Should Movies Be Censored?

[edwest2]

Those with a sincere desire to understand movies over the last 50 years need not put on rose-colored spectacles but simply count the number of times every value and behavior we hold dear was trampled - one by one. Soft porn on TV? I just caught a short rape scene on Amerika (slight partial nudity).

Why do I bring this up this way? Let Pope Benedict tell us what happened:

"If we cannot have common values, common truths, sufficient communication on the essentials of human life–how to live how to respond to the great challenges of human life–then true society becomes impossible."

Commentary from the practical Catholic:

“How true this is. Where there is no communication, no culture, no shared experience, there is no society; because there is no people. There remains only a vast and foreboding, unforgiving sea of individuals ready to crash upon each other and the world with the slightest wind. Without a common basis, we have not the vaulted pluralism we’re taught to embrace, but Babel, in all the confusion and madness of a society with no binding forces. Already we are seeing the tensions of this fragmentation breaking out across cultures.”

Pope Benedict:

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]

Commentary:

“Pope Benedict does not play language games, he is unconcerned with the postmodernist’s corner on untruth. Neither should we be. Notice how he calls relativism a “dictatorship” instead of agreeing that no values and no Truth are the way forward for society. What many fail to recognize is that imposing nihilism and arbitrary tribalism is a form of dictatorship. Where untruth or half truth is the common order, there can only be oppression. Political correctness has asked us to abandon our value-laden language and to pick up a new language proper to the secular forum. However, this secular newspeak is value-laden against the traditional claims of the Western world and as such, is a poison rather than a new order. We can and should bring our own conviction laden language to the table, if we’re going to have any sort of real dialogue at all. Misinformation and restrained convictions are not the proper building blocks for a democracy. The Holy Father offers us a visions of the State according to our Catholic heritage.”

Those who continue to seek to poison us are here, and out there, making movies and invoking their highest holy word, “art” to defend the indefensible. I know, “by the Grace of God go I.” But if we do not seek God and continue to listen to lies, diversions and deceptions then how will we find the narrow path?

ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pope-renounce-culture-that-disguises-falsehood-as-truth

While weighted down by our own sins, as we always have been, do we say, “It’s all good? Right and wrong don’t really matter? It’s ‘just’ a movie? I’m my only decider of what is good while at the same time being told that good is bad - constantly?”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, the only difference between then and now was that we did our best to practice virtue, only to wake up one day to be told “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” No authority figure is your friend. The Church meant nothing. And, though not in these exact words, “Only listen to us because we will give you freedom.” Sadly, that meant freedom to sin and to celebrate sin along with them, because I assure you, I’ve seen this written down: “We don’t want to go back to the days of 50 years ago!”

No, I’m not talking about racial injustice, I’m talking about practicing virtue and avoiding vice. Imperfect as we are, we are not called to abandon our walk toward virtue and to follow Jesus. Or to just shrug our shoulders every time a law is proposed or passed that forces others to violate their consciences or encourages them to do so.

And the movies, for the most part, are now presenting bad role models and encouraging us toward evil to further their goals as the true and right way.

No. A thousand times, No.

With warm good wishes -

God Bless You,
Ed

 

[JamesCaruso]

1. You are ignoring the social ills that existed 50 years ago. No, we are talking about movies and the average person was not the head of a movie studio. This is called diversion from the issue at hand.
2. Art “needs” to be about anything. It is the ultimate form of human expression and can include anything. The words taste or standards do not apply to art. Once accepted by the secular priests of the art world - art critics - it becomes the secular version of holy…

Some art is the ultimate form of human expression. Some art is not even worthy of human expression. When the world is rolled up like a mat and thrown in the trash, when only heaven and earth remain, how much of what goes by the name of art will be able to pass through the portals of heaven? What does pass, that is true art! On the Infinite Stage of Life, the rest is what Andy Warhol referred to as [the artist’s] 15 minutes of fame. One day not too far off, tastes and standards will apply, of that I can assure you.

 

[edwest2]

Some art is the ultimate form of human expression. Some art is not even worthy of human expression. When the world is rolled up like a mat and thrown in the trash, when only heaven and earth remain, how much of what goes by the name of art will be able to pass through the portals of heaven? What does pass, that is true art! On the Infinite Stage of Life, the rest is what Andy Warhol referred to as [the artist’s] 15 minutes of fame. One day not too far off, tastes and standards will apply, of that I can assure you.

If you say so. Ask any movie defender here. Art is the holy word that provides automatic immunity to the trash on the screen. Oh yeah, you can like it or not like it, but that’s it. It’s art, therefore, by being holy in a secular sense, you can’t say it’s wrong.

I would like to know why you are assured that (good) tastes and standards will apply “one day not too far off.”? If you choose not to answer - no problem.

No art will be in heaven, only people and what God has told us by Revelation.

Ed

 

[JamesCaruso]

If you say so. Ask any movie defender here. Art is the holy word that provides automatic immunity to the trash on the screen. Oh yeah, you can like it or not like it, but that’s it. It’s art, therefore, by being holy in a secular sense, you can’t say it’s wrong.

I would like to know why you are assured that (good) tastes and standards will apply “one day not too far off.”? If you choose not to answer - no problem.

No art will be in heaven, only people and what God has told us by Revelation.

Ed

I was referring to heaven, and each of us will be there, or wish we were, in a very short time (our tiny lifespan). How can you say there will be no art in heaven? Art is how we give expression to the deepest feelings of our souls. Sacred music is art for one thing.

And from where does art come? Does not all talent including artistic talent come from God? Does He not also provide the inspiration for good art?

Why would you imagine a heaven in which we are not fully human? We believe in the resurrection of the body. We will not be bodiless creatures, but fully human, though glorified, creatures. We know that we will be able to sing God’s praises. Singing is an art form. Why would we not be able to utilize other art forms?

Is not God the greatest of all artists as demonstrated by his wondrous creation? If we are made in His image and likeness, I cannot help but believe that we will all be artists to some degree or other in the next life.

 

[JamesCaruso]

It’s hard to imagine a heaven without music, song and poetry.:harp:
But if you spot a TV there, you may be in the wrong place. :takethat:

 

[wynnejj]

I’m not an advocate of completely free expression in the name of “art”. That said, I have to give credence to the argument about the question of who does the censoring. There is no question that sex and violence were kept in its proper check in the “good old days”. But bigotry in disrespectful, satirical and denigrating forms were not. All one has to do is the depiction of non-white, especially blacks. Today, nothing can draw my ire faster than pulling the “race card”, but when I objectively look at the depiction of blacks in the 1930s thru 1960s, I see depictions that are apelike and stupid. This was with censorship and Catholic influence in good standing in the entertainment industry.

My answer to today’s ills is simply to starve the artist if the art is filth. Consequently, I do not subscribe to a TV service. I avoid movies, even good ones, from production companies that I feel engage in so many other films that are destroying our society’s conscience. I’m beginning to believe that the greatest service that we could do for our country for a while is simply starve the entertainment industry in general. Better to read good literature.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I’m not an advocate of completely free expression in the name of “art”. That said, I have to give credence to the argument about the question of who does the censoring. There is no question that sex and violence were kept in its proper check in the “good old days”. But bigotry in disrespectful, satirical and denigrating forms were not. All one has to do is the depiction of non-white, especially blacks. Today, nothing can draw my ire faster than pulling the “race card”, but when I objectively look at the depiction of blacks in the 1930s thru 1960s, I see depictions that are apelike and stupid. This was with censorship and Catholic influence in good standing in the entertainment industry.

My answer to today’s ills is simply to starve the artist if the art is filth. Consequently, I do not subscribe to a TV service. I avoid movies, even good ones, from production companies that I feel engage in so many other films that are destroying our society’s conscience. I’m beginning to believe that the greatest service that we could do for our country for a while is simply starve the entertainment industry in general. Better to read good literature.

Look at what happened to the CB radio. Given license to communicate anything the public wants, it destroyed itself. No one I know uses it anymore.

If it were not for the profit motive in TV and movies, they would have destroyed themselves long ago. So, you’re right, starving the artist is one way to help bring about better quality.

OTOH, there is a large segment of the population that tolerates the garbage, so starving the artist cannot work well as a practical matter until society regains its moral balance. That is not about to happen. At each level of profanity, people become inured to the garbage, so that it continues to be a slow but steady downward spiral. What holds it back are those who continue to resist (like yourself), but their numbers are diminishing.

 

[wynnejj]

I’m not an advocate of completely free expression in the name of “art”. That said, I have to give credence to the argument about the question of who does the censoring. There is no question that sex and violence were kept in its proper check in the “good old days”. But bigotry in disrespectful, satirical and denigrating forms were not. All one has to do is look at the depiction of non-whites, especially blacks. Today, nothing can draw my ire faster than pulling the “race card”, but when I objectively look at the depiction of blacks in the 1930s thru 1960s, I see depictions that are apelike and stupid. This was with censorship and Catholic influence in good standing in the entertainment industry.

My answer to today’s ills is simply to starve the artist if the art is filth. Consequently, I do not subscribe to a TV service. I avoid movies, even good ones, from production companies that I feel engage in so many other films that are destroying our society’s conscience. I’m beginning to believe that the greatest service that we could do for our country for a while is simply starve the entertainment industry in general. Better to read good literature.

 

[wynnejj]

OTOH, there is a large segment of the population that tolerates the garbage, so starving the artist cannot work well as a practical matter until society regains its moral balance.

This is where church leadership should play its role. It should preach about the moral responsibility to train capitalism by its consumer vote. It should encourage parents to consider how their entertainment dollars spent unwisely contribute to moral decline of the sacredness of life, marriage and family. It should offer sage counsel in how to do their part in restoring the moral balance for the sake of their children. Above all, the church has to be the unfailing gauge that properly registers when its own membership is not morally balanced. That is, it has to speak up clearly to the problems of our times and, clearly challenge secular imbalances with a clear vision and clearly heard voice.

 

[Portrait]

This is where church leadership should play its role. It should preach about the moral responsibility to train capitalism by its consumer vote. It should encourage parents to consider how their entertainment dollars spent unwisely contribute to moral decline of the sacredness of life, marriage and family. It should offer sage counsel in how to do their part in restoring the moral balance for the sake of their children. Above all, the church has to be the unfailing gauge that properly registers when its own membership is not morally balanced. That is, it has to speak up clearly to the problems of our times and, clearly challenge secular imbalances with a clear vision and clearly heard voice.

Dear wynnejj,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Hear, hear and a hearty Amen to your above remarks.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[edwest2]

Look at what happened to the CB radio. Given license to communicate anything the public wants, it destroyed itself. No one I know uses it anymore.

If it were not for the profit motive in TV and movies, they would have destroyed themselves long ago. So, you’re right, starving the artist is one way to help bring about better quality.

OTOH, there is a large segment of the population that tolerates the garbage, so starving the artist cannot work well as a practical matter until society regains its moral balance. That is not about to happen. At each level of profanity, people become inured to the garbage, so that it continues to be a slow but steady downward spiral. What holds it back are those who continue to resist (like yourself), but their numbers are diminishing.

Why are you without hope? With God, all things are possible. Please provide any example of numbers diminishing.

forbes.com/sites/pauljankowski/2011/10/04/family-friendly-movies-make-big-get-hollywoods-attention/

Peace,
Ed

 

[JamesCaruso]

This is where church leadership should play its role. ** It should preach about the moral responsibility to train capitalism by its consumer vote.** It should encourage parents to consider how their entertainment dollars spent unwisely contribute to moral decline of the sacredness of life, marriage and family. It should offer sage counsel in how to do their part in restoring the moral balance for the sake of their children. Above all, the church has to be the unfailing gauge that properly registers when its own membership is not morally balanced. That is, it has to speak up clearly to the problems of our times and, clearly challenge secular imbalances with a clear vision and clearly heard voice.

It does so where I live, but I can’t speak for other locales. Yes, the Church must preach relentlessly, and the laity must listen and take the Church’s moral teaching to heart. One way of preaching is by means of the Catholic News Service which is a financially self-sustaining division of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It offers movie reviews from a Catholic perspective through the Movie Guide Monthly. catholicnews.com/movies.htm I wouldn’t call this censorship, but it does provide good guidance for those interested.

 

[Portrait]

Dear Portrait,

Thank you for another informative post. In no way do I wish to view films from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and the culture that existed at the time through rose-colored spectacles. However, dear brother, we must examine the causes for things going from quite good to mostly bad. As anyone can see for themselves, we had a wide range of choices in the past, from comedies to musicals to grand epics, adventure and mystery, but we had standards that were reflected in our media. One could turn on the radio and experience the same. So, to understand the present, we need to understand the current excuses to deride, ignore or suppress the truth about movies and standards.

Dear Ed,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your latest insightful posts in this thread.

What I think can be said without fear of contradiction, dear brother, is that the films/television prior to the Seventies mirrored the views of society, which itself was mostly permeated by Christian values and morality. Moreover, during this period of time Christians were still very much the moral disinfectant within the world, a function which they could only discharge in so far as they retained their virtue. Alas, as they adopted a worldly conformity with the spirit of the age, especially during the late Sixties and thereafter, they gradually ceased to be a force for good because they had begun to descend to the level of their pagan neighbours. They had been “the salt of the earth”, but now the salt had sadly “lost his savour” (cf. S. Matt. 5: 13) and they became increasingly distracted and demoralized by the many godless influences now in their midst. By watching unwholesome films/television shows and listening to debased sensory material like rock/pop music, they were failing to keep themselves “unspotted from the world” (Jam. 1: 27). This shameful worldliness among professing Catholics is, I firmly believe, a major reason for the escalation of all unwholesome media that we have witnessed since the end of the permissive Sixties. If only the faithful had steadfastly resisted the unwholesome and morally corrupting influences of that “whole generation with (its) new explanation”, instead of enthusiastically embracing and defending them, then the deplorable plight of the world of modern film and television would not be such as it is today. Yes, “the times they were a changing”, but not, I am sorry to say, for the better and we now find ourselves in a cesspool of moral corruption and depravity, to which there is seemingly no end in sight. Wynnejj is quite right, our Church needs to speak with greater clarity to the problems of our deeply troubled age and challenge those things that are seriously wanting, especially in the entertainment industry.

Surely, dear brother, this is one of the primary causes as to why things have waxed worse and worse in our culture and why film makers keep wanting to push envelope ever further - there is a tragic loss of the moral disinfectant (godly and unworldly Christians) to purify and enlighten society and preserve it from corruption. Christians claim to belong to the high mountain land above and to be setting their affections on things above and not on things on the earth, but you would never know it, if personal sanctity and separation from the world are any true index of vital godliness!

You are quite right, dear brother, there were standards and boundaries which were not transgressed by the media in former times and our society was, for the most part, a jolly better and safer place for that. It is indeed profitable that we trace the causes of our moral declension and then pray earnestly for a swift return to the “old paths, where is the good way” (Jer. 6: 16). If this entails a rigorous approach to media censorship, then so be it. Ungodly and degenerate film directors/producers have had their own way for far too long and good and respectable members of the public have had enough of their worthless and morally offensive bilge water.

God bless and thankyou for your posts Ed.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[JamesCaruso]

Again, well done, Portrait. Your message is clear and lights the way that society must go it it is serious and really wants to rid itself of this ugly scourge. If it does not, there are ways I am sure that correction will be brought about by higher powers. We should all pray it does not go to this extreme-- or has it, but we are slow to recognize it in the social ills and calamities, and other misfortunes, we are reaping in its wake?

 

[Portrait]

Again, well done, Portrait. Your message is clear and lights the way that society must go it it is serious and really wants to rid itself of this ugly scourge. If it does not, there are ways I am sure that correction will be brought about by higher powers. We should all pray it does not go to this extreme-- or has it, but we are slow to recognize it in the social ills and calamities, and other misfortunes, we are reaping in its wake?

Dear JamesCaruso,

Cordial greetings and a very good day.

Here, dear brother, is a very apt quotation which I think we should all ponder most carefully in the light of the topic currently under review:

“Every generation of Christians faces unique challenges…The challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries” (Kenneth A. Myers).

Our debased popular culture is everywhere, shaping our tastes, our language and our values, a great deal more than we are probably even aware.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[VirtusTransitus]

I think it’s true that modern pop culture is our own version of persecution. However, I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom yet. I think we’re just beginning the decline. I’m afraid we have a long way to go before we hit the bottom.

I’m just glad I found my way back to the light before we completely plunge into the darkness.

Now to get the rest of my family to join me in the light. That is the challenge of my life right now.

 

[edwest2]

Dear Portrait,

Firstly, thank you for your kind words regarding my posts. By the end of the 1960s, those who claimed to have a “better” way needed to replace what we had been doing with ‘the new.’ They needed to rearrange our mental landscape and help us see the world in a new, “better” (for them) kind of way. The plan of attack was simple: to assault us with words, music, live events and psychedelic art/music, and finally, with movies. As the Church had realized in the 1930s, the moving picture with sound was just like the real thing, and a powerful tool for good or evil.

Books:

Eastern mysticism was marketed as soooo important. While I was at University in the mid-1970s, I walked into a bookstore that had such books stacked from floor to ceiling. Alan Watts presented his strange, Eastern-inspired ideas.

Underground newspapers: I bought copies of the Fifth Estate, a Detroit produced, anarchist tabloid that featured immorality, dope use as a good thing and introduced us to phrases like “off the pigs” (kill the police), because they were oppressing poor Hippie dope smokers. It also told us to hate corporations and provided advice on how to hurt them, at least financially. I still recall the full page poster with the words: “Eat the rich.”

Underground comix: These contained stories to read and/or look at while high, and well-drawn stories centered on graphic sexual situations, masturbation and a general disrespect for normal living. The only well-drawn, but totally immoral stories, were done by a man named Robert Crumb.

Head Shops: They began to open. The one in my neighborhood burned incense, sold the underground comix and newspapers, peace symbols, and, of course, “roach clips,” small, spring-loaded pincers that were to be attached to the end of your “joint” so you wouldn’t burn your fingers while getting your last toke.

Music

James Hendrix, became Jimi Hendrix and performed at Woodstock in 1969. I remember buying my first album with the psychedelic cover and unconventionally dressed musicians.
“Hey mister businessman, you can’t dress like me.” And Purple Haze. A great musician who had been turned to be a front man for the dope-sex worldview. He died from drug-related asphyxiation.

In 1970, James Brown would release an album titled Sex Machine.

Movies

1968 Rosemary’s Baby - A young wife is impregnated by Satan. The movie was condemned by The Legion of Decency.

Art

Peter Max brought along his psychedelic vision, which even in appeared in newspapers for a time. Illegal and dangerous drugs, it was said, would improve our creativity. No. Illegal drugs were illegal because they are (still) harmful. But at the time, they told us: “Hey man. They’ll expand your mind.” Not true.

I must admit that part of me wanted to see what was going on starting in 1968. I wanted to see and hear what the radicals had to say. After leaving Catholic High School in 1973, I spent my first year in my first college as if dropped into an alien, but partly familiar world. Immoral sexuality was flaunted, and rules? What rules? Aside from showing up to my classes, I found myself surrounded by complete strangers. I felt like an ant in an ant hive, walking from building to building.

I was an immature 18 year old and unwisely chose to sample a few of “their” ways. I never used illegal drugs, but the ladies caught my eye. But after several years of creating problems for myself, God pulled me back. I was shown the error of my ways through a Christian coffeehouse that evangelized heavily. It was only then did I realize the wrongness and the lies. How the words of the radicals and their way of looking at the world had made me doubt.

So, yes, movies should be censored, because human dignity requires human decency. Even the war movies I watched growing up scratched the surface and showed just enough to get the horror, fear and violence across, but only up to a point. As a World War II history specialist, the director of Saving Private Ryan did not give us a “better” war movie, he gave us a bloodier, more graphic war movie, and for what?

My father was a vet and gathered together with the other vets in the neighborhood. They rarely spoke openly about what they had seen, giving us only bits and pieces. Watching actors pretending to be scared or dealing with the dead is nothing like talking to the men who actually did it and lived it

One excuse some people use to champion movies today is that they are more truthful. That is not so. The sum total of the last 30 years of movies shows the degradation of everything decent, that behind most every decent man is a hypocrite or a killer, whether he’s a policeman or someone normally worthy of respect. We should embrace this, because the FALSE truth is that we are all desperately evil, and some more than others, and we need to debase ourselves further because debased is what we are. There is no god, no good, just the worst of us on screen: selfish, sex-obsessed, drug and alcohol abusing and self-obsessed. This is the model for the NEW human being who has no shame, no guilt and no sin. I watched part of a movie where the lead actor is falling to his death but on the way down, he manages to break the neck of someone nearby that he wants dead and then he dies as well.

The rational response is to stop seeing most movies. Luke 11:34

“The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is sound, then your whole body is filled with light, but when it is bad, then your body is in darkness.”

continued…

 

[edwest2]

We must act. If for no one else then for Catholics, so that we can show by our deeds, by our good fruit, that disowning the darkness is a must TODAY.

1. Find other ways to enjoy life that do not involve most movies, and keep track of what’s going on through reviews, Catholic and otherwise. Keep other Catholics informed.
2. We need strong Catholic communities. We need to be around other Catholics that want to change our habits. The Bible tells us to encourage one another.
3. Ignore those who scream that their rights are being violated or that the 100% evil government will step in. We don’t need the government. Talk to your local priest. Tell him that most movies are bad for us and to tell it to the whole congregation.
4. Contact your Bishop and tell him the same thing. Ask him to encourage Catholics to rid themselves of all movies that will darken us, and to set up collection and disposal centers so that this material will be destroyed.

It begins with each one of us. We can NOT afford to be passive or put this mostly on the shoulders of the Church leadership. Each one of is called to holiness. And movies that do not promote human decency and human dignity are automatically out.

Some of us cannot conceive of an end to our lives. Let us have life more abundantly but let us live in the light, and have good, clean fun. The Holy Spirit has given gifts to all of us. Do a little, do a lot, but do something.

Peace and God bless,

Ed

 

[edwest2]

And for Catholic writers out there, please read this:

docs.google.com/a/catholicwritersguild.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEtGN0pjNlZjeGNwRFMxMEVYdnN2M0E6MQ#gid=0

There is a Catholic Writers Guild and these standards are very much needed for a new crop of book writers and screenwriters. No, not every book or movie needs to be about Catholic subjects, but need set limits. As we know, Hollywood gave us decades of movies that followed such standards. Today, on a modest budget, we can do the same.

Contact John Paul the Great Catholic University as well. Find out how to model their film program where you are if you can’t attend.

jpcatholic.com/academics/academics.php

The time has come my fellow creative Catholics.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Portrait]

So, yes, movies should be censored, because human dignity requires human decency. Even the war movies I watched growing up scratched the surface and showed just enough to get the horror, fear and violence across, but only up to a point. As a World War II history specialist, the director of Saving Private Ryan did not give us a “better” war movie, he gave us a bloodier, more graphic war movie, and for what?

snip/.

The rational response is to stop seeing most movies. Luke 11:34

“The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is sound, then your whole body is filled with light, but when it is bad, then your body is in darkness.”

Dear Ed,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Splendid posts and most crucially they explain our present moral degradation and why men today, including film makers/TV producers, lack a moral compass, which is manifestly obvious given the culturally unwholesome film and television output.

The Sixties, dear brother, was a decade of decadence and whilst I was still in short trousers in those days, I have read extensively about that period and spoken to many people who had the misfortune to pass through those turbulent times. It was an age in which the young (and not so young) took a perverse delight in discarding the (Christian) moral standards of previous generations and then encouraged others to “tune in, turn on and drop out” (Timothy Leary). How indicative of our present plight, that we actually make a luminary of Leary and regard him as a source of intellectual light and inspiration. It would, moreover, be a grave mistake to laugh the Sixties off as halcyon days of love, joy and peace, on the contrary, they were days when a moral revolution was astir, the dreadful legacy of which is still very much with us today - abortion, homosexual vice, contraception, immodest attire, rock/pop music and unprecedented youth rebellion, to name but a few of the troubles that are the bane of our comtemporary Western world. The dreadful declension of media standards and the rapid growth of culturally unsavoury content in films and television shows is but a presenting symptom of the moral malaise that began in the permissive Sixties.

As popular culture has spread, dear brother, its content has coursened shockingly and who can honestly deny that since the Sixties the level of sex and violence has risen sharply in films, television, music, computer games, literature and even comic books. Moreover, in recent times we have seen the emergence of media that seeks to normalize the homosexual lifestyle and its accompanying vice, implying that anyone who is opposed to this unnatural behaviour must be an intolerant religious fanatic. Therefore, in view of all this, a rigorous censorship is surely needed as a matter of urgency, but I do not feel that this is likely to happen shortly, at least humanly speaking. However, with God nothing is impossible and perhaps as Catholics we can begin again to prove the power of prayer, even as we seek to bring all the key issues to the attention of our fellow men.

What is so very deeply saddening today, dear brother, is that you have putative Catholics who will argue that it is possible to assimilate a certain amount of media immorality and yet not be adversely affected by it, provided, that is, you have a robust enough faith which allows you to separate the good from among the bad and ugly. This is sheer arrant nonsense, for we are all fallen men with a continual propensity to sin at any time and it is therefore dangerous and presumptious to expose oneself to immoral or violent content - “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned” (Prov. 6: 27,28). As soon as we expose ourselves to the unwholesome influences of the media we are playing with fire and are unlikely to preserve our innocency. We are effectively thrusting ourselves into the way of temptation and throwing ourselves out of God’s protection. It is beyond me why any devout Catholic who is in earnest repecting the pursuit of holiness would ever wish to do that? Of course, they try and rebuff that by the ‘no true scotman’ argument, but we are only interested in what the true *Catholic *,desirous to see the beatific vision of God in Christ, would do. In any event, it admits of no doubt that continual exposure to unwholesome material will, at length, poison the mind and demoralize the life, resulting in a man finally becoming desensitized to the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We have this on the authority of St. Paul himself who said, “Be not decieved. Bad communications corrupt good manners” (I Cor. 15: 33), and cannot that be extended quite legitimately to include bad films and television, bad music and bad literature etc?

To be continued.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax