, a change of pace; a children's book about Jesus and Barabbas, and the verdict before Pontius Pilot.  Of course, like most children's books on the subject, it's told in rhyme, but it basically covers all the important points of the actual story of Barabbas in the bible.  In fact, in a way, I was surprised by how much of the tale survived the transition into a children's book.

There is one problem, however, which I simply can't overlook.  On the fifth page of the book, there's a verse about how God's fourth command is to obey the government.  Um...  No, it's not.  The fourth commandment is to honor your father and mother, or in the Orthadox tradition, to keep the sabbath day holy.  At no point does God prescribe broad, sweeping obedience of every government authority as neccesary or holy in the entire bible.

In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5, verse 29, it clearly says that the obligation of Christians is to obey God's commands, over the orders of any human being; including those in positions of authority.

"But Peter and the apostles said in reply, 'We must obey God rather than men.'"
Acts 5:29

I wouldn't make such a big deal of this, except that exercising proper discernment about the morality of government laws and orders is more neccesary now than it's ever been since the days of the roman persecutions of Christians, and since the government runs our schools, we need to be preparing kids to defend themselves from corrupt authority figures at a very early age; not encouraging moral weakness in the face of opposition from oppressive politicians and judges.

Shortly after that, the book also states that those in authority are always "God's sent."  No.  They're not always, and it's niave and dangerous to believe that.  They always have an obligation to carry out God's will, but to suggest that every human authority figure fulfills that obligation, or worse, should be treated as though they do, is just stupid.

This is a grievous mistake for a book like this to make, and it would be enough for me to avoid purchasing it, or reading it to kids.  It's also the reason why I gave it such a relatively crumby score on the Catholic-ometer.  This kind of dissention in the ranks is just something that none of us can afford.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Life of Christ

By Fulton J. Sheen

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5




Enjoyability: 5 of 5




I just finished this book recently, and I have to admit; I was totally blown away.  It's a fantastic book about Jesus; true, blue Catholic from start to finish.

Any good Catholic looking for solid teaching, presented in a dramatic, entertaining and captivating manner needs to look up the name of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.  He was an extremely faithful Catholic, a wonderful teacher, and incredible intellectual, and an amazingly charismatic speaker.  Little wonder, then, that for years and years, he not only wrote numerous books and sermons, but had his own show on the radio, and on television.  He even won an award for best television personality; back before the anti-catholic prejudice in the secular media became the epidemic it is today.

The Life of Christ is some of Bishop Sheen's best work; a point-by-point retelling of the life of Jesus, with bible quotes and reflections for each major event contained in the gospels, as well as additional tidbits of information about the majority of the events described.  Bishop Sheen's writing is enthusiastic and insightful, and at more than one point, he applies the gospel message nicely to the problems of his own times.

Of course, the times that Bishop Sheen addressed were a generation ago, when Russia was a threat, but his words about communism, China, and the problems facing the United States are just as true now as they were then.  If anything, I think that the last thirty years have only served to prove Bishop Sheen's points even more than ever.

The church that my parents attend no longer has a crucifix above the altar.  Now, we just have a sculpture of the risen Christ, and in this book, Bishop Sheen makes a point of saying, many times, that we can't afford to accept just one (Christ) or the other (the cross.)  We have to take them both.

I honestly think that this desire to avoid preaching the hard truths of Christianity that we see so often in "modern" churches in the west is responsible for the declining mass attendance.  How are we going to see Jesus as sympathetic to our suffering if we don't dwell on what he suffered?  This is the sort of thing that this book got me thinking about.

If I had to find any fault with this book, it's that Bishop Sheen does repeat himself once or twice; making the same point two or even three times over the course of the book.  Still, this is not neccesarily a fault, since many of us need things repeated in order to remember them.  This is why I give the Life of Christ a perfect score.  It's a truly magnificent book, which really helped me to understand more about the faith, and I highly reccomend it.

Friday, March 11, 2011

"The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" and "Apparitions at Fatima"

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima

Not Rated

Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5




Enjoyability: 5 of 5







Not Rated

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5




Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5




The apparitions at Fatima have gotten a lot of press, and for good reason.  It was one of the few times in recent history when a miracle has occurred so clearly, and to so many at once, in the midst of one of the most skeptical and secular societies in human history; Portugal during the first world war.  In that terrible climate of religious oppression, Mary; the mother of God appeared to three young children, and after several appearances, the sun was seen to move by more than eighteen thousand people; some of whom were a huge distance away from the apparition when it took place.  To them, the sun almost seemed to be dancing through the air, and its motion was accompanied by many other miracles as well, such as the near-instant curing of many people who were sick, blind and injured.  Such a clear and undeniable miracle has, to this day, won many souls for God, and millions still believe in the miracle of the sun.

It's no wonder, then, that so many movies have been made about the dancing sun and the blessed mother's appearance at Fatima.  I certainly can't cover all of those movies in one entry, so today, I'd just like to talk about two, which are virtually on opposite ends of the scale in quality.  "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" (hereafter called MOLF) and "Apparitions at Fatima."

I started watching MOLF fairly recently, and was surprised by its quality as a film.  It's very well-done.  Its characters are believable and likable people, its special effects are believable for the most part, its script was very well-written, and on the whole, I thought that it succeeded magnificently as a movie.  However, it's still not completely perfect.

There are two reasons why MOLF gets one half point down on the Catholic-ometer.  The first is that the movie spends so much of its time dwelling on the ordeals of the children, and the people of Fatima, that much of the lady's intended message wasn't clear.  The second is that in the real apparitions, the lady was preceded by an angel, who gave the children holy communion, and warned them to pray diligently and make sacrifices.  Of all the movies based off Fatima that I've seen, only a couple include this detail.

One movie that includes this episode is "Apparitions," another film I saw recently, and I must say, that in terms of including all the actual historical facts of the case, it was more complete.  The angel was included, as well as the sacrifices made by the children, and the full messages of the blessed mother.  This is why it gets an extra half-point from me on the Catholic-ometer; because it includes more of the truth of what happened.  However, this is the only honest compliment that I can give to "Apparitions," because in every other respect, the movie was brain-destroyingly awful.

Believe me; I don't say this lightly, and I didn't want to hate "Apparitions," but I think that, if anything, it's likely to lead people away from the faith because of its poor quality, rather than inspiring them, or leading them to God.  Excusing, for a moment, the fact that it's a very badly-dubbed foreign film which relies on a frequent narrator to provide exposition throughout the beginning, middle and end of the film, every line of dialogue sounds like it was taken verbatim from a textbook on Fatima, and recited in the blandest and least interesting way possible.  Not a single performance in this movie is moving, or even convincing.  Every last word sounds forced and wooden, and that's not even getting into the cheap camera-smudge, painting and filter special effects used in the movie, which were done just as badly as the rest of the film, or the short, unconvincing puppet used to represent Mary.  I'm seriously not kidding about any of this.

What else can I say?  "Apparitions" was more faithful to what really happened by a small margin, so I have to give it that last half star for pure faithfulness, but I can't think of any reason for watching it, when you can get all of that technical information out of a book or on the internet.  If you're watching a movie, you want to have a good time.

This is how I see "Apparitions."  It's as if someone tried to scribble out a very boring and annoying textbook using crayons, and kept breaking them midway through.  It's faithful to what actually happened to a fault, but cinematically-incompetent.

MOLF, by comparison, is an enjoyable ride, full of lovable, memorable characters and charming scenes that inspired my faith, and at more than one point, actually made me cry a little.  It's a masterpiece of writing and acting, and if I didn't already know about the miracle of the sun, this movie would have encouraged me to read up on it.

My conclusion, therefore, is simply this; be careful not to mistake "Apparitions" for MOLF in a video store.  They're as different as night and day.  You can rent or buy MOLF anytime you want, and enjoy it with your kids.  You won't regret the experience.  Pick up "Apparitions," however, and I make no promises about whether or not you'll regret it.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI; A Love Affair with the Truth

Not Rated

Catholic-ometer: 2.5 of 5




Enjoyability: 3 of 5
You really have to be careful with documentaries; especially ones that rely on a narrator, background music and jump-cuts, because nearly every documentary that does this has an axe to grind, and is trying to get some point across.

That most definitely holds true for this documentary, so the only question that we really need to ask ourselves is this; is that axe aimed at the enemies of Catholicism, or at its neck?

The question of the quality of the documentary may not even come up.  For the record, though, it's made about as well as any documentary, which is to say that it left very little impression on me, primarily because about eighty percent of the talking was done by the narrator, telling us what the pope believes, instead of letting us hear his own words.  That was a warning sign for me, though it wasn't obvious in the early parts of the film.

You see, there's a trick that documentary-makers like to use.  Before they start giving you their message, they start off with information about history, or the person's childhood and rise to fame, which is usually accurate enough.  They do this because they want to convince the viewer of their trustworthiness.

However, once the set-up of the person's life is established, the documentary's message rears its ugly head.  Using, I think, some of the heaviest bias I've ever seen on film, this documentary tries to establish the pope as harmless and inoffensive.  In short, as someone bland, who just wants to go back to his library and leave the rest of us alone.

Maybe I'm being too hard on them, and maybe this isn't the message they intended to give, but I have a hard time believing that all of this documentary's tremendous missteps could have been accidental.  They lay huge stress on how the pope is accepting the loss of the church's holdings into his coat of arms, how he's a prolific writer, how he preaches peace and truth, etc... none of which means a thing according to the gospel.  Accepting the loss of holdings is economic, not spiritual, and being a great writer is only important if you use that to serve God.  However, this movie makes no mention of what kinds of things the pope wrote about; it drops a couple names and summaries, but no specific themes in his work, which, I think, is a massive disservice to both the pope and the truth.

As for "peace" and "truth," neither of those words can be assumed to be truly good or Catholic anymore.

On the subject of peace, I suggest reading John 14:27, followed by Matthew 10:34.  Jesus came to Earth to preach peace, but not worldly peace.  He came to bring the peace of God, and as it happens, there's already an established definition for that, found in the Summa Theologica; Second part of Part 2, Question 29, Article 1.

"There can be concord in evil between wicked men. But 'there is no peace to the wicked' (Isaiah 48:22). Therefore peace is not the same as concord."

The trend in the modern world is to pretend that all non-war is neccesarily peace, when, in fact, worldly peace often leads to a lack of God's peace.  Because of this, pursuing agreements with other human beings, and ignoring the truths of the faith is the same thing as buying into a lie, which leads me to the other point.

Truth.  Of course, a good Catholic recognizes truth as an absolute value, set in place by God, but that's not the way the world sees it, and we need to be careful to point this out, whenever we use the word in Catholic circles.  This movie fails to do this; to the point of making it look deliberate; as though some attempt to deconstruct the church is involved here.

There are three main examples of this.  In one instance, the narrator says that the pope needed to guide "traditionalists" to implement the teachings of the second vatican council, almost as though it was only "traditionalists" who ever failed to implement those teachings, or who rebelled against them openly.  Furthermore, in the modern, American church, the word "traditionalist" has come to merely mean "a Catholic who honors the traditional values of the faith," in which case, no one can truly be Catholic without being, in some manner, a traditionalist.  Comments like these give cover to heretics who want to transform the church into their own kind of worship, which has nothing to do with Catholic Church teaching.

The second example of this was when the pope's books were being described, and although the film is loath to actually mention anything contained in those magnificent books, it does mention that one of his books was very popular among Lutherans.  Lutherans!  Why would any Catholic care about that?  The Catholic Church has no stake in the Lutheran religion, beyond a blanket duty to convert as many of them as possible, so that they can be led to the truths of the Catholic Church.  Why would anyone want a Catholic pope to be loved by Lutherans?  For that matter, what does the pope's popularity among protestant groups have to do with anything?  Isn't the point how well and how far he preaches the true word of God?

The third example of this kind of thing is worse, however, because it pertains to the church's relations with Islam.  The narrator informs us that the pope quoted a bizantine emperor, infuriating muslims, but doesn't mention what he said, or what message he was trying to get across.  However, the narrator does go over, in excruciating detail, how the pope went to a muslim nation shortly afterwards, and prayed to God, while standing in a muslim temple.  It even has the gall to use the term "universal God" in these surroundings, as if trying to convince us that, in the end, all of our religions are the same; something which any faithful Catholic knows is absolutely false.

These kinds of things gave me the distinct impression that modernist, humanist-minded individuals, who want to claim that the church is just one of many valid religions, have made a documentary about the pope's life, putting their own spin on it, to try to mislead the flock.  It's subtle enough that I can't prove anything, which is why it's not rated lower, but this is not something faithful Catholics will get anything out of.

For the record, Jesus came to Earth in a time when peace came in the form of the dreaded "Pax Romana;" the iron-fisted roman oppression that eventually served as the vehicle for his own death, and the early church fathers didn't see their religion in terms of peacemaking.  They saw it as a war or competition.  To quote Saint Paul; "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Jesus didn't teach that worldly peace was an end unto itself, much less the ultimate end, and you will not find the word "tolerance" anywhere in the entire bible.  What he did teach was that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to God, except through him.  This is what the pope of the Catholic Church really believes, and the message that he works to spread, no matter what a fifty-five minute documentary might imply to the contrary, and you can take that to the bank.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Juno

Rated PG-13

Catholic-ometer: 3 of 5




Enjoyability: 2.5 of 5




This movie was an unusual case.  It's a movie about how a young, immature, teenage girl discovers she's pregnant after spontaneous sex with a young, slightly-more-mature, teenage boy, and how she copes with it.  She contemplates abortion at first, but ultimately, chooses adoption instead.  It amazes me that the movie's plot can be, on the surface, so pro-life, and still not be something a good Catholic can really enjoy.

I say "on the surface" because actually watching the movie takes work.  Juno herself is an unpleasant and unresponsible girl, with a decidedly critical and pessimistic view of the world around her, and it shows, because the movie is narrated by her inner monologue.  Still, this alone wouldn't be enough to ruin the film.  If I tried to count all the movie protagonists who start out foolish and irresponsible, and learn some important lesson by the end of the film, which turns their life around, I'd be too busy to make another post for the rest of my life.

The problem is in the specifics.  You've probably heard that this movie contains profanity.  That's a whopping big understatement if I ever heard one.  This may be one of the most vulgar films I've ever seen, and as of right now, it's proof that they'll never give a movie an R rating for cursing alone.  I usually don't mind a little cursing in movies for the sake of realism, but this didn't feel realistic at all.  It felt over-the-top.  Maybe that was intentional.  Maybe they were trying to get a laugh that way.  I don't know.  I just know it didn't make me laugh.  The cover of the DVD claims that it's a comedy, but it didn't get a peep of laughter from me, so I sort of assumed that was a misprint.

This movie, to its credit, tries to tackle all the hard sexual subjects of today; teen pregnancy, abortion, divorce, and so forth, but through it all, there's no real talk of honor or ethics, much less religion, and it seems to arrive at only about half the answers to the questions it poses.

Nobody comes out and says "what you did was wrong."  There's no sense, from any of the characters, that their actions brought about consequences and they should take responsibility for them; just a mass of emotions over things like fingernails, body shape and lust.

This sense of things being unfortunate, but never bad or wrong pervades the whole movie.  When Juno has sex out of wedlock, she's never told it was wrong.  When she decides against abortion, she never expresses that she thought it was wrong.  When the couple who plans to adopt her child decide to get a divorce, once again, that horrible word "wrong" never dares to rear its ugly head.  Even when the husband in that couple... acts unfaithfully, Juno never tells him that he's wrong to do so.  No one does.  Pish-tosh.  It just isn't done.  We don't say nasty words like that at the country club.

Juno herself demonstrates many instances of poor judgment and simple bad morals early in the film, and never really seems to learn her lesson about them later.  In one instance, she expresses inner disgust over her boyfriend's mother being overweight, and in another, makes a comment that sounds almost like a plug for gay adoption.  Bringing these things in, and failing to talk about whether they're wrong or right is simply a cop-out, and honestly, we deserve better.

Ultimately, the strengths of this movie are found in the boyfriend, who, though shy and weak-willed, seems to genuinely care about Juno and want what's best for her, and in Juno herself, who gradually learns to appreciate that kind of love; the kind that involves making sacrifices.  It would be a mistake to say that these are not strengths.  They certainly are.

However, the particular phrasing of the lesson that Juno learns is something like "someone who loves you for who you really are," and this is a humanist moral lesson; not a Catholic one.  Love, by the Catholic definition, has nothing to do with who the person you love is, and everything to do with the person doing the loving.  It's a one-sided decision to do what's best for the other person, regardless of what kind of person they are, or how you may feel about them.

Ultimately, I think that "Juno" might serve well as a ecumenical vehicle to guide wayward souls towards a better means of thinking, and as movies go, it doesn't stink, but if you're already a strong Catholic, don't waste your time on it.

The Point of this Blog

I'll be brief.  As a Catholic, seeking deeper truth, I'm frequently confounded by the heretical or otherwise unfaithful presence, within the culture, of those who claim to belong to the same religion that I do.  My intention here is to review pieces of culture from a Catholic perspective, and provide some explanation of just whether it's worth the time of a faithful Catholic.  I'll review books, movies, audio cds and so forth...  Even certain internet presentations.  My reviews will each be preceded by two star rankings; one to represent the faithfulness and presence of Catholic values within the book/movie/talk, and one for general quality of the piece, and its ability to hold my attention.  If, like me, you're looking for the truth, and are just having trouble finding it because of all the garbage that gets in the way, you may find these reviews helpful, and you can read as much or as little of them as you like.

I'll also do my best to cite sources for the claims I make regarding the faith.  Hopefully, I'll be able to keep doing this for a while.