Derision

La Charité
by William Adolph Bouguereau

Posted on the 6th Day of the 27th Week of Ordinary Time - 2006 AD - Year B

I happened to be watching CSI last night (the Las Vegas variety). The victim was a faked suicide, a young seemingly single parent lying with a fatal bullet wound to the head in front of her infant who was in his cot. The camera pans around the victims living room, there is a Crucifix prominently hanging on the wall by the door. It goes down hill from there.

I have always enjoyed CSI. I find they generally deal with sensitive issues in a clever, intelligent and non sensational, non gratuitous way. Except, it seems, Christianity and pro life issues. I have to say I switched the channel before the episode finished as I felt angry and disappointed at the way the beliefs which I hold, were openly and unapologetically derided. I regret this now, maybe the story redeemed itself by the end, it didn't look like it was going to, but I won't know unless I see a repeat.

The victim at one point was referred to as 'Virgin Mary'. The story portrayed the victim as a virgin who had given birth. A throw away reference was then made to the fact that this was entirely possible, and that intercourse doesn't have to actually take place if foreplay of a certain nature occurs. I won't go into detail. The connection was made there, intentionally. The term 'Virgin Mary' was used and linked to an undermining description of an event which was supposed to refute the idea of the miraculous impregnation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Everyone smiled wryly and sighed. The wry, knowing smile being used over and over again by Willows (one of the main characters), in her encounters with a pro life activisit who (the story goes on to tell us) used our hapless Christian victim as in incubator for the 'left over' embryos from fertiliasation treatment.

Ok - assault and undermine the pro-life movement who I support. Ok - attack one of the very foundations of my Faith in a casual and wry fashion as if it is your (God) given right. No problem, I'll survive. But link the two together and assault them both? This makes it a clever, insidious and directed attack - a 'clever' attack designed to appeal to 'clever' people. Willows hackles rose so extremely as she interviewed the pro life activist, it was as if the pro life movement, to her character (and the writers of the show) represented a greater evil than the death of the victim she was supposedly investigating.

It's tiring to ask why we allow this. Why we don't respond. Why we allow these attacks on our Faith, from every corner, to continue unabated. We live in an information soaked age - the volume and scale of the information we are bombarded with on a daily basis constitues a shock and awe attack on the human psyche. As always the Church and the true Faith are under attack, as a whole and on an individual level with each of its members equally a battle ground between truth, life and light on the one hand and lies, death and darkness on the other.

Always keep both eyes wide open.

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