, , , , , ,

Dear Hollywood: 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens is truly a Christmas story

, , , , , ,
Dear Hollywood: 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens is truly a Christmas story

On his way to becoming a Hollywood superstar, Bill Murray demonstrated great skill at delivering rants that blurred the line between lunacy and pathos.

In the 1988 flick "Scrooged," he belted out lessons learned from visits with the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, as well as occupying his own coffin in a crematorium.

"I'm not crazy. It's Christmas Eve. It's the one night when we … share a little more. For a couple of hours, we are the people we always hoped we would be. It's really a miracle because it happens every Christmas Eve," proclaimed Murray's character, a greedy, arrogant TV executive.

"If you waste that miracle, you're gonna burn for it. I know. … There are people that don't have enough to eat and who are cold. You can go and greet these people. Take an old blanket out to them or make a sandwich and say, 'Here!' l get it now. … I believe in it now."

"Scrooged" is a fascinating Tinseltown take on the Charles Dickens novella "A Christmas Carol" because of what the film contains and what it leaves out, said English literature professor Dwight Lindley of Hillsdale College in Michigan.

This dark comedy contains miracles, ghosts, angels, sin, judgment, penance, purgatory, damnation, the Grim Reaper and eternal life. What it lacks is any meaningful role for God or a Holy Babe in a manger.

"Scrooged" is as "far as some people in Hollywood can go with Dickens," by "domesticating his message and making it more comfortable," said Lindley, who is teaching a six-lecture online course about this 1843 text.

The class, he added, was created for "anyone who loves the story, but doesn't know how to dig deeper into it than what they have seen in the somehow superficial versions that are around. … Some people have a sense that there is something deeper, something moving underneath the surface."

For many, watching "A Christmas Carol" on video is a holiday ritual. These movies usually include the basic story, while ignoring the narration in which Dickens frames his parable.

, , , , , ,

Here comes Christmas 2023 -- whatever that means in a digital marketplace

, , , , , ,
Here comes Christmas 2023 -- whatever that means in a digital marketplace

There was a time, long ago, when it was easy to pinpoint the beginning and end of the "Christmas season."

In cultures linked to centuries of Christian tradition, the feast of Christmas -- the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ or Christ Mass -- was on December 25, the start of a festive 12-day season that ended with the Feast of the Epiphany. Many Eastern Orthodox churches continue to use the ancient Julian calendar, celebrating Christmas on January 7.

Then there is the "Christmas season" for the whole culture. One big change occurred on December 26, 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt -- focusing on Christmas shopping -- signed a joint resolution of Congress defining Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November. That established an official starting line for the dash to Christmas.

By the early 1960s, the name "Black Friday" was attached to the day after Thanksgiving, with armies of shoppers heading to downtown stores and, eventually, the shopping malls that replaced them. This brand of Christmas opened with a bang, with throngs gathering before dawn to grab "Black Friday" bargains, with police present to control the inevitable pushing and shoving.

Then came the Internet, with more changes in the size and shape of the commercial steamroller known as the "Holidays."

"It's safe to say that Black Friday has become a concept, not an event. We have ended up with Black Fridays all the way down" the calendar during November, said Jeremy Lott, managing editor for publications at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and former editor of the Real Clear Religion website.

"Basically, we're talking about Black Friday after Black Friday everywhere, world without end. Amen," he added, in a telephone interview.

It's true that millions of shoppers can flock to any "malls that are still open," he said. But in terms of large-scale holiday rites, the "liturgy of the shopping mall" has devolved into smaller rites focusing on waves of sales in strip-mall shops and "big-box" stores located nearby.

, , , ,

'The Exorcist' turns 50 -- Visions of hell, in defense of beliefs about heaven

, , , ,
'The Exorcist' turns 50 -- Visions of hell, in defense of beliefs about heaven

William Peter Blatty was pounding out the first pages of "The Exorcist" when his telephone rang -- bringing the news that his mother had died.

The screenwriter was already digging into dark material that was completely different from the whimsical work -- such as the classic "A Shot in the Dark" Pink Panther script -- that established his Hollywood career. He was writing a fictional take on an exorcism case he heard discussed during his Georgetown University studies.

But the death of Blatty's Lebanese-born, fervently Catholic mother changed everything. She spoke very little English and called her son "Il Waheed," Arabic for "the one" or "the only." He struggled with grief for five years and his supernatural thriller turned into something much more ambitious.

"I wanted to write about good and evil and the unseen world all around us. I wanted to make a statement that the grave is not the end, that there is more to life than death," said Blatty, meeting in a diner near the Georgetown neighborhood described in "The Exorcist."

It was 2013, four years before Blatty's death, and our conversation focused on the 40th anniversary of the film that brought him an Academy Award, for adopting his novel for the big screen. Now, on the 50th anniversary of "The Exorcist," critics are still debating why it had such as seismic impact.

Blatty insisted, many times, that he wasn't trying to shock people, even though the R-rated classic sent many rushing for theater exits, sickened by its stomach-wrenching visions. His goal was "apostolic, from the beginning," an attempt to inspire faith and defend core Christian doctrines, he said.

The equation was simple: "If demons are real, why not angels? If angels are real, why not souls? And if souls are real, what about your own soul? … And, by the way, if incarnate evil is real, what are you going to do about that?"

"The Exorcist" set box-office records for horror films, with numbers that soared with subsequent re-releases. At the same time, Blatty was deeply satisfied to hear priests report that, in the weeks after the movie opened, penitents lined up for confession.

, , , , ,

ARC 2023: When defending a civilization, virtues matter more than mere 'stuff'

, , , , ,
ARC 2023: When defending a civilization, virtues matter more than mere 'stuff'

Quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn is not a typical cold open for an edgy Jewish comedian.

But the Russian-British Konstantin Kisin -- a self-avowed "politically non-binary satirist" -- wasn't joking during his recent speech to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship in London's O2 Arena. He was describing what he sees as immediate threats to liberal Western culture.

Solzhenitsyn, who wrote "The Gulag Archipelago," noted: "The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. … If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand."

That quote came to mind, said Kisin, while watching throngs around the world celebrate the Oct. 7 raids on civilian populations in Israel.

"I am starting to lose faith. I don't know how long our civilization will survive. For years now, many of us have been warning that the barbarians are at the gates. We were wrong. They're inside," said Kisin, who offered serious commentary and dark humor. "I'm not going to be all doom and gloom. There are positives as well. Say what you want about Hamas supporters, at least they know what a woman is."

The ARC co-founders -- British Baroness Philippa Claire Stroud and Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson -- urged the authors, business leaders, artists, scientists and others who spoke during the three-day gathering to focus on a positive vision of public life.

Thus, ARC circulated questions such as, "Can we find a unifying story that will guide us as we make our way forward?" and "How do we facilitate the development of a responsible and educated citizenry?" But, in a pre-conference paper, Peterson and the Canadian iconographer and YouTube maven Jonathan Pageau noted that future progress will require dealing with the past.

"We cannot have respect for ourselves, security or hope for the future while denigrating the past, because those who dwelled in the past are no different in essence from those who live now and who will live later," they said.

, , , , ,

Drawing hope from synodality era, German bishops bolt ahead on same-sex blessings

, , , , ,
Drawing hope from synodality era, German bishops bolt ahead on same-sex blessings

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed, "Judge not, lest you be judged."

Early in his papacy, Pope Francis told journalists: " "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"

Citing those words, while expressing hope for future Synod on Synodality developments, a German bishop has officially asked his clergy to start performing rites blessing Catholics in same-sex relationships. He also included couples with secular divorces, as opposed to church annulments, who are then married outside the church.

"Both with regard to believers whose marriages have broken down and who have remarried, and especially with regard to same-sex oriented people, it is urgently time -- especially against the background of a long history of deep hurt -- for a different perspective," wrote Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann of the Diocese of Speyer (.pdf here), in a translation from the German posted by the Catholic Conclave weblog.

The goal, he added, is "a pastoral attitude … as many of you have been practicing for a long time. That's why I campaigned for a reassessment of homosexuality in church teaching in the Synodal Path and also voted for the possibility of blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. I stand by that."

The bishop stressed that new rites will not be "celebrating a sacrament, but rather about a blessing." This change in diocesan policy means that "no one who carries out such blessings has to fear sanctions."

Performing these blessings will require "empathy and discretion," wrote Wiesemann.

"It may be that the domestic setting (possibly also with the blessing of the shared apartment) is more suitable. … A blessing ceremony can also take place in the church," noted the bishop. "The celebration must differ in words and symbols from a church wedding and, as an act of blessing, should expressly reinforce the love, commitment and mutual responsibility that exists in the couple's relationship."

, , , ,

For many liberal Jews, Gaza nightmare has created an 'upside-down' world

, , , ,
For many liberal Jews, Gaza nightmare has created an 'upside-down' world

The graffiti on Cornell University sidewalks was stunning, with messages proclaiming, "Israel is fascist," "Zionism = genocide" and "F*** Israel."

Then antisemitic screeds appeared on the Cornell forum at Greekrank, a multi-campus website about fraternities and sororities. This included threats to the Ivy League school's prominent Jewish community, with detailed references to the Center for Jewish Living.

Among the milder posts was this from a "kill jews" account: "allahu akbar! from the river to the sea, palestine will be free! liberation by any means necessary!" A "jew evil" post added: "if you see a jewish 'person' on campus follow them home and slit their throats. rats need to be eliminated from cornell."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul met with students, promising that "New York State would do everything possible to find the perpetrator who threatened a mass shooting and antisemitic violence on campus." Then a Cornell student, a former campus safety officer, was arrested and charged in connection with the threats.

This followed waves of international protests and rioting, with the Anti-Defamation League noting that antisemitic activity in America rose 400% after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, compared with the same weeks last year.

The news only seems to get worse whenever Jews venture online, even when digging into their social-media feeds, said Rabbi Sharon Brous, in a viral sermon at her progressive IKAR ("essence") congregation in Los Angeles. If the Holocaust is the "dominant psychic reality of the Jew," it's impossible not to view news reports through "Shoah-colored glasses."

It's hard to tell reality from brutal satire, especially when signs of "genocidal antisemitism" emerge from some of America's most elite institutions, she said.

“This week we entered the upside-down world, when a retrograde, regressive, totalitarian, misogynistic, messianic, terrorist regime became -- for the time being -- the hero of the left," said Brous, in a sermon that opened with a warning that parents might want to take their children out of the sanctuary.

, , ,

Dorothy Sayers: It's no mystery that her world was shaped by a classical education

, , ,
Dorothy Sayers: It's no mystery that her world was shaped by a classical education

As president of the Detection Club, Dorothy L. Sayers led initiation rites featuring ceremonial garb, flickering candles and the spooky presence of Eric, a human skull.

With a flair for the dramatic, Sayers required British mystery writers to take an oath, including: "Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them, using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on, or making use of, Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo-Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or the Act of God?"

New members promised "moderation" in -- this is a partial list -- the use of conspiracies, death-rays, ghosts and trapdoors, while "utterly and forever" avoiding "Mysterious Poisons unknown to Science." And of course: "Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader?"

The Detection Club was founded in 1930, with G.K. Chesterton as president. Sayers was a founding member and became its third president, followed by Agatha Christie.

Famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, Sayers' career defied simple labels. As a young woman, she worked for the S.H. Benson advertising agency in London. Among Christians, she is best known as a colleague of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and others in the Inklings writers circle in Oxford. Sayers wrote poetry, theological essays and theatrical works for the stage and BBC Radio. She was gifted in multiple languages and spent the final years of her life translating Dante's "The Divine Comedy" into English.

Sayers is also known for a 1947 Oxford presentation -- "The Lost Tools of Learning" -- that has influenced generations of Classical education leaders in the United States, England and elsewhere. As a child, she was educated by her father, an Anglican vicar, who taught choral music and Latin at Oxford.

"Her parents gave her a classical education that allowed her to navigate her world, the tools to support herself. When she struggled and made mistakes, she was able to repent and get back on track," said medieval scholar Lesley-Anne Williams, who lectured on "Dorothy Sayers: Advertising, Murder and Classical Education" during last week's annual Inklings Festival at the ecumenical Eighth Day Institute in Wichita, Kansas.

, , , , , , ,

Upon Friar Review -- Looking for valid spiritual questions in popular culture

, , , , , , ,
Upon Friar Review -- Looking for valid spiritual questions in popular culture

During the 1990s, legions of kids could quote chapter and verse from the "X-Files" adventures of FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Scully was the skeptic who put her faith in science, while Mulder plunged head-first into the supernatural. But in one case, Scully experienced mysterious visions that helped her save a life. Stunned, she returned to church. Confessing to a priest, she asked why she witnessed a miracle, but her partner did not.

Maybe, the priest said, God was only speaking to her. "With the Lord, anything is possible. Perhaps you saw these things because you needed to. … Why does that surprise you?"

Scully answered: "Mostly it just makes me afraid. … Afraid that God is speaking, but that no one is listening."

Father Casey Cole grew up in that era. While he wasn't an "X-Files" fan, many of his friends were, hooked by the show's mantra, "The truth is out there." Thus, this confession scene has become one of many video clips he uses as chaplain at three schools in Macon, Georgia.

When exploring pop culture, the young Franciscan friar is looking for good questions – the kinds of questions he thinks the church needs to hear.

That's easier with some forms of entertainment than others. It's possible for savvy pastors, youth leaders and teachers to respond to high-quality movies and television programs, especially those that address spiritual issues, said Cole, describing the approach used in the "Upon Friar Review" videos he makes with Father Patrick Tuttle of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Macon.

Then there are "times when Father Patrick closes his eyes and says, 'This is awful.' … There are times when I want to say, 'This is the worst thing ever.' But when we're at our best, we can say, 'Let's take a step back and let's analyze this. What question is being asked here?

, ,

Pets in heaven? Concerning the ministry of Marius Aurelius Spartanicus, the priest's dog

, ,
Pets in heaven? Concerning the ministry of Marius Aurelius Spartanicus, the priest's dog

Catholic priests are not used to hearing penitents laughing while lined up for confession.

When Father Joseph Krupp peered out of the booth one day, he saw that his broad-chested, 72-pound Boxer was in a chair and, when the line moved, the dog took the next chair.

Everyone knew this hound had sins to confess, after raiding wedding receptions, opening church fridges and, on one occasion, scarfing down a three-pound roast. Krupp laughs when describing how the latest of his rescue dogs "absolutely murdered" a rabbit -- next to a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of all creatures great and small.

The priest said he has intentionally adopted old dogs, hoping to "give them a few happy years. … I always thought that I was trying to heal the dogs. This time, God sent the dog to heal me."

This canine parable began during a tough stretch of the priest's work in a number of Michigan parishes. Krupp has served as chaplain for the Michigan State University football team, led the university Catholic campus ministry and now supervises the state's Northeastern deanery, with 12 parishes and four schools.

The priest went to the Hillsdale Humane Society eight years ago to donate a bed, toys and food after his latest dog died. Then he saw a battered, "broken-hearted" Boxer no one wanted.

"He was found tied to a tree, along with another dog. The other dog had died of starvation, and he was close to it. He had been shot with numerous pellets, his tail was broken, and a lot of his teeth were missing," wrote Krupp, to his many @JoeInBlack readers on X (formerly Twitter).

The dog was hours from death, but shelter workers saved him.

As Krupp arrived, a former student "sent me a message. She told me she was praying for me, and God told her that He was going to give me a remarkable gift that day. I walked in just as they were walking a dog out," he wrote. "He lifted his head, saw me and ran at me so hard and fast that the leash came out of the volunteer's hand. I sat on the floor, and he jumped on me, licking me and pushing me to the ground. I just couldn't quit laughing."