Some Thoughts

I'm doing something here I very seldom do. I'm actually writing a post!, instead of simply a short intro to a link.

Anyway, a few months ago, I broke down and got cable TV so that I could watch something more edifying than what passes for entertainment today. As Easter approached, I noticed a plethora of programmes, dealing with religious themes, on such channels as Discovery/Times, History, History International and Biography. Being the man I am, of course, I watched!

I was horrified! On one level, I've known for years that our Holy Faith and the Græco-Roman Catholic Civilisation and Culture to which It gave rise, were under attack. But on another level, I did not realise how serious the attack was. I had assumed, naively, that the brunt of the attack was coming from the usual suspects, "Hollywood" and patently anti-Christian groups like Planned Parenthood, Americans United, People for the American Way and the Free Masons.

Imagine my surprise as I watched programme after programme, presented under the guise of serious, educational programming attack the doctrines of the Faith. I learned that our Blessed Mother did not miraculously conceive our Lord by the Holy Ghost! I learned that She did not remain a Virgin and that, indeed, our Lord had several full blood brothers and sisters! I could go on and on, but you get the general idea.

These programmes were presented by academics, with copious interviews with other academics, many of them priests, nuns or professors at "Catholic" Universities. It was all done in an "oh, so serious" style, such that a non-Catholic or the average badly catechised NO Catholic would accept it as the absolute "scientific" truth.

I realise now that our task is much more serious than I had imagined. It is not just the political effects of the Revolution that we must combat and its influences in the MSM (in which I include "Hollywood" as well as the news media) and in the normal educational field, but also in what we might call "continuing education for the masses".

I have no suggestions beyond monitoring, protesting to advertisers and the networks responsible and counteracting on a personal level if an acquaintance mentions one of the programmes, but I'm, here, making a call for further ideas. In 1991, I was privileged to be a speaker at the Catholic Voice International conference in Chicago (remember that great weekend, Sir Charles & Roy?). The opening speaker said, "The Counter Revolution begins now!" In the ensuing 15 years, we have obviously lost a great deal of ground. Let's begin retaking it!

In closing, there was one bright spot. There is an Egyptologist who teaches at a public university (his name escapes me) who has done a long series of programmes on Egypt (obviously!). I call him the "enthusiastic Egyptologist", because he so obviously enjoys his subject. Off topic for a change (and a little off season for Easter!) he did a programme on the Three Kings. After a reasoned and good exegesis of the Scriptural passages dealing with them, in which he pointed out for example that that they are not called Kings in the Scripture and their is no mention of how many they were, he went on to accept the Tradition of the Church as reasonable! He discussed how Tradition had always shown them of varying ages, etc. And at the end of his presentation, having examined the skulls preserved in their reliquary in the Cathedral of Cologne, showing scientifically that they belonged to men of different ages, he came to the scientific conclusion that there was no scientific reason that the relics preserved there could not be the skulls of Balthasar, Gaspar and Melchior!