The Anti-Catholic League
August 20, 2003 | 8 Comments
The Catholic League bashed the critics of the “Bruce Almighty” for not liking the god-themed movie enough. Now, the League is after the critics of “The Magdalene Sisters” — a film based upon the brutal and systematic abuse of wayward girls in Catholic-run laundries in Ireland in the second half of the 20th century — for liking it too much. League president William Donohue draws some rather dubious parallels:
Imagine an anti-Semitic director who admits he packed into one movie every anti-Semitic theme he could draw on and then gets an anti-Semitic duo to distribute it. Next imagine film critics taking the anti-Semitic propaganda at face value and then offering anti-Semitic remarks in their reviews. Fat chance. For example, there will never be a movie about Jewish slumlords in Harlem or Jewish managers of black entertainers in the 20th century. If there were, and if it were to present a wholly one-sided portrait of the worst excesses of how some Jews exploited blacks, the ADL would be up in arms. And rightly so. But luckily for Jews, this is not likely to happen. Catholics are not so lucky—they have to endure Catholic-bashing directors like Peter Mullan shopping his anti-Catholic script to anti-Catholic distributors like Harvey and Bob Weinstein, only to have it reviewed by anti-Catholic critics.
Donohue might have a point if someone made a film called “The Gambino Brothers” that portrayed organized crime as a Catholic enterprise due to the religion of the family bosses. But in the Magdalene Sisters, the laundries are operated for the benefit of the Church and managed by nuns and priests. Is Donohue suggesting that synagogues purchased Harlem properties and installed rabbis as superintendents? Or that a similar, institutionalized religious arrangement controls the music industry? And if he’s so concerned about group stereotyping, why was he so angry with the critics who panned Mel Gibson’s upcoming film “The Passion” for portraying Jews as Christ-killers?
Donohue also misfires in attacking the film’s distributor, Miramax, which is run by Harvey and Bob Weinstein. He asserts that “[i]f someone were to do a movie called ‘The Weinstein Brothers,’ one that focused on their legacy of anti-Catholicism, and sold it as being representative of how Hollywood views Catholics, it would be dishonest.” But all that Miramax has done is to release a movie which accurately depicts certain abuses by the Church over a fifty-year period. If legitimate criticism of the Church is anti-Catholicism, so be it; but the fault then lies with Catholicism, not the “anti-s.”
August 20th, 2003 @ 1:35 pm
If the catholic league payed as much attention to there preists as they do the movies………..(insert joke)…….
I can only hope that it continues to get worse for the catholic church. Which in my mind, is the most perverse of all the popular forms of christianity. What pervert came up with confessional? Is there a reason you can’t see there hands?
August 20th, 2003 @ 3:34 pm
Dang, Rumblefish.
I don’t think Catholicism is any worse than the others, but it is silly to expect peopel to ONLY tell good stories about the Catholic Church. The movie was inspired by a documentary that was very much from the perspectives of the girls incarcerated, and the last “Magdalene” house wasn’t closed until 1996.
Besides, this is Ireland, and everyone knows about the havoc the Church has wreaked there — hasn’t Mr. Donohue read any James Joyce?
I’ve heard others say the film doesn’t spend enough time discussing and contemplating the Ireland of that time, so that is bad, but to say the film is terrible solely because it says bad things about the Church? What about when people say bad things about the American government? Or when people say bad things about mothers who beat their children? Those aren’t anti-America (ok, maybe some are) or anti-mother tirades. Those are folks pointing to what is bad because it is bad.
I think Donohue is just upset that everyone’s talking bad about his Church lately and has had enough. But he shouldn’t confuse his sense of overwhelm with a sense of right and wrong. Maybe he should just stop reading the paper
August 20th, 2003 @ 5:18 pm
Rumble Fish took the words out of my mouth. They need to focus and get their shit together. Get the damn log out of your eye so to speak.
August 20th, 2003 @ 6:34 pm
This so-called “Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights” is one of the organizations that filed amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court in support of “sodomy” laws. “Rights”? “Right” of Catholics never to be offended? “Right” of their church never to be opposed or criticized on anything? “Right” to throw homosexuals in jail? _These_ Catholics _deserve_ Jack T. Chick! ha! ha!
August 20th, 2003 @ 10:37 pm
For several years, Christian and Jewish (and now Muslim) activists have had a ready accusation against those who publicly oppose their political agendas: anti-religious bigotry. It is a dishonest attempt to blur the line between hating people and simply criticizing their ideas.
August 21st, 2003 @ 12:00 am
Catholics one week, Jews the next, etc. Free press, name reconigition, & vanity is the real agenda. What with those pesky evangelicals stealing their sheep with their charismatic approach to the con game and with past crimes catching up to them, the old institutions are hurtin for fresh sheep so they attack each other. Good christians
Rumblefish: That’s what the robes are for also. They been at it so long, they thought of everything( except for the fact that brainwashed little boys can’t keep a secret past 5-10 years).
August 21st, 2003 @ 2:03 pm
If I recall correctly, there was in fact a movie that caricatured the Jewish promoters/musicians of Black musicians. Mo’Better Blues. Not that that changes anything.
September 20th, 2003 @ 3:12 pm
You people sure are stupid. Keep defending the Jews and the homosexuals, because it’s fashionable, non-controversial, and cowardly. You are all Undermen.