Comments on: Vatican 1, Beatles 0: Why the Church still wins after forgiving John Lennon

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:23:01 +0000

“Remember when every time you rode an airplane, it seemed like every single passenger was reading The Da Vinci Code? Shouldn’t all of those passengers be reading the Bible instead?”

I really never thought of it that way. If God really wanted to avoid the mass response to The Code, what would help as much as taking out an airplane full of its followers?

By: Thursday Grammar: Christ puts the X in Xmas | Overthinking It

Thursday Grammar: Christ puts the X in Xmas | Overthinking It — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:20:15 +0000

[...] elementary school would rail against this abbreviation, claiming that it was a sacrilege worse than claiming you’re bigger than Jesus or [...]

By: Thursday Grammar: Christ puts the X in Xmas | Overthinking It

Thursday Grammar: Christ puts the X in Xmas | Overthinking It — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:20:15 +0000

[...] elementary school would rail against this abbreviation, claiming that it was a sacrilege worse than claiming you’re bigger than Jesus or [...]

By: Tom Buckner

Tom Buckner — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:57:53 +0000

Let me throw in a good word for Sinead O’Connor. People really turned on her for tearing up the Pope’s picture on SNL. But put yourself in her shoes for 15 seconds. She is a freethinking woman from a country where the Catholic Church is almost an unelected arm of government. Now imagine a hypothetical female pop star of Afghani birth tearing up a photo of Mullah Omar. Nobody would bat an eye (in this country).

By: Pseudonym

Pseudonym — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:28:07 +0000

thank you for this article – now that i know The Golden Compass was frowened upon by the big boys, i’m going to watch it again! i think twice for good meassure:):):)

I believe I understand the concepts you are talking about here, and I do agree… Church is a biggest swindler of them all, but at the same time it is a long lasting system, and as such it defends itself from within… So, it is not a big surprise that that something aledgedly spiritual would be so concerned with worldly matters – such as “the Earth is round” or clims or actions of any of the phicsical entities – it is after all just a matter of selfpreservation, inherent in the nature of every system, be it church, or a fungal colony…

By: Gab

Gab — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:52:41 +0000

Michael: To that extent, I think there is heavy weight in who says it and where. In both a political party/campaign or a religion (and any religion, not just Catholicism), a small side remark by a higher-up at a fundraiser or public event of any sort has the capacity to be just as prominant as what a janitor says to a reporter. I agree, a lot of it also has to do with the media and misinterpretations, even by people that identify with the group, be it a religious or political affiliation. I wasn’t saying political campaigns and the Catholic church are *exactly* the same (I was, after all, raised Catholic, so I do have some inside-experience) (although you’re right, even people within can misunderstand, and I don’t claim perfect perception), but I couldn’t help but notice the parallels in how the discourse plays out in the public (and I’m a politics nerd, among other things, so I see political theory in everything). One major difference, for example, is how much more frequently political candidates must come out and refute what “their” people say during the election season(s) as compared to the Vatican doing the same thing- and I think this is related to the established _authority_ of the Church versus the fleeting and mutable nature of a campaign: the Church is the one setting rules for its members, while a campaign is trying to romance the constituency into *becoming* a member.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:09:42 +0000

@Lee – Your point about L’Osservatore is well taken, I’d just add that although it is “an instrument for spreading the teachings of the successor of Peter,” it would be a mistake to think that anything in its pages is by virtue of that fact a teaching of the magisterium of the church. I don’t think you’re making that mistake, but people (most obviously reporters) frequently do. And I think your article glossed over some distinctions. Like you and Matthew said, there are different levels of authority in the church. I’m not trying to be overly restrictive as to what can be attributed to the church: your example with The Golden Compass is fair, but still, a reader who didn’t know much about Catholicism and who then concluded that “The Golden Compass = bad” is preached with the same authority as “Christ rose from the dead” in terms of Catholic teaching would be mistaken. And because Catholicism is frequently misunderstood (often by Catholics) I think it pays to be as precise as possible. (The linked Galileo article did a decent job at that, actually – partly making up for the flip comment the link was contained in!)

@Matthew – I agree with you for the most part, although you could go too far. The size and complexity of the Church and the variety of opinion that can be found among its members does mean that views expressed by those members have to be put in their proper context. Things are said by “the church” to varying degrees. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean there is no offical position of the church and that everything is ambigious or up to personal opinion. There is an authorative hierarchy where the buck stops. But questions of pop culture are rarely important enough to make it that far.

@Gab – I don’t entirely agree. Political campaigns are puny compared to the Church and have a lot less going on. In any case it kind of depends who you are talking about – the equilavent of a VP candidate or a campaign bus driver. It’s reasonable to think that a conferance of bishops, for example, express the opinion of the Church. L’Osservatore less so. Some Priest In The Vatican, even less.

By: Gab

Gab — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:00:04 +0000

It’s like a political party.

By: Matthew Wrather

Matthew Wrather — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:37:08 +0000

Right, exactly, that’s the point I was attempting to make — the Catholic Church is a huge, complex organization, with various levels of bureaucracy and varous leaders with various spheres of authority. And not everyone agrees with everyone else about everything.

Of course, and this was my other point, the institution itself is often at pains to de-emphasize this fact…

By: lee

lee — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:03:59 +0000

@Matt, to that point, one could argue there’s a continuum of generality when it comes to saying that “the church” thinks this and “the church” thinks that. On one end of the spectrum you have a local bishop who says people who vote for Obama are going to Hell. In the middle you have something like the US Bishops’ list of morally offensive films. And finally on the other end, you have the “L’Osservatore” and words from The Pope, the Vicar of Christ, hisself.