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D r a g n e t
“PICKET FENCES” AS MORAL ARBITER
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This Rock
Volume 4, Number 11
 November 1993 
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"Did you know that the Vatican will not
allow Catholics to use birth control so that Catholics will overpopulate
the world in order to have world dominion?" write Tom and
Elaine Rogers of Tucson, Arizona. They sent us a tape of an episode
of the award-winning CBS drama "Picket Fences,"
which features several practicing Catholics among its characters.
The episode begins with "a furious Catholic who tries to strangle
his parish priest because the priest will not give the man's wife
permission to use birth control." Both spouses carry a gene for
a rare disease which their first child inherited and died from shortly
after birth--thus the need to avoid conception.
As if that situation weren't implausible and insulting enough to Catholic
morality ("See how this restrictive and archaic Catholic rule
will drive men even to murder!"), the rest of the show goes on
to ridicule Catholic teaching and indi viduals alike, with that pseudo-intellectual,
slightly naive, "kinder and gentler" contempt typical of
the media's failed attempts to treat "fairly" that which
they refuse to understand.
Here are just a few examples:
The wife, supposedly representative of Catholics, is a mousy, whiny,
plain-looking woman who, although she remains faithful to her convictions,
is hardly likable, even by those who agree with those convictions.
Her refusal to engage in contraceptive sex with her husband is presented
as unnaturally cold, even fanatical.
The firm stand she takes for her faith is not due to sound conviction
of mind and heart, we're led to understand, but rather out of fear.
She tells her priest that she was taught that if she uses contraceptives,
she'll be "condemned to hell, to burn in an all-consuming fire."
"I will not burn in hell," she announces a little pathetically.
Catholics who follow the Church's position on birth control, then,
are naive, timid, gullible souls.
Nary a connection is made between "the laws of the Church"
and any grounding in moral law. Not once does a priest attempt to
explain why the Church teaches what it does. Every ostensible
attempt by the priest to defend Church teaching only serves to prove
what the viewers have always suspected and the writers apparently
are convinced of: The Church's prohibition of contraception is not
a safeguard against abuse of the marital act, but some kind of repressive,
archaic discipline, a perverse medieval taboo rather than a firm hand
of wisdom guiding the faithful away from an objectively immoral act
and leading spouses toward deeper honesty and love within the marital
bond.
The best the priest can muster is, "It's against the laws of
the Church." His tone is defensive; his conviction seems weak.
When he recommends the rhythm method, he can only sit red-faced
while the other characters (and presumably the audience and the producers)
laugh at him and at us. "I can't believe you said that with a
straight face," says the husband--and neither can we, since
today's advocates of natural family planning don't recommend the rhythm
method; they recommend the far more accurate sympto-thermal or Billings
methods.
This adds up to rather unrealistic characterization: a priest who
does not dissent from an unpopular Church teaching, although all around
him his fellow clergymen do, and yet doesn't have any firm intellectual
grounding for his stand. Not that he needs one necessarily. It's just
that, with respect to moral laws, ignorance dissents while understanding
tends to assent. Rarely, as in this case, does ignorance assent--or
at least very strongly.
There is an explanation given for the Church's stand against contraception,
and it's given by a mainline Protestant minister who tries to snatch
the couple away from Rome. "It's a Vatican conspiracy,"
he assures the husband. By outpopulating the world, the Catholic Church
will "achieve world dominion." The bias here hardly needs
highlighting.
There are other points of bias: the unqualified statement that "90
percent of Catholics favor birth control" (in the U.S. this may
be so, but what about the rest of the world?) and the priest claiming
ominously that, were he to permit the couple to contracept, he would
"face excommunication" (unrealistic; so far as we know no
priests have been excommunicated for this offense, which isn't to
say they shouldn't be).
An especially disturbing episode occurs when a wise-looking judge,
a friend of the priest, confers with him in his chambers. He tells
the priest to give the couple license to contracept, to which the
priest make his standard reply that the Church "forbids it."
"Then tell the Church to go to hell," shouts the judge.
"The Church can't be against abortion and contraception,
not when the number one threat to this planet is overpopulation."
The judge darkly warns that if the Church doesn't loosen up, the government
will be forced to "start legislating religion." "Believe
me, that day is coming." Scary? Yes--and perhaps further
removed from fiction than from truth.
We know Oregon is the state with the highest
percentage of professed atheists, but this doesn't mean it lacks Fundamentalists.
Apparently there are enough of them to warrant the existence of Northwest
Catholic Apologists, a lay apologetics group located in Portland.
The members meet about ten times a year for prayer, sharing, and discussion
of apologetics issues and strategies, and they plan occasional "field
trips" to Fundamentalist churches where "Romanism"
is being attacked.
The mission statement for Northwest Catholic Apologists is straightforward:
"(1) To strive to always submit to the will of God; (2) to pray
constantly and receive frequent Communion and confession; (3) to submit
to the authority of our Holy Father the Pope and to accept, believe,
and defend the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in their entirety;
(4) to increase our knowledge of Church teaching and Scripture; (5)
to defend, with charity and compassion, the Catholic Church from heresy,
apostasy, schism, and sectarian attack and to evangelize the unchurched,
the fallen-away, and those who question our faith.
Sounds good to us. Anyone wanting more information may write to Northwest
Catholic Apologists, c/o Rob Powell, 12490 S.W. 27th St., Beaverton,
OR 97005-5742, or call (503) 646-4710.
Misleading History Department:
In a letter printed in the National Catholic Reporter, Linda
Pinto, who lives in Milford, Pennsylvania, complains that "Pope
John Paul II argued that celibacy must be maintained because it is
`profoundly connected with a man's configurations to Christ as the
good shepherd and spouse of the Church.' Undoubtedly Pope St. Hormidas
[sic; properly Hormisdas] (514-523), who incidentally fathered Pope
St. Silverus [sic; properly Silverius] (536-537) would disagree .
. ."
Notice the "undoubtedly." But should she be so sure? What
is known of Hormisdas's early life is sparse. One thing we can surmise,
merely from the dates Pinto gives (and the dates are accurate), is
that Silverius was born before Hormisdas became pope.
This is important. Look at Pinto's implication in saying that "Pope
St. Hormisdas" fathered "Pope St. Silverius."
She implies that the fathering occurred while the former reigned.
Her agenda is clear. She's working up to a plea to junk priestly celibacy,
on the theory that if it wasn't necessary centuries ago for popes,
it isn't necessary today for priests.
But her implication is contrary to the facts. Hormisdas was elected
in 514. If Silverius was born the next year, he would have been no
more than 21 at his pontifical ordination, yet we know he served as
a subdeacon for some time prior to his election. It's not likely he
was made a subdeacon while a teenager.
So the dates alone suggest that Silverius, whose actual date of birth
is unknown to historians, was born prior to the reign of Hormisdas.
But there is another, simpler way to get rid of Pinto's implication.
We just appeal to the fact that Hormisdas was a widower when elected
pope.
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