Critic Al Dobras, who serves up film reviews on the Internet, call Contact “the most hostile anti-Christian movie I have ever seen. Christians are portrayed as terrorists, bigots, and anti-intellectuals who are motivated by greed, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and an irrational understanding of the nature of things. The sole sympathetic Christian character is an ex-priest who left the Church because he couldn’t go along with its rules on celibacy and finds himself in bed with a partially nude Jodie Foster. His character is so weak, he offers no spiritual counter-weight at all to the polished and sympathetic heroine. The movie is so blatant and one-sided in its atheistic theme that it is difficult to imagine anyone taking the film seriously. However, it is so cleverly constructed, one is almost led to cheer when Jodie’s voyage to the stars ‘validates’ her understanding of a godless universe and silences her detractors.”
The U.S. Catholic Conference review mentions nothing about anti-Christian content and glosses over the sexual content: “Contact is the impressive-looking sci-fi tale in which radio astronomer Jodie Foster picks up an alien transmission with the blueprint for a spaceship to transport one human to the sender’s distant galaxy. While focusing on the astronomer’s determination to be the one selected for the flight, the story also touches on the scientific and spiritual implications of extraterrestrial life. [A-III (adults) because of some sexual innuendo and fleeting violence. Rated PG (parental guidance suggested).]”
Not surprisingly, the film was written by late astronomer Carl Sagan as a kind of “Hail, and farewell.” Dobras observes that Contact “serves as a fitting epitaph to a life dedicated to denying the existence of God.”
Catholic Answers has received a number of inquiries about Malachi Martin in the wake of his five-hour interview on the Art Bell radio talk. The confusion is not surprising. A charming and persuasive conversationalist, Martin makes a good impression on listeners. But his message (satanic rituals in the Vatican, an impending cataclysm, conspiracies galore) seems to appeal to our propensity to expect the worst—a tendency that hardly needs reinforcing these days.
An ex-Jesuit, Martin has long claimed for himself the status of Vatican insider. In his “exposé” of the Jesuits, for example, he reported verbatim discussions at which he could not have been present—implying that he was in the confidence of the principals. In The Keys of This Blood, he showed the inner thoughts of the Holy Father himself: “Most frighteningly for John Paul, he had come up against the irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops’ chanceries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called the ‘superforce’” (p. 632).
But his most disturbing charges he has couched as fiction in his novel Windswept House, which “reveals” diabolical forces at work in the very See of Peter. Martin told U.S. News and World Report that the plot of the book is “not very” fictional. A coalition of cardinals, academics, and others who want to remake the Church for secular ends is campaigning to change doctrine and elect the next pope. “It’s not a conspiracy, but it’s deliberate. Conciliarists [those who want to liberalize Church doctrine] and non-globalists think the same way. Neither like the Pope’s policies. They are preparing for the selection of the next pope.”
So why not expose them, rather than disguising fact as fiction? “I plan to write a monograph in the fall that names some names,” Martin told U.S. News last summer. While awaiting that publication, one can note that Martin is a favorite “quotee” of certain non-Catholics—and not to the greater glory of the Church.
Besides Art Bell’s listeners (who probably think The X-Files is a government cover-up), Martin’s brand of apocalypticism is taken by enemies of the Church as proof of its corruption.
“It is startling to listen to the Jesuit [ sic] author, Malachi Martin, asserting in his book, The Keys Of This Blood, that now ‘the Dove is loose, the Dove is loose,’” declares Grace Baptist Church and Old Paths Ministries in a radio program. “The entire theme of this book is that the drive to the New World Order is a competition between the worldwide forces of Communism, Western Capitalism, and Roman Catholicism. Martin clearly believes that Catholicism will prevail in this struggle because of the intervention of the Virgin Mary. Martin did not specify what he meant by this phrase, ‘the Dove is loose’; clearly, however, he might have been referring to this common Roman depiction of the Virgin Mother. What Martin is saying, then, is that the ancient worship of the Pagan Virgin Mother is now loosed in the world.” (A better guess might be the Holy Spirit, but let us press on.)
At McDonald Road Seventh-day Adventist Church, the congregation was likewise incited against Catholicism using Martin’s material: “You remember that big book that Malachi Martin wrote called The Keys of This Blood. . . . We have studied it quite extensively at Southern Adventist University. In this book he says this: ‘[Pope John Paul] is waiting . . . for an event that will fission (split) human history, splitting the immediate past from the oncoming future. It will be an event on public view in the skies, in the oceans, and on the continental landmasses of this planet. It will particularly involve our . . . sun.’ Catholics believe that . . . the Virgin Mary, so called, is telling them and warning them of what is going to be happening. And they say in here, ‘This Warning will be an explosive, global incident of such paralyzing force and magnitude that it is unprecedented in the history of man.’”
Martin is also quoted extensively by televangelist Jack Van Impe and others who find his twin themes of cataclysm and collapse of the Church irresistible. The author himself believes the structure of the Church is moribund. He told Paul Likoudis of The Wanderer: “My book is radical, because it says the organization is spent and can’t go on. That’s the implication of Windswept House.”
Although Martin styles himself a Church insider—and talks at length about his career as an exorcist—in fact he was, according to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life,dispensed from his religious vows in 1965 and has had no priestly faculties since then. Yet he did not correct Bell, who repeatedly addressed him as “Father.”
It may be true that the Church needs pruning, that individual Churchmen or whole bureaucracies are unfaithful to the gospel. But the Church is the world’s first and greatest “renewable resource.” It would be a shame if orthodox Catholics lost hope because of Martin’s doomsaying. As Fr. Mitch Pacwa has said, “progressives” are spiritual geldings. They make no converts, but we do. Our task is to know, live, and spread our faith, whether the world ends next year or ten thousand years from now.
As if Priest and Ellen weren’t enough, Disney/ABC is serving up a new television series in September that promises to be even more sick-making. In Nothing Sacred “a priest struggles with his own desires . . .” says the promo announcer, as the priest approaches a woman-friend and asks, “Can I hear your confession . . . or would you like to hear mine?”
During a homily, he shouts, “I will hear no more sexual sins in the confessional!” In another scene, he’s holding a newborn baby (his baby?) which he elevates like a consecrated Host.
The hype on the ABC Web Site offers no hope that Nothing Sacred will be more than Church-bashing with commercials: “It’s tough being a priest in the ’90s. Just ask Father Ray (Kevin Anderson). In one morning alone, he’s nearly been fired for advising a pregnant teenager to follow her own instincts. He’s had to turn down a bribe in the confessional, even though he’s desperate for money to keep his church afloat. His college flame has just walked back into his life and re-ignited old passions. And now his mentor is asking him to deliver a sermon proving the existence of God. How should he know if God exists? . . . he hasn’t even finished the book yet! On a daily basis, Father Ray struggles with sacrificing his own personal goals and desires for a parish that commits every sin in the proverbial book. The truth is, the humanity that makes him susceptible to temptation and self-doubt is the very same humanity that sets him apart as one of the most accessible and loving priests around. He’s been cursed with the God-given gift for touching people’s souls. If only Ray could find God to soothe his soul.”
There is one problem with unmarried bishops, God love them. In the United States, at least, it seems the only women they talk with are feminist nuns. That’s the only logical explanation for the angst some of our shepherds felt over adopting the “less-inclusive” lectionary the Vatican had approved.
At the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ meeting June 19–21, Bishops Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, and Richard J. Sklba, auxiliary of Milwaukee, urged their brother bishops not to accept a proposed new lectionary, because the language was not gender-inclusive enough.
“I know bishops are tired of these translation issues,” Trautman said. “If this [new lectionary] comes out . . . it solves nothing. . . . We are not resolving the pastoral problem of inclusivity.”
Sklba said that to adopt the Vatican-authorized lectionary “is sure to consign us to yet another generation of pencil marked texts.” The bishop refers to the common practice of rewriting the Mass readings to make them sound more inclusive. In some communities, all “sexist” references are whited out and the “inclusive” version is written in over them.
Bishop Raymond A. Lucker of New Ulm, Minnesota, told the National Catholic Reporter that Trautman’s and Sklba’s exhortations to “stand up to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” was a “proud moment” in the history of the U.S. bishops.” After all, Trautman pointed out, even Fundamentalists use more inclusive language than the new lectionary would permit!
“What does that say about our biblical scholarship?” Trautman fretted.
In the end, the bishops voted to accept the lectionary provisionally, for five years. They also voted on changes in the sacramentary, including new translations of Mass responses.
We’ve come a long way since 1930, when the Anglican Church became the first Christian communion to permit artificial contraception. Now the Planned Parenthood video “Talking About Sex” is being touted by the National Council of Churches. The Rev. Dr. Joe Leonard, associate director of the NCC’s Ministries in Christian Education program, exclaims in promotional material: “Hurray! Here is an engaging resource for coaching parents in one of their most important tasks—educating their children about sexuality.” The video is “complete and accurate,” Leonard says—despite the fact that its advocacy of abortion and premarital sex violates the doctrines of nearly all of the thirty-three member communions of NCC.
The theme song of the prevailing American culture could be Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. The University of Dallas intends to provide a roadmap to the right place. Prof. Douglas Bushman, in a four-month series of talks called “Catholic for a Reason,” will explore the unique gift of God’s love and show how it can transform lives. “Our culture is starving for authentic love,” Bushman says. “What else, except that we’re so hungry for love, could explain the popularity of Mother Teresa? The genuineness of her love is so evident. It’s one thing to say that you believe in love, but it’s another to bring it into the world through service.” For more information on the talks, call Alan Van Zelfden at (972) 721-5194.
After the close of the Catholic Marketing Network in Somerset, New Jersey, intrepid Catholic Answers staffers Maureen North and Terrye Newkirk took the train into New York City to sightsee for a couple of hours. They barely had time to ascend to the top of the Empire State Building and view the city before it was time to head back to Penn Station.
On the way, they saw blue barricades lining the curbs of the main cross street. With Macy’s nearby, they thought immediately of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and eagerly inquired of a bystander, “What’s going on?”
The woman replied gruffly, “The Gay Pride March!” With deflated visions of oversized ‘toons in their heads, Terrye and Maureen hurried off to catch their train.
A May 16 conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, was meant by members of Call to Action as an act of defiance toward Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. “It’s a Matter of Conscience,” as the meeting was billed, instead turned into a “dialogue” between dissenters and pro-magisterium college students.
Collegians Activated to Liberate Life, picketed CTA because of that group’s support for legal abortion. As CTA participants arrived at the conference, they were offered handouts featuring a graphic picture of a child killed by abortion and a fact sheet linking CTA to abortion. The students cited a workshop at the November CTA conference in Detroit in which Diann Neu presented a “liturgy” celebrating a woman’s choice to have an abortion.
“We intend to expose CTA as the fraudulent organization it is,” one of the organizers is quoted as saying. Patricia Trausch, CALL’s Network Director, added: “They speak of ‘conscience’ yet take no action to inform their consciences authentically, otherwise they would not tolerate a hint of abortion support among their members, let alone their leaders.”
One CTA member told a protester: “I will never join you people. You people are so divisive, you do more harm than good.” Another conference-goer refused CALL’s handout, saying, “I don’t want that. I am pro-choice.”
Keynote speaker for the conference was Edwina Gateley, who spoke on “A Matter of Conscience: Faithful to the Journey of Holiness.” She also read aloud her newest children’s book, God Goes on Vacation. Gateley called the Church a fallible institution, adding “The Church must die.”
There is more irony than annoyance in all of this. However much a nuisance such kooky movements may be, however much they drive normal folks up the wall, their antics only serve to highlight their imminent demise. The “Catholicism” represented by Gateley and Call to Action is on the wane and is rushing toward irrelevance. Within ten years, most of these groups will be closed for lack of members, and the few holdouts will hold joint meetings with the Flat Earth Society.