Days of Our Lives - Catholic?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DeniseR
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DeniseR

Guest
I don’t watch the soaps but lately have been catching a bit of Days of our Lives during lunch at work.

There is a story line about a young woman (over 18 but early 20’s, I’m guessing) who had an abortion, didn’t tell her boyfriend, and when he found out he left town. She is now going through regrets and unable to hold her friend’s new baby.

She visited a church for comfort, found a priest, confessed and received absolution (I didn’t see that show but she recalled it to her friend who is becoming a love interest). But I did see the part that happened after the confession. She was praying before a statue of the Virgin Mary and had a dream conversation with her. Mary told her she had to forgive herself because God forgave her. It seemed to be done fairly well (OK for a soap). Also, she and her boyfriend haven’t jumped into bed together yet.

There is another story line of a man whose wife has amnesia (John & Marlena) and he sent the priest over to talk with her because the doctor who is trying to help her recover her memory wants her for himself. The priest told her that she took vows and she should stay with John. The priest isn’t freaky or a pervert or sleeping with women – as far as I know. He is played as a walk on the way it seems.

Oh, one other story line is about a man who is dying and didn’t want his wife to know. She does now. He is a bit wacked out and is considering assisted suicide. I’m curious how this story line will be handled. So far they don’t seem to want you to root for this guy to kill himself.

I’m really impressed that a soap opera has taken the Catholic faith seriously. I’m sure the priest will develop into a character who cannot keep his vows or something. However, I have from time to time caught the soap, Passions, that’s on after and they also have a blind priest who also seems normal – giving advice, etc.

Please don’t judge me for watching these. The TV is on in the lunchroom when I get there for lunch and I sit down and eat and watch.

Has anyone else been watching? Come on, if I admitted it, you can too. I’m curious about what you think.
 
I’ve been watching Days for years, and I believe the official religion of Salem is Catholic. The only church in town where everyone gets married, baptized, or has a funeral is St. Luke’s. The same can be said about Days “sister show”, Passions. There was a blind priest on there for years. Both shows have the same headwriter, James Reilly (I think that is his name). 🙂

ETA–also years ago on DAYS, John was a Priest…the storylines are really weird, but yeah, everyone in that town is Catholic, although I wouldn’t use them as an example for you on how to follow your faith!
 
My mom used to watch this show all the time, and being home with her I would often catch bits of it…

You said that this show takes the catholic faith seriously? this I highly doubt, first of all it is a soap opera so they may go to church every once in a while but then go home and secretly plan a course for revenge for the person who slept with their boyfriend who they later found out was her brother, blah blah blah and then get a couple guys to strip down for some shirtless shots.

But seriously I bet in the scene where she goes to confesion to recieve absolution, she says nothing about having pre-marital sex with this guy, and makes it look like the abortion was the only wrong thing she did. These subtle things in the media is what seems to be a problem. No one see’s anything wrong with pre-marital sex in this show and they are representing Catholics? I’d say that is more dangerous then having them play their characters as athiest’s and sleeping with everyone that they pass by.
 
40.png
Steven87:
My mom used to watch this show all the time, and being home with her I would often catch bits of it…

You said that this show takes the catholic faith seriously? this I highly doubt, first of all it is a soap opera so they may go to church every once in a while but then go home and secretly plan a course for revenge for the person who slept with their boyfriend who they later found out was her brother, blah blah blah and then get a couple guys to strip down for some shirtless shots.

But seriously I bet in the scene where she goes to confesion to recieve absolution, she says nothing about having pre-marital sex with this guy, and makes it look like the abortion was the only wrong thing she did. These subtle things in the media is what seems to be a problem. No one see’s anything wrong with pre-marital sex in this show and they are representing Catholics? I’d say that is more dangerous then having them play their characters as athiest’s and sleeping with everyone that they pass by.
Click to expand...
You point is well taken. It is a soap after all. I was just impressed and surprised with how well the Catholic Church and the sacrament was portrayed for a soap. I didn’t see the scene itself about her confession. But she and her (boy)friend are living together as roommates and they are starting to date. It seemed like it almost led to sex once but then they decided to “take it slow”.

What I took from this whole storyline (from the little I watched) was that she aparently felt the solution at the time was abortion. Later worried about telling her boyfriend because he would leave her, which he did. Then felt remorse for killing her baby. She is also now unable to have any more children because of the abortion. The only thing that seemed to help her was talking to a priest and receiving absolution. It didn’t hurt that the Blessed Mother was there in her dream (vision) talking with her and helping her realize God forgave her and now she must forgive herself. It all wrapped up nicely because it’s a soap but they took the real feelings women experience with abortion and showed it’s not such a positive experience after all. Hopefully the message will reach someone out there who is suffering from aborting her own baby and she goes to confession and it gets her back to church.
 
Quite a few times the younger ones sleep together. Some of them are cafeteria Catholics and don’t portray the faith in the best light.
In one story, a Catholic nun in training is seduced by a married man.When she finds out he is married, she runs away and his son has to get even with her entire family. When I said to a friend that the girl should not have slept with the man in the first place, I was told it was only a story. I had to tell her that non-Catholics watching would wonder the same thing. If a program is going to represent the characters as being Catholic, don’t have them be the worst examples.:confused:
 
I am glad that they handled the storylines you mentioned
as they did, but still overall I think it is best to stay away
from the soaps because there is so much immoral content.
I used to watch soaps myself, and it’s a shame because
they can be fun to watch. My Mom has watched “Days”
since it came on when I was little. It’s on for you at work
too so it’s not like you have much of a choice.

I watched soaps for years until I saw the show Radix did
that is on EWTN during Lent. There was a part in the
monologe where the guy talks about things we
do to offend the Lord and I don’t remember exactly how
it was said, but he mentioned the soaps, and at that
time I felt strongly that God was speaking to me.
After that I never watched them again, which was big
for me after all those years being in that habit. I am not
condeming anyone who does watch them, you can discern
the content, it’s just that for me it didn’t feel right.
 
I *think *it was DOOL that was the subject of the interview. I heard a broadcast interview with the woman who had been the head writer for the soap. She was a devout Roman Catholic. She described how careful she always was to not portray the bad behavior of characters as in any way acceptable, nor did she show approval in the drama. I think the interview was on the occasion of her retirement. She had been a writer on the program from its beginning, or close to it.

Matthew
 
I watch Days. And yes, they only seem to be Catholic when they “need” to be Catholic - you certainly never see them tripping off to daily mass or adoration! But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything outright offensive - with the church scenes, at least - that’s better than they way most shows depict us. My husbands big joke is that in movies and TV, they like to poke fun at the crazy Catholics - but just let someone get possessed or a vampire move to town and WHOA! EVERYBODY turns Catholic and calls in the Priests…LOL:D
 
It’s safe to say that DOOL is more Catholic than other soaps in contrast to those that are hostile to anything Christian.

A while back there was a episode storyline about stemcells; The Evil Stefano was trying to get Sami’s unborn twins to get fetal stem cells to cure…somebody. I’m not going into the details (it’s a soap and if you don’t know about soaps, well, the storylines vere away from reality and natural law. I…just can’t. :rolleyes: But while it’s not perfectly consistant, Catholicism is written in every once in a while.
 
I would love to see the confession/dream scene - I wonder if it can be found on YouTube or maybe the soap’s website?

~Liza
 
If you knew the airdate you could download it from isohunt or something.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top