"Hand of God" PBS documentary

[Godefridus]

Here is my review of this thing…

Now, I don’t feel too much reason to be upset when some branch of the media deems it necessary to produce a program that indicts Catholic leadership for mishandling of the abuse crisis. Frankly, I agree–not only did bishops and vicars all over the country louse up the lives of thousands by enabling abusers, but many of them today still dodge responsibility and display nothing but petty defensiveness. But the bishop-bashing in “Hand of God” is not the feature of it that bothered me most.

The film was produced by the brother of the molestation victim, Joe Cultrera. Joe takes his flare for melodramatic film-making and his brother’s genuinely sad and heroic story, and sauces it up with a mixture of abuse to kitsch statuettes and undifferentiated Catholic symbols from a long-gone Italian Catholic childhood. What results is (disingenuously stated intentions aside) a terrifically self-infallibilistic and universalistic screed that implicates all Catholic sacrament and ritual in the power-grasping of evil, rich, powerful men, and the deluding of pious, gullible Catholics.

The problem is not so much that Joe is an angry man; he certainly has every right to be. Indeed, I see nothing wrong with a little old-fashioned Italian vitriol in response to the obtuseness of dispassionate old fogeys. I loved the response of Papa Cultrera when the bishop shut down the Mass before anybody from the community had a chance to speak.

The problem lies more in the machine of Enlightenment ideology which chugs and spins ever underneath both Joe’s and Paul’s words and graphics depictions, and is certainly evident in his responses to letters in the PBS Frontline for the show.

I believe there are many ways to the divine and that the Catholic church and its sacraments, while they may work for many (and I am glad for that), are not the only way to connect to it. I see more divinity in my garden than I ever did in the church

I would start on the outside – with folks from Voice of the Faithful.

As for “God and the eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven”, when it comes to god I honestly prefer not to limit myself to one. I see many gods in the world, and I don’t mean the my-god’s-better-than-your-god kind of god that separates Christians from Muslims from Hindus from Jews and that mentality which has caused so much bloodshed through the centuries.

If I ever felt the need for a church, then one with no clergy would be the first one I’d look for. If it had to have clergy, there would have to be women allowed. But, honestly, I have not felt any absence in my life due to not being a member of any organized religious congregation. The closest I come to a congregation is the natural foods cooperative that I manage

the perpetrator and his enablers are the same people that profess to have the moral high ground and who literally dress themselves in the robes of sacred power.

Allowing priests normal relationships with women (and better yet, allowing women to be priests) would certainly go a long way to breaking down the misogyny that underlies a lot of what percolates under the surface of this whole problem of clergy abuse. Bottling up male sexuality behind the vestments is one surefire way to create a problem.

Of course it is natural for cynical leftism to view everything in terms of power, and to construct mythical origins and purposes for symbols whose meanings have long been forgotten (by it, anyway).

Now, I would hold very little against either men for having fallen away from the faith (the Catechism itself says that blame for atheism not infrequently accrues to the Christians who cause it), that doesn’t change the fact that underneath Joe’s and Paul’s convictions is more than a little poison which is about two-parts ignorance and one-part secular ideology (the Wal-Mart of purposeful life meaning). Take that poison, and serve it up on a dish of public broadcasting with a heap of Italian passion and a side of truth, and you get “Hand of God.”