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No thank
you, Philip Pullman
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
The Catholic League has issued an alert about a movie judged guilty of
Catholic bashing. The movie is titled “The Golden Compass.” It is a
children’s fantasy based on the first book of a trilogy, His Dark
Materials, written by an English atheist, Philip Pullman. According
to the Catholic League, each book in the trilogy becomes progressively
more aggressive in its promotion of atheism. The Subtle Knife is
more provocative than Northern Lights (released in the United
States as The Golden Compass) and The Amber Spyglass is
the most in-your-face assault on Christian sensibilities of the three
volumes.
The Catholic League is a civil rights organization. It owes its
existence to the conviction of its founder, Father Virgil C. Blum, SJ,
that prejudice against the Catholic Church, as Arthur Schlesinger Sr.
once observed, is “the deepest bias in the history of the American
people.”
The Catholic League’s Web page advertises that when Catholics are the
victims of a bigoted portrayal by the media, it issues news releases
bringing the matter to the attention of the public. When Catholic
students or employees are denied their rights in school or on the job,
the Catholic League makes a formal response to the guilty parties. When
Catholics are slighted by public officials, the Catholic League calls
press conferences alerting the public to the unacceptable behavior of
its servants. When Catholic interests are unfavorably represented by
public policy initiatives, the Catholic League offers testimony before
legislative bodies to get the record straight. When officials in
government, the media and education need an informed perspective on
Catholic civil rights issues, the Catholic League provides a quick and
effective response.
William (Bill) Donohue is president of the Catholic League. Perhaps you
have seen him from time to time on television.
According to Bill Donohue, Philip Pullman sells atheism for kids. In his
judgment, “The Golden Compass,” which stars Nicole Kidman, will entice
parents to buy Pullman’s trilogy as a Christmas gift. “I don’t want
Christians to be seduced by the idea that this is a great fairy-tale
story to show your kids at Christmas time,” Donohue is quoted as saying.
“It’s a backdoor way of selling atheism. Unsuspecting parents will take
little Johnny to see the movie. Johnny likes the movie. Johnny gets the
trilogy for Christmas.”
Pullman’s books in England are more popular than Harry Potter. If the
movie fails to meet box-office expectations, Donohue is convinced
Pullman’s books will attract few buyers here in the United States, where
sales to date have been less than spectacular. But, even though the
producers of “The Golden Compass” are said to have watered down the most
offensive elements of the book, if the movie is successful the books
will likely become a huge success here in the United States.
It isn’t unusual for individuals to urge me, as diocesan bishop, to
“warn” the Catholics of Northcentral Indiana about a variety of things
which they judge to be insulting to our Catholic religion, if not
overtly anti-Catholic. There is hesitation in doing so unless I have
seen what I am being urged to condemn. Condemnation often does little to
dissuade. More often than not, it provides free publicity for the very
activity proposed for boycott. That at least has been the case with
movies. Since I have not taken time to read the Pullman books (nor do I
intend to do so) and “The Golden Compass” has not yet been released as I
write this column, I don’t know if Bill Donohue is on target or not. The
presumption is that he is, and that the Pullman books incorporate
anti-religion, anti-God themes that could lead children to the slippery
slope. If that’s the case, parents need to be alerted lest they buy into
the hype. Because Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, is
thought to have already sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, with
Northern Lights winning the Carnegie Medal for children’s
literature in 1995 and in 2007 the “Carnegie of Carnegies” award for the
best children’s book of the past 70 years, it seems to me that could
easily happen.
Research indicates the trilogy follows the adventures of a street-wise
girl who travels through multiple worlds populated by witches,
armor-plated bears and sinister ecclesiastical assassins to defeat the
oppressive forces of a senile God. One of the characters, an ex-nun,
describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.” One
critic states that for Pullman, sexual awakening triggers the beginning
of self-knowledge and intellectual curiosity. The loss of sexual
innocence is a springboard to a productive and virtuous adulthood.
Sandra Miesel, co-author of The DaVinci Hoax, recently spoke at
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish. She pointed out that in Pullman’s books,
the Catholic Church is viciously caricatured as “The Magisterium.” The
kingdom is replaced with the republic, agents of “The Magisterium”
kidnap and maim urchins, and God is a senile imposter pretending to be
divine. Themes in the trilogy include murder, euthanasia, torture and
cannibalism.
The Atlantic magazine recently carried an article by Hannah
Rosin, wherein she explains that Pullman’s His Dark Materials centers on
a pre-teen orphan who is pursued by a murderous institution known as
“The Magisterium.” In its quest to eradicate sin, the Church sanctions
experiments involving the kidnap and torture of hundreds of children —
experiments that separate the body from soul and leave the children to
stumble around zombie-like, and then die. The series, according to
Rosin, builds up to a cataclysmic war between heaven and earth. God is
revealed to be a charlatan.
None of this strikes me as an appropriate minefield for children to
enter, especially since it comes from an author who is quoted in a 2003
interview (The Sydney Morning Herald) to have said, “My books are
about killing God.”
There is big money to be made, of course. Catholic bashing seems to have
become a popular avenue to travel on the way to the bank. We don’t need
to reward those who have no scruples about the damage done to the
innocent, especially when they engage Catholic bashing as their vehicle.
Hopefully, the movie — successfully sanitized or not — will be a
financial flop. Meanwhile, perhaps awareness that the Pullman trilogy is
not a harmless fairy tale will truncate book sales as well. |
