In The News: Is Santa White? Is the Pope a Marxist? What’s a Christian Hipster?
A round-up of recent religion & media news. Continue Reading →
Tag: the pope
In The News: Breaking Bad, Thanksgivukkah, The Vatican, George Bernard Shaw & much more
A round-up of recent religion & media news. Continue Reading →
Words and Deeds in Malaysia
Malaysia’s Prime Minister talks of tolerance in Rome but doesn’t “walk the talk” back home
by Natasja Sheriff
In a rare meeting in July, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Pope Benedict XVI agreed to establish diplomatic relations between Malaysia and the Holy See. It was a historic meeting of national significance for Malaysia, which until this week was one of only 17 countries in the world that had not formed diplomatic ties with the Vatican.
News of the meeting was met with skepticism in Malaysia, where the Prime Minister’s actions so rarely match his words from the international stage. Thanks to Najib, Malaysia has an global reputation for openness and inter-faith dialogue, receiving praise from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his promotion of moderate Islam. (See here for comment by Malaysian scholar Farish Noor on the politics of the term ‘moderate.’) In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly last September, Najib urged the international community to embark on a ‘Global Movement of Moderates,’ inviting “all faiths who are committed to work together to combat and marginalize extremists who have held the world hostage with their bigotry and bias.” Some argue that it’s this type of politicking, the international face of Najib, that has contributed to a view of Malaysia that is “idealised (and outdated).”
At home the actions of the Barisan Nasional government appear to tell a different story of racial and religious politics. Relations between the government and Malaysia’s Christian community have rarely been warm, but divisions have deepened during the last 18 months. Early in 2010, a spate of firebomb attacks on churches around the country shocked Malaysians. Continue Reading →
Consumption of The Borgias: A Viewer's Guide
by Meghan Maguire Dahn and Abby Ohlheiser
“You are so beautiful, Giulia Farnese, I would have you painted,” declares Jeremy Irons’s Pope Alexander VI in Showtime’s new series The Borgias. It’s not surprising. The lighting in The Borgias is sumptuous and if there’s one thing they light particularly well, it’s the desirable flesh. It’s all positively luminous, like pigment suspended in oil.
And, really, what else would you expect? The viewer-attracting meat of this show is its meticulously constructed tension between our understanding of Catholic virtue and our expectations for scintillating cable entertainment. Showtime is marketing The Borgias as some sort of historical Sopranos – a crime family with pretty costumes, big meals, and the juxtaposition of religion and naughty bits. But The Borgias is a bit more complicated than that: the series is about getting and keeping absolute power, in the name of God.
Let’s be clear about God’s role here. The Borgia family – and their enemies and friends – talk about God like a Brit might talk about the Queen. God is real, but mostly ceremonial. The important action happens in the City of Man. This is not Augustine’s Catholic Church. Instead of withdrawing from worldly delights, the cardinals turn up their nose at gruel and scoff at the suggestion of fasting, carnal sacrifice be damned. Continue Reading →
Consumption of The Borgias: A Viewer’s Guide
by Meghan Maguire Dahn and Abby Ohlheiser
“You are so beautiful, Giulia Farnese, I would have you painted,” declares Jeremy Irons’s Pope Alexander VI in Showtime’s new series The Borgias. It’s not surprising. The lighting in The Borgias is sumptuous and if there’s one thing they light particularly well, it’s the desirable flesh. It’s all positively luminous, like pigment suspended in oil.
And, really, what else would you expect? The viewer-attracting meat of this show is its meticulously constructed tension between our understanding of Catholic virtue and our expectations for scintillating cable entertainment. Showtime is marketing The Borgias as some sort of historical Sopranos – a crime family with pretty costumes, big meals, and the juxtaposition of religion and naughty bits. But The Borgias is a bit more complicated than that: the series is about getting and keeping absolute power, in the name of God.
Let’s be clear about God’s role here. The Borgia family – and their enemies and friends – talk about God like a Brit might talk about the Queen. God is real, but mostly ceremonial. The important action happens in the City of Man. This is not Augustine’s Catholic Church. Instead of withdrawing from worldly delights, the cardinals turn up their nose at gruel and scoff at the suggestion of fasting, carnal sacrifice be damned. Continue Reading →
Consumption of The Borgias: A Viewer’s Guide
by Meghan Maguire Dahn and Abby Ohlheiser
“You are so beautiful, Giulia Farnese, I would have you painted,” declares Jeremy Irons’s Pope Alexander VI in Showtime’s new series The Borgias. It’s not surprising. The lighting in The Borgias is sumptuous and if there’s one thing they light particularly well, it’s the desirable flesh. It’s all positively luminous, like pigment suspended in oil.
And, really, what else would you expect? The viewer-attracting meat of this show is its meticulously constructed tension between our understanding of Catholic virtue and our expectations for scintillating cable entertainment. Showtime is marketing The Borgias as some sort of historical Sopranos – a crime family with pretty costumes, big meals, and the juxtaposition of religion and naughty bits. But The Borgias is a bit more complicated than that: the series is about getting and keeping absolute power, in the name of God.
Let’s be clear about God’s role here. The Borgia family – and their enemies and friends – talk about God like a Brit might talk about the Queen. God is real, but mostly ceremonial. The important action happens in the City of Man. This is not Augustine’s Catholic Church. Instead of withdrawing from worldly delights, the cardinals turn up their nose at gruel and scoff at the suggestion of fasting, carnal sacrifice be damned. Continue Reading →
Moral Norms for Immoral Behaviors
From the 2004 article “The Truth About Condoms” by Opus Dei Father Martin Rhonheimer, Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the School of Philosophy of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and, according to the Catholic Weekly, America, a member of Cardinal Ratzinger’s inner circle:
But if they ignore this teaching [that homosexuals should “live in continence like any other unmarried person”], and are at risk from HIV, should they use condoms to prevent infection? The moral norm condemning contraception as intrinsically evil does not apply to these cases. Nor can there be church teaching about this; it would be simply nonsensical to establish moral norms for intrinsically immoral types of behaviour. Should the Church teach that a rapist must never use a condom because otherwise he would additionally to the sin of rape fail to respect “mutual and complete personal self-giving and thus violate the Sixth Commandment”? Of course not.