This is a distinction that is too rarely made when dealing with movies that touch, however peripherally, upon matters of philosophy or theology. I recall when the first Matrix movie came out and friends were encouraging me to see it. "It's deep!" someone exclaimed. "It's really a very Catholic movie, and it deals with the whole question of reality and philosophy. I think it's my new favorite movie!"
Now keep in mind that we are speaking here of The Matrix. This is the movie in which Keanu Reeves ran around looking tousled and dazed and uttering lines that, when analyzed, generally carried a subtext of "Dude!" It was entertaining, and perhaps could serve as a glossary of various popular existential ideas, but it was by no means highbrow or great or even memorable for anything besides the shooting technique bullet time. And even that has lost its novelty, since every action movie since has parroted the style. The Matrix was a junk movie -- entertaining, superior to many other junk movies in style and concept perhaps, but junk. You want a good movie dealing with heavy intellectual discusion, look for Copenhagen. If you you're seeking a movie to assure that perhaps your lousy day job is just an illusion after all, that's where the Matrix comes in handy.
Doooooooood!!!! Don't you get it?!?!?!?!?!
The Matrix had a lot of religious overtones. Not to mention the "cassocks" they were all wearing almost as a uniform. I figured all the machines had to do is manufacture little tracking devices into the extra long trench coats and the movie would have been over in five minutes.
From the name: "Thomas Anderson" (doubting Thomas), to the final scene in the last movie where Neo voluntarily gives his life for the sake of mankind, the movie is rife with religious symbolism.
The taking of a new name, which is very Biblical: Saul of Tarsus -> Paul, Simon -> Peter, Abram -> Abraham, Issac -> Israel, Thomas Anderson -> Neo...
The heros forsake the comfortable life in the Matrix for a suffering life of eating bland protein glop in an austere hovercraft in a cold and bleak blasted wasteland.
The mission of these heros is to free the minds (save the souls?) of as many people caught in the Matrix as they can.
The siren song of "the easy life" over "the 'holy' life" is always there, and one of the "heros" succumbs and betrays his comrades so he can be plugged back into the Matrix with the easy life of eating fake steak, and smoking fake cigars.
The machines are the "Devil" pulling the woll over the eyes of easily deceived humanity for their own nefarious purposes. This "Devil" is later shown to be a passionless, merciless, loveless and apathetic being. Not like the passionate Devil we're used to seeing portrayed. This representation may be closer to the actual fact.
I'm sure I could come up with more, but this is just what I was able to formulate off the cuff.
The original Matrix was excellent. The second one, Reloaded, was boring fluff with some unnecessary sexual scenes, providing an unnecessary backstory. The third was excellent, almost as good as the first, but with a satisfying conclusion.
Not "The Passion", but for mindless entertainment, it had some redeeming moral undercurrent.
Mel Martinez introduced the following amendment into the unconstitutional S-CHIP bill (State's Children's Health Insurance Program).
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 65 to H.R. 2 (Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009)
Statement of Purpose: To restore the prohibition on funding of nongovernmental organizations that promote abortion as a method of birth control (the "Mexico City Policy").
Great idea, Senator Martinez! There's no better way to protect the health of children than to not kill them in the womb.
I wonder if these are "ardent" Catholics, "practicing" Catholics or both.
Why, in the face of the worst economy since Carter are we sending money to other countries to help them kill their next generation? Isn't it bad enough we're killing ours?
My suggestion would be to use the links I provided to contact your Senator and respectfully voice your disapproval. I was not able to find an e-mail for my Catholic Senator (Gillibrand) because she is so new so I provided a contact number.
The Bishops of these "ardent" or "practicing" Catholics might want to have a little talk with them.
...I learned in kindergarten (to shamelessly plagiarize from the title of a popular book).
I have been involved in a discussion in Vox Nova in a thread started by blackadder regarding sweatshops. I think I have been banned from commenting by the libs at Vox-Nova. None of them have had the guts to tell me not to post, the cowards simply leave my missives in the moderation queue or delete them outright.
When I was in kindergarten, we used to get allowance money for doing little chores around the house. We would take the allowance money and go to Brown's corner store to buy candy. Occasionally, a few of us would have only a couple of pennies each, and we would pool them, buy the item (be it a slice of pizza, or a pee-wee soda and we would share it. We would generally share it fairly because if someone cheated, it would be the last time they would be invited to pool their money to buy something to share. Sometimes we would pool our money, and there would be an extra kid who we would share with even though he didn't have any money, because he was our friend.
We would never think of stealing someone else's money. That would get you ostracized for good from the group, and word would spread and you would be alone for your entire elementary school career.
Fast forward to today...
I am an adult and I and my family live in a community of people. We generally earn our money, and spend it on our family. However there are things that we need to pool our money so that we all can have them. We don't buy our own police force, fire department, public works, sewer and water. We get together with others, and we pool our money and buy single agencies which work for all of the people who have pooled their money. They also work for people who live in the community and who have not contributed any money. We are happy to do this because it fits in with our idea of the public good. We partake of the services, and we're happy to let others partake of them too, because it's good for everyone.
However, now we have people who elect politicians who promise to steal money from the people who are working and will give it to them in the form of money they haven't earned, or services that I cannot partake of (such as welfare, food stamps or a "stimulus check"). In kindergarten parlance, a kid befriends a big bully who threatens to beat you up if you don't give him either something you own, or some or all of your money.
In kindergarten, the big bully would be ostracized, but we've gotten to the point that more kids benefit from his behavior, so he has a whole coterie of toadies to hang out with. The bully isn't looked down on as a common thief, because he's stealing for those less fortunate than the kids who have the money (and he gets to skim some of it himself... not too much, even his toadies have their limit).
So the kids who have the money start to think of creative ways to hide it, or stop earning money altogether, or worst of all, joining the bully's group of toadies.
Insight Scoop gives a preview of an interesting, but misguided editorial in this month's Homiletic and Pastoral Review. Why are Catholics hemorrhaging in such numbers over the past two generations or so. Father Joseph Sirba echoes a theme I found on Inside Catholic today. Blame the liberals for a declining Church and send them off to follow the homosexuals in the dark of night to wail and gnash their teeth.
Heh. Nice start. I certainly don't either they, or the homosexuals wandering into the dark of night, I want them to repent, confess and come back to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
Sorry, but I’m not buying it. The theocons, reform2 crew, and the other sulking Republicans still have me in the Church and there’s nothing they can do about it. Can't get me fired. Can’t shut down my blog. I’m pretty sure other progressives aren't shaking in their boots either.
Nor would I want to. If the heterodox are not out in the open espousing their views, we won't have the opportunity to turn their hearts and minds back toward God.
That immediate pre-conciliar generation must have been really strong on Church issues to bail so quickly after Humanae Vitae, a reformed liturgy, television, the suburbs, the sexual revolution, and all. Maybe the seeming decline in Catholicism has something more behind it than the usual liberal/conservative politics. But if some of them are still steamed over the Republicans getting it handed to them this past year, I can empathize.
Yup, Todd takes the high road on this one. The reason Republicans got it "handed to them" this year is that almost all of the major news outlets had a big, wet, sloppy love affair with Barack Obama. I'm sure the honeymoon will be over soon, and they will decide that there are not enough Republican scandals to sell papers or advertising and will turn on their Democrat masters. But I digress...
The pre-conciliar generation (of which I am near the last, having been born in 1959) lost their faith because they had the liturgical rug pulled out from underneath them with little if any catechesis accompanying it. The pre-conciliar generation who lost their faith and/or left probably fell into one of two groups.
The first group (of which I count myself) came to the conclusion that if the rules could be changed so quickly and radically, then the premise on which it is based must be crap.
The second group probably decide that instead if settling for "Protestant lite", they might as well go to a real Protestant church.
Now let's get serious with Father Sirba's proposals.
All remaining dissenters must be expunged from their positions within diocesan offices, major parishes and influential positions in the Church.
Fr Sirba preaches every leader in the Church needs to be presenting a clear message. I'm assuming that's one simple, single message. Problem is that most challenging obstacles need more than one perspective. I think we've seen the results of a purged episcopacy over the JPII years: bishops and their cronies appointed to the episcopacy sheltered sex offenders and then didn't even have the guts to admit they were wrong–they blamed select psychologists, stonewalled the victims and their families, and by the way … how many Catholic losses in Boston? Lots of Catholics are upset and concerned about the criminal and immoral behavior of some bishops, but I suspect Cardinal Law and others won't be part of Fr Sirba's purge.
"Sex offenders". Let's call it what it is. 87% of all of the child abuse claims were homosexual priests praying on post-pubescent teenage boys. This was directly caused by the relaxing of the sexual mores and the "free love" that Todd mentioned in a previous paragraph.
As far as the liberal and VOTF boogeyman, Cardinal Law, he's already been purged. When was the last time you heard any major speech or writing come out of him.
Also, it wasn't "select psychologists". It was the entire psychological community of the time that believed that this sort of behavior could be "cured". These priests got a clean bill of health from their psychologists, and were placed in the community on their recommendation.
I'm sure that there were a couple bad-apple bishops who knew that these predators might prey again, but my guess is that the majority of them were simply following the dictates of the "science" of the time. The injustice is that we are holding those bishops to a standard they weren't aware of at the time, and the "anti-clericalists" want to push back the statute of limitations to include more priests and bishops who knew even less.
I would like Todd to provide a list of the bishops that the Blessed John Paul II appointed and which ones were involved in the child abuse scandal. I don't expect it to be forthcoming, though.
Aggressive steps to retain Hispanic Catholics? No problem there.
The overt and covert feminization of the Church must end. Men and boys need strong male role models to look up to and to emulate. Masculine approaches to the faith must be developed and affirmed if we are to erase the significant gender gap that now exists and retain more of our male members.
Another aggrieved man whining about too many women. One of the reasons why women are more involved than men in every major religion and practically every minor one is that there are "psychological and emotional differences" between the sexes. I suppose that cassocks, surplices, frilly vestments, magnae cappae, and the like will inspire manliness in young boys.
I wonder if Todd has the same bias about men in kilts. I suggest he mention to the next kilted Scotsman he meets that he's some sort of girly-man.
Used to be a time the priest stood "alter Christus" (that is "other Christ" for the Latin impaired liberals). There is nobody manlier than Christ. When the priest stood in the sanctuary it used to be known that he was taking the part of Christ in the Liturgy. When he spoke the words: "This is my body", Christ Himself was offering the sacrifice of Calvary in real time, and we were joining with every church at every Mass in every age at the same exact moment in communion with the Angels and Saints.
Now the priest is, in many cases, simply a "sacrament vending machine". He has been relegated to second hand status. What young man would want to give up the possibility a wife and children to do that? I know I wouldn't. Well, unless a wife and children weren't important to you in the first place, but that's for another discussion...
I will say that boys and young men do indeed need better role models. So do girls and young women. The fragmentation of the extended family in our mobile society has done significant harm to every generation since suburbia, the car, and the mobile career have arrived on the scene.
So the way to solve that problem is to marginalize men in the Church. Maybe have priestesses?
The way to solve that problem is to have priests who are secure in their role as pastor or priest. The Church has stopped challenging us men. Jesus is treated like a lover in some cheap Harlequin romance. There needs to be a focus on our fallen nature, our sinfulness and our call to live a life of holiness. We need other men to support us.
Jesus' call was a radical one, and 11 of his 12 original followers died a violent death. That's an adventure story that many authentic men would love to be involved in.
If you want a masculine approach to Catholicism, join one of Richard Rohr's drumming groups or something. Liberals have had their manly groups for a long time. Maybe the theocons are just fraidy cats about joining them.
I don't know. I just don't think the Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence would want me as a member.
