[dynachrome]

“don’t know what a “magisterium’
I certainly didn’t!
So Pullman is just hidng slightly the anti-Catholic nature of the film?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, that's the buggery of thw whole thing. In interviews, Pullman is willing to expound at length about how his aim is to destroy religious faith. But though he mentions "pope" and "vatican" and "consistory" (another unusual Catholic term not really on the tip of anybody's tongue) his real reach is against all religion. Religion is the general focus; monotheism is the target; Christianity is the bull's eye; Catholicism is the center of the bull's eye.

I'm doing some reading on Pullman's life. Some personal issues there, leading to vitriolic hate... and not for churches per se, but for, literally, God...

[dr_lew]

“Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the Papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Church’s power over every aspect of life had been absolute. The Papacy itself had been abolished after Calvin’s death, and a tangle of courts, colleges, and councils, collectively known as the Magisterium, had grown up in its place.”

- The Golden Compass, Chapter Two

... so it would seem he’s trying to spread it around a little. In the movie, the inquisitorial nature of the Magisterium is made quite clear, as the term heresy, or heretic, is used. Lord Ariel is made out to be a sort of Galileo in his spirit of scientific rebellion.

At the very end, “The Authority” is mentioned, and you wouldn’t know that this represents a gnostic concept of God, but I guess this is setup for some further explication in the planned sequels.