MOVIE REVIEWERS BASH CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Catholic League ^ | August 1, 2003 | Caltholic League

[Calpernia]

http://www.catholicleague.org

MOVIE REVIEWERS BASH CATHOLIC CHURCH

Catholic League president William Donohue commented today on how movie reviewers assessed “The Magdalene Sisters”:

 

“Imagine an anti-Semitic director who admits he packed into one movie every anti-Semitic theme he could draw on and then gets an anti-Semitic duo to distribute it.  Next imagine film critics taking the anti-Semitic propaganda at face value and then offering anti-Semitic remarks in their reviews.  Fat chance.  For example, there will never be a movie about Jewish slumlords in Harlem or Jewish managers of black entertainers in the 20^th century.  If there were, and if it were to present a wholly one-sided portrait of the worst excesses of how some Jews exploited blacks, the ADL would be up in arms.  And rightly so.  But luckily for Jews, this is not likely to happen.  Catholics are not so lucky—they have to endure Catholic-bashing directors like Peter Mullan shopping his anti-Catholic script to anti-Catholic distributors like Harvey and Bob Weinstein, only to have it reviewed by anti-Catholic critics.  Here are some of today’s reviews:

·        “Mullan has been criticized for condensing the extreme abuses of asylums into an overloaded melodrama, and he does, but I don’t fault him for it.”  “The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church…deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.”  (New York Daily News)

·        “For some, the asylums were like a roach motel—girls checked in, but they never checked out, except 40 or 50 years later, in a pine box.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

·        “Mullan transcends genre labeling by delving into the ways in which moral fascism debases its practitioners as it lays bare the human limitations of its intended converts.”  (Newsday)

·        “You’ll walk away amazed at the heartlessness of the people running the asylums and wondering how such a gruesome practice could have existed into the late 20^th century.”  (New York Post)

 “These reviewers have a deep-seated need to believe the worst about the Catholic Church.  They’re the ones who need to check into the asylum.”

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination.
 

[Aliska]

What you say is true, but how can anyone justify such mistreatment and exploitation of unfortunate women, especially in the name of religion.? Would you care to address that and not veer off into killing the messenger?

What merit is there when people legalistically do "good works" with a cold, mean, vindictive heart? I wonder if those women ever got any kindness at all from those nuns.

[07055]

Although the Catholic Church has apologized for the brutal history of the Magdalene asylums, Mullan says, "they need to follow the apology with hardcore information (about the survivors) that we then have to sift through."

... "The church still works in this bizarre policy of a man who just can't stop knockin' down kids with his car. He apologizes eventually for every kid he knocked down, but you never get to ask him, 'What speed were you driving at? Have you done this before? Were you drinking?'

*Has* the Catholic Church apologized for these asylums? If so, then how is it anti-Catholic to make a film about what was done? Would it now be anti-Catholic to make a film about the sexual abuse scandal in the United States?

[HISSKGB]

I was shocked to see this.

This Epstein and Donohue were on this afternoon with MSNBC's Scarborough. Donohue said that only Catholics who reject their church's teaching were now being approved for the juduciary and practicing Catholics were virtually blocked. It was mentioned that the Catholic Pryer pledged to enforce the law. Epstein responded by saying these people, the practicing Catholics, were weasels.

[Kenny Bunk]

Every religious movement sort of goes through the same history. I.E., from Holy Founder, through the years, to vast Real Estate Conglomerate and heartless corporation.

St. Francis of Assisi wanders the earth giving up everything he owns, which was considerable. Yet at his death, the Franciscan Order and their related sorority, the Poor Clares, are the biggest landowners in Italy. Go figure.

All over the world, (except the oliferous regions) the Sisters of Mercy do a bang-up job caring for society's outcasts in their hospitals, schools and orphanages. They have literally helped millions. Yet, in their humanity, they have more than likely harmed many thousands, apparently a hell of a lot of them in their Laundry Business. (Some of whom they have harmed became film makers, which might help correct their obvious abuses.)

Need I point out that there are religions on Earth who have harmed millions, and only helped thousands? Take your pick. Will it be the Church of Rome and the Sisters of Mercy, or Osama bin Ladin? Every day, Pat Robertson's deal feeds thousands of people the world over. OK, he's a PITA. So what?

My own Church has a stellar record of saintly missionary activity and rich tradition of buggering choristers. It's a human problem, You have to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, etc.etc.

IMHO, right now, organized religion is not very good at admitting the negative, even finding it, or please Jesus, eliminating it. Yo, no body's perfect.

[SuziQ]

I'm sure folks will jump all over this story like white on rice because it is about a Catholic institution, but there is a secular one in Massachusetts that I read about just recently. They found a huge graveyard behind it, and only now is the story coming out about the girls who were sent there by their families for much the same reason that the Irish families sent theirs.

So this type of place isn't something that is unique to the Church.

[Bluntpoint]

"What merit is there when people legalistically do "good works" with a cold, mean, vindictive heart?"

Bingo!

[Petronski]

BOYCOTT DISNEY: a vortex of seductive evil™

[Dutchgirl]

I just saw a review of the film on Ebert and Roeper. Ebert is Catholic and was suprised to learn of the Magdelene Sisters practices. He did his research and discovered that for many women, the conditions were even more harsh than depicted in the film.

I am a former Catholic, with no tolerance for Protestant "Catholic Bashing." I had never heard of these institutions. If a film is made 20 years from now on the victims of pedophile priests, will that be "Catholic Bashing"? Not if it is based on Truth.

C.S. Lewis said that courage is the form of every virtue at the sticking point. Sometimes it takes great courage to deal with the world the way it is instead of the way we want it to be. The church is the Bride of Christ. Unfortunately, sometimes the church behaves more like the bride of Hosea. (note use of small c)

[Blue Scourge]

Hatred for ALL things Christian is the last acceptable prejudice...it's not just Catholics who get it.

[narses]

Ping.

[ladyjane]

What people don't realize is that similar institutions existed here in the US. The Sisters of the Good Shepard ran houses in this country. Girls were sent there by their families. Within the convents there were a separate groups of Magdalene Sisters who ran the laundries. Most girls who were sent there don't want to talk about it. But they existed up until a few years ago.

[Antoninus]

Somebody should make a "fact-based" drama about Disney Corp...

[Antoninus]

of course, nowadays we allow delinquent girls to screw the entire football team, have five abortions, take drugs, and live free away from mom on welfare...we have a million street kids who ran away from home who turn to prostitution. We're soooo much more compassionate about teens....

That's the unspoken "moral" of the story -- try to make the past look infinitely horrible and gloss over the horrors of the present. I dare this scum hypcrite director, who's so upset about a supposed "mass grave" in Ireland to look inside the medical waste dumpster at any abortion mill on any given day.

[Rome2000]

made in one scene to parade naked for the gigglingly cruel nuns who decide who has the biggest breasts and hairiest private parts -

Oh yeah, i'm sure that happened.

In Mullans perveted mind.

[sinkspur]

I dare this scum hypcrite director, who's so upset about a supposed "mass grave" in Ireland to look inside the medical waste dumpster at any abortion mill on any given day.

So, "balancing atrocities" is OK with you?

The Magdalen laundries destroyed lives every bit as much as abortion destroys lives.

A vivid story on CBS "Sunday Morning" today revealed the anguish of women who lived in these Church-sanctioned hellholes; in the majority of cases, their families didn't even know where they were, for 20 years at a time.

The churchmen and churchwomen of Catholicism have much to answer for, but the "answer" always comes out churchgoing-Catholics' pockets.

[saradippity]

So what we are saying is that there were homes for delinquent girls,run by government in some cases and religious institutions in others?

My sister did an internship at one of the government homes in the 60's. The housemother and her assistant were out,my sister was with the 7 girls,all runaways with several being unwed expectant mothers.All were tough but thought to be non-violent. My sister was with three of them when one took a hot iron and started hitting my sister with it. She ran out otf the room with the one girl who had been watching and darted out with her. as I recall they slammed the door called for the others and held the door shut while they called for police help.

Back then girls were considered to be much less a danger than boys,but they were probably just as capable of violence and assault as they are now. We just don't have any idea of the mix of offenders that were taken to the Magdalen sisters. Perhaps they were just detention centers for wayward girls. Their relating their histories probably doesn't vary much from the tales we hear now from those released from juvenile corrections or detention centers. They may have been the same thing. I've seen very few stories from gracious,grateful former inmates.How about you?

Not knowing exactly what the situation was,I hesitate to say much more. But it would behoove people to think outside the envelope that the media places people in.

[saradippity]

The Magdalen laundries destroyed lives every bit as much as abortion destroys lives.

You know this for a fact,that they killed people? Or are you equating 5 years of hard labor with death? Just what are you doing now?