Posted on 08/02/2003 11:34:41 AM PDT by 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 20th 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 luckythey 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 todays reviews:
· Mullan has been criticized for condensing the extreme abuses of asylums into an overloaded melodrama, and he does, but I dont 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 motelgirls 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)
· Youll 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 20th century. (New York Post)
These reviewers have a deep-seated need to believe the worst about the Catholic Church. Theyre the ones who need to check into the asylum.
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The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination. |
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.
... "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?
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.
So this type of place isn't something that is unique to the Church.
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)
Oh yeah, i'm sure that happened.
In Mullans perveted mind.
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.
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.
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?
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