PULP CATHOLICISM #044

INTERMISSION

Between the upcoming holiday, pressing family matters, and the usual pre-holiday work crush, it looks like blogging will be light this week. You can always head over to Aleteia to see what I thought of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and I’ll try to keep the cartoon schedule intact, but otherwise, you’ll mercifully be spared my ramblings for a few days. I hope everybody has a happy Thanksgiving and a great start to Advent. See you in a bit.

PULP CATHOLICISM #043

OUTTAKES #047

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

I felt like I needed a break from all the planet shattering destruction to be found at the local cineplexes (at least for a day or two), so I decided to take in Giacomo Campiotti’s Mary of Nazareth for Aleteia this week. It’s probably not going to make the list of ten best biblical epics of all time, but it’s a decent movie with a few nice touches. Marya Jauregui from Catholic Mom has pretty much the same impression of The Christmas Candle, the first movie produced by former Senator Rick Santorum.

Now if you’ve just got to have a religious epic, though, then you’re probably going to have to wait for Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, coming out in March 2014. Peter Chattaway has an exhaustive frame-by-frame breakdown of the first trailer over at Film Chat.

As for non-biblical epics, you might remember that a few weeks ago I reviewed Ender’s Game, the adaptation of Orson Scott Crad’s classic sci-fi novel. Well, some other folks have finally gotten around to seeing it, and as I expected, those who were really big fans of the book were a little disappointed in some of the things left out of the movie. If you want to know just how much didn’t make the transition, then look no further than Jimmy Akin’s review for all the disappointing details. Jordan J. Ballor over at the Acton Institute, however, still managed to find some good moral lessons in what was still left in there.

Speaking of recent releases people are still talking about, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is still impressing people, as this piece by Daniel McInerny illustrates.

But enough of all that serious stuff, let’s have some fun. Otaku Catholic recently watched the anime series, The Devil Is a Part-Timer, in which an extra-dimensional Satan gets trapped in our world and decides to get a job at McDonald’s. Meanwhile, in other comic related news, Matt Archbold has a post up about Catholic with capes, those super-heroes with strong ties to Rome. And if those guys aren’t Catholic enough for you, there’s always Father Dangerous: Bionic Priest whose first trailer is up and running at YouTube (h/t Mark Shea).

Finally, if you haven’t had enough goofiness, Donald R. McClarey takes a little time at The American Catholic to discuss Shakespeare in its original Klingon.

And with that, we’ll leave you until next time. See you then.

PULP CATHOLICISM #042

CUTAWAYS: GHOSTBUSTERS

One of the more noticeable things in Thor: The Dark World (which I just so happened to review for Aleteia this week, plug, plug) is how the filmmakers go out of their way to explain that the Asgardians are not gods, but rather just really, really powerful and long-lived aliens instead. I don’t know, maybe they had an aneurysm or something, because it seems like somebody on the screenwriting staff completely forgot about this scene from Ghostbusters…

So, yes, if somebody asks you if you’re a god, you say yes! Besides, the Catechism says it’s okay to do just that, doesn’t it? You know, right there in paragraph 460 where it quotes 2 Peter 1:4, as well as the writings of St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius…

The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."

See, we’re gods. Gods I tell you! Or maybe not.

What Peter and the other saints are talking about here is the concept of Divine Filiation, aka Divine Sonship. As Fr. Joseph Ponessa, S.S.D., co-author of the “Come and See” Catholic Bible Study Series, explains it, “While St. Athanasius’s quote might be easily misunderstood, the previous line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Catechism), from St. Irenaeus, provides the appropriate context… To be the Son of God and to be a son of God are therefore two very different things: Christ is Son by nature (the “only Son” in John 3:16), while we are sons by grace (“sons in the Son” according to Gaudium et Spes, 22). Further, since man is a creature and there is only one God, man can never be God in the proper sense. Within the context of this paragraph, we see that St. Athanasius’s statement means something other than a man becoming the one God.”

So, what does it mean exactly? Well, basically, it all has to do with God making Himself accessible to us. As Fr. Ponessa puts it, “When God created Adam and Eve, He desired them to participate in His divine nature—to be able to love Him in an intimate way that exceeded the normal ability of human nature. So in addition to their human nature, God bestowed on Adam and Eve the supernatural gift of grace of original holiness (Catechism, no. 375). He thereby invited Adam and Eve to love Him as He loves Himself—that is, in a divine way. However, when they sinned, Adam and Eve forfeited this ability to love God supernaturally. Christ became flesh in order to restore our union with God. In Baptism, we are united to Christ (cf. Gal. 3:27)—sharing in His Passion, Death, and Resurrection (cf. Rom. 6:3-4)—and so become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). Because there is only one divine nature and this nature is God, we are said to “become” God.”

So, no, we don’t become all powerful gods, or even really powerful Asgardian type gods for that matter. But what we do get when we “become God” is the chance to spend an eternity basking in the light of the one true God’s love. That’s a pretty good deal.

PULP CATHOLICISM #041

THE B-MOVIE CATECHISM: THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #15 – DONNIE & MARIE: MONSTER MASH

Okay, so this clip isn’t actually from a movie, but it has Michael Landon reprising his role as the Teenage Werewolf (and singing while doing it, no less) and Don Knotts & Billy Barty belting out a rendition of the Monster Mash, so frankly, who cares where it came from? Plus, on top of all that, there’s a couple of Mormons running around dressed up as vampires. No, no, not Bella and Edward, I wouldn’t be so cruel as to do that to you. I’m talking about those other two Mormon vampires…

I’ll admit, Twilight notwithstanding, vampires and werewolves aren’t normally the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Mormons. Usually the first image that pops into someone’s head is probably that of well-dressed men riding around on bicycles and knocking on your door way too early in the morning. Alright, so there’s also polygamy and magic underwear, but to be fair, the former has been officially discontinued by the LDS and the latter is just a snarky term for one of their religious customs. For my part, I won’t cast any stones at their Mormon long-johns as long as they lay off my Catholic “magic amulets” (yes, I know and you know they’re not magic, but that’s what some people who don’t understand sacramentals call them anyway). I say, let the LDS wear whatever they want to wear.

When it comes to doctrines of faith though, well, there I suppose I’m going to have to give the Mormons a bit of a tough time simply because the differences are just too great. True, it doesn’t always seem that way on the surface, but once you dig around a bit, it becomes more obvious. For instance, back in 1994, a gathering of well known Christian theologians released a document entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together which was basically an ecumenical attempt to reach a minimum level of agreement on the basics of the Christian faith. After a lot of thoughtful debate (and the requisite amount of yelling at each other), they finally settled on the Apostles’ Creed (the one we say with the rosary) as the minimum standard for an agreed upon Christian doctrine. Oh sure, they haggled over stuff like whether or not the Creed meant “catholic church” or “Catholic Church” (those capital letters can make a big difference), but in the end they all accepted the wording.

Now the LDS weren’t a part of ECT, but some of their holy writings would seem to indicate they wouldn’t have been able to accept the group’s conclusions even if they had been. After all, according to the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, when he asked God which church he should join, he writes, “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith – History 1:19).” But apparently things have softened up a bit out in Salt Lake City these days, because most modern Mormons appear to have little trouble with the Apostle’s Creed. In a response to a fan’s question regarding the subject, Donnie Osmond claims that “If we were to insert The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in place of ‘The Holy Catholic Church’, it would define our beliefs about God and Christ very well.”

That sounds pretty good, until you get into specifics. The trouble starts almost immediately with the first words of the Creed, “I believe in God the Father…” Obviously the Mormons believe in God, that’s not the problem, but they do have an entirely different concept of who and what God is than does traditional Christianity. The LDS believe, for example, that “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s… (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22)”, a belief that stands in stark contrast to the orthodox teaching that God is pure spirit. So, everybody can say the first line of the Creed together, but they don’t really mean the same thing as they’re saying it.

But so what, right? What does it matter as long as Mormons are good people? I mean, Donnie & Marie may have been guilty of putting on a silly variety show, but offstage they seem like decent folks, so why worry about their beliefs? Well, because the kinds of differences we’re talking about actually get to the heart of the purpose of religion. You see, religion isn’t just about making good people. Any good course on ethics, even perhaps an atheist one, can manage that. Religion is about responding to God’s call “to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength” so that we may eventually “share in his own blessed life.” That would seem to indicate that a false knowledge of God might just have some pretty big consequences.

For instance, the Mormon belief that God has a physical body implies that something, somewhere, at some point in time, must have created God. If that’s true, why bother worshipping God? Why not worship the even more omnipotent thing that made him instead? Worse yet, if that larger thing is unknowable (the Mormon’s certainly haven’t said what it might be), then why bother worshipping anything at all? See, bad knowledge can lead to bad results. Now contrast that idea with the traditional understanding of God whom the Catechism describes as “the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.” Now that’s a God worthy of worship.

So let the Mormons keep their itchy underwear and their non-threatening vampires, those things are no big deal. Some of the other stuff, though, I’m afraid we’re just gonna have to keep butting heads over. The stakes (sorry, vampires, no pun intended)are a bit too high.

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

Yes, I know we did a Now Showing recently, but every time Halloween rolls around the big shots in the blogosphere can’t seem to help dipping their toes in the murky waters we splash around in on a weekly basis, so there’s lots of fun stuff to be found out there.

First up, we have our review of Ender’s Game, the much anticipated, and much protested (to the disgust of John C. Wright), adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel. Fans of the book will likely wince out how much has been left out of the story, but at least they can console themselves with the fact that the finished product doesn’t stink. But let’s face it, no matter how good the adaptation, the book will (almost) always be better. For instance, as much as I love Robert Wise’s 1963 movie The Haunting (and equally loathe the 1999 remake), nothing will ever top Shirley Jackson’s original novel The Haunting of Hill House, as Scott and Julie over at A Good Story Is Hard To Find will attest to.

Speaking of that proposed protest of Ender’s Game, early indications from the box office are that the movie will probably earn a few million more than originally projected, so it looks like all that fist raising on the Internet will have a minimal effect on its success. Regardless of how well Ender’s Game does, though, it still won’t come close to Gravity, the hands down runaway blockbuster of the season. As you might remember from our review of Gravity, we found the film visually stunning and emotionally immersive, but perhaps a bit light on philosophy. Others have not had that problem, however. Sr Helena at Hell Burns found the movie a bit more spiritual than I did, and CatholicSkywalker found it even more so. And then there’s Kathryn over at Aleteia, who dug really deep and managed to find in Gravity an allegory for botched abortions. So there you go.

Maybe people are just hungry for any hint of real spirituality in movies these days. And really, it’s hard to blame them. After all, it’s not like religion, especially Christianity, has gotten that fair a shake from Hollywood over the past few decades. As evidence, just take a look at Donald R. McClarey’s review of Dr. Peter Dans’ book Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, which chronicles the portrayal of Christians and Christianity in films made between 1905-2008. I’ll give you a hint. Starting in the 60s, it ain’t a pretty picture.

Speaking of which, I can’t imagine an uglier spectacle than Spears The Musical: The Gospel According To Britney. That’s right, some intrepid playwright is proposing a mash-up of the gospels with the pop princess’ performances. As ridiculous as the idea sounds, I’m sure it will find an audience. Liturgical dancers everywhere are probably already salivating.

I suppose we’ll just have to try and laugh that one off. If you’d rather look at something intentionally funny, however, you can always head over to Sword of Peter, where Jeff has his latest cartoon up.

And with that, I’ll stop living off of other people’s posts for the moment and try to get to work on my own stuff. Until then, see you next time.