Per Christum

I love free stuff, who doesn’t! Imagine how excited I was to find that Digital Catholic Library is offering free ebooks of Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton! With Earth Day this past week, what better way to celebrate than with a free, paperless, Catholic book.

Expect a 600KB download. Sorry everyone across the pond and to the south, it’s only free for US and Canadian citizens.

If you know and love this charming British satirist the way I do, you will be greatly interested in Missus Blosser’s newly founded blog:

Tea and Sympathy

http://teaandsympathy-amy.blogspot.com

If you don’t know Evelyn Waugh (aside from not getting the reference in Lost In Translation), it may be high time to make a new literary acquaintance. You certainly won’t regret it.

‘Elijah’ first production at new I Am Third

By Eric J. Lyman

Oct 20, 2007
ROME — Film producers Conroy Kanter and Ecky Malick on Friday announced the creation of I Am Third Prods., with plans to make the company’s first film based on the best-selling apocalyptic novel “Father Elijah” by Canadian author Michael O’Brien.

Read the rest…

I know several people will be excited to hear this. Now I have to read this series. LOL

Hat tip: Colleen Hammond

By now, many of you know, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is calling for the boycott of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. This boycott is making headlines; even the Today Show has mentioned it. If you have seen the trailers for the movie, it looks good. So why are Catholic/Christian communities in such a big uproar? Because Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy seeks to weaken or destroy a Christian child’s spirituality. This book creates a world where organized religion is corrupt, witches are heroic, and The Fall is considered the rebellion against the tyranny of the Authority.

Check out some of the characters on Wikipedia:

The Authority is the first angel created in this world. He convinces the other angels he is the Creator. He rules Cloud Mountain or the Kingdom of Heaven.

Xaphania is the angel who figures out The Authority lied. She leads the rebellion against him. She wishes to create the Republic of Heaven.

Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) is a widow who works for Oxford and the Catholic Church.

Magisterium or the Church does experiments on children to separate them from their daemons (souls). The reasoning is it will prevent children from knowing sin. Coulter is in charge of these experiments.

Daemons in this series are the physical manifestation of the soul, think witch’s familiar.

Dr. Mary Malone is a physicist from “our world” and an ex-nun.

Pullman is an atheist and has even helped create a series called Why Atheism? with writer Michael Rosen. What does this have to do with his books? Everything. Just like Tolkien, Lewis, and George MacDonald put Christian themes in their books, so has he put atheistic themes in his. He weaves his story using Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian symbolism.

From an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003:

Pullman, though, expected more. “I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak. I’m a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America’s Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven’t got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God. Source: The shed where God died

From Pullman’s Q and A section on his website:

Q: What stance do the books take?

“It depicts a struggle: the old forces of control and ritual and authority, the forces which have been embodied throughout human history in such phenomena as the Inquisition, the witch-trials, the burning of heretics, and which are still strong today in the regions of the world where religious zealots of any faith have power, are on one side; and the forces that fight against them have as their guiding principle an idea which is summed up in the words The Republic of Heaven. It’s the Kingdom against the Republic.

And everything follows from that. So, for instance, the book depicts the Temptation and Fall not as the source of all woe and misery, as in traditional Christian teaching, but as the beginning of true human freedom something to be celebrated, not lamented. And the Tempter is not an evil being like Satan, prompted by malice and envy, but a figure who might stand for Wisdom.
….
And if certain Christian critics are confused by this, and imagine I’m denying the difference between good and evil, then all I can say is that I shall pray for them.”
Source: Pullman’s Q&A section.

In a recent interview with Al Roker, Pullman dances around the question about the book being anti-Catholic. Obviously, he’s heard that people don’t want to support a movie in which killing God is the objective. He now says the religion in this other world has gone bad. How bad? According to Catholic Culture:

Throughout the trilogy, priests are portrayed as evil and violent; one of them is an assassin. In contrast, an ex-nun who has lost her faith is positively portrayed. She describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.” The “Magisterium” kidnaps children in order to take out their souls. In the final volume, characters representing Adam and Eve kill God, who is referred to as YAHWEH.

As a Catholic blog we seek to inform our readers about a variety of topics. I wanted to do more than shake my finger saying, “bad man,” so I wanted to provide some background on the books and film. Hopefully, you now know enough to make your own decision about this series, and not boycott it simply because some prominent orthodox Catholics oppose it.

Want More?

Snopes.com on The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman “Religious Impulse” Listen to his examples.

Philip Pullman Realizes ‘Killing God’ Not the Ideal Sales Pitch

Atheism for Christmas?

“The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked” Catholic League

(Episcopal) Archbishop wants atheist Pullman on syllabus

photo from: About.com

My wife and are big fans of thrift stores and yard sales. Like the proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get and you can usually get it for pocket change. A couple of days ago, we found out there was a St. Vincent De Paul’s thrift store nearby. My favorite thing to do in such places is to browse the bookshelves. I had high hopes for their shelves, since a high percentage of the donations probably came from Catholics.

We went there today and I was able to pick up a hardback copy of Frank Sheed’s The Church and I for 50 cents. I’m only on page 27, but I feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth. I’ve already ran across a passage that’s blog-worthy and goes along with some thoughts and converstaions I’ve had as of late.

Sheed talks about Wilfrid Ward’s assertion that the post-Reformation Catholic Church had adapted itself to state of siege in which the disputes of the Protestants dictated the emphasis on “the great defensive doctrines-the Visible Church and its marks, Supremacy, Infallibility.” These issues “had first call on the Church’s energy” while “[t]he real life of the Church based on Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, the life to come, could not receive the degree of attention which would have been normal…[t]here was no development of the doctrines of Heaven and Hell because they were not attacked, but endless writing on purgatory, which was.“

I wonder if, in the realm of Catholic/non-Catholic dialogue and apologetics if this is not often still the case. I’m not saying that the truths about the Visible Church should not be defended, but I have found in my own transformation from anti-Catholic to Candidate that it is precisely the depth and beauty of the Church’s teaching and expression of “[t]he real life of the Church based on Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, the life to come” that made those truths about the Visible Church much easier to consider and digest. It was becoming convinced that many of the things I valued in my tradition were expressed so much deeper and truer in the Catholic faith that made me willing to look at those aspects of Catholicism that I was naturally antagonistic about. This is something to keep in mind when in conversation over lunch, in the chat rooms and at the debate podium.

Just some thoughts as much for my edification as anyone’s. Maybe more.