Worried about "The Golden Compass"?

Pam works in customer service here. She came to see me a few days ago. “Dan, what’s going on with 'The Golden Compass'?” she said. “My son came home from school all freaked out over this movie. They’ve scared the kids half to death over it.”

You couldn’t avoid the warnings. The word spread in schools and from pulpits, from e-mails, faxes, and news reports in both Catholic and non-Catholic media: "The Golden Compass" and the trilogy of books behind it are anti-Catholic and anti-Christian, written by a God-killing atheist who wants to spread his atheism to our children. We must stop him and his kind. Our children must be protected.

In the midst of such strong feeling, and in a society where it often seems that the one who yells the loudest can claim some sort of victory, Catholic Digest’s calmer, more measured response to the movie — “Should Our Family Watch 'The Golden Compass'?” (December 2007 and online HERE) — struck some readers as a betrayal. “I am shocked and appalled that a Catholic magazine would recommend that movie. That movie is about killing God!” said one letter writer. “I thought you were supposed to be Catholic!” complained another.

A lot of readers understood what we were really saying, but I fear that at least a few misunderstood our intention and misread the article, and for them, I’d like to try to set the record straight.

Nowhere did Catholic Digest endorse, recommend, or promote "The Golden Compass" books or movie. In fact, managing editor Julie Rattey came to me with a proposal to write about the movie because she had read all three books of the His Dark Materials trilogy by author Phillip Pullman and was concerned about the anti-Catholic, anti-religious feeling that runs through them, especially in the second and third volumes.

In “Should Our Family Watch 'The Golden Compass'?” we clearly acknowledge the anti-Catholic content of the books. We certainly agree with Catholics who point out Pullman's anti-religious stance. We understand why Catholics would be offended by some of the things Pullman has said and some of the actions taken — and some of the statements made — by the characters representing the religious authority in the books.

Many Catholics have condemned the books and have urged people not to see the movie. That’s fine. We have no problem with people choosing to skip the movie or the books. We think parents have every right to protect their children from influences they feel will be harmful to them.

In terms of broad condemnations, however, our approach is a bit more nuanced. We don’t think condemnations and boycotts work very well. In fact, they often backfire and draw larger crowds. Even his staunchest critics have to admit that Pullman is a very good writer and storyteller, and that people have read and will be reading the books (they’ve been around for years), especially after they see the movie. As with the notorious Da Vinci Code, whether we like it or not, some Catholics will read the books and see the movie. They’ll want to make up their own minds about it.

Given this reality, our goal was to help these Catholics deal with what they’ve read and seen; we did not tell them to embrace or even keep an open mind about Pullman’s atheism; our goal was to help them discern what is good and what is not in his stories, and what is true and what is not, and to foster discussions in their family that we hope can ultimately strengthen faith.

Every day we and our children meet and interact with people and media who do not share Catholic thinking or values — just look at the shows and ads on TV and the content and ads in many glossy magazines — and many of them are far less obvious and more seductive than Pullman’s blatant atheism. We all need to develop the skills to be Catholic in a non-Catholic society, and to pass those skills on to our children. Rather than issuing broad condemnations or encouraging our people to live in Catholic ghettos, we at Catholic Digest believe in interacting with our culture, engaging it in myriad ways in daily life, and evangelizing it.

But we can’t evangelize what we don’t know. That doesn’t mean surrendering to anti-Catholic ideals, but it does mean looking at these ideals honestly, holding up what is good in them — only Satan is pure evil — challenging them when need be, and letting them challenge us as well. Catholics should never be afraid of challenges or different opinions. Responding to them can help us grow in our faith and strengthen us to be better disciples of our Lord.

So rather than just condemn the movie and books, we point out their popularity and some of the reasons for it; we note the controversial and very problematic nature of some of the content; we suggest what is good in the books, perhaps even in spite of Mr. Pullman’s personal beliefs; and, for those who decide to see the movie or read the books, we offer a guide for discussing the contents in a way that we hope will strengthen faith rather than weaken it.

That was our goal. I assure you that we at Catholic Digest share a concern that Catholics be strong in their faith and that our children keep the faith of their parents and grandparents.

“Something wicked this way comes!”
What bothers me most in the whole brouhaha about "The Golden Compass" isn’t the offense Catholics take to Pullman’s blatant shots at religious authority in general and Christianity in particular — that’s understandable — but the fear that so often accompanies the anger. Many voices shouted that Philip Pullman is out to steal our children! A mass-circulated e-mail declared “This children’s book is one of the most alarming things I have ever read!” A fax sent to my parish from a religious order screamed in large, bold type: THIS IS TOO DANGEROUS!

This level of fear seems out of balance to me. As Pam said to me in our discussion, “People don’t read the Chronicles of Narnia, or the Bible for that matter, and automatically become Christians. Why do we think that people will read His Dark Materials and suddenly turn into atheists?”

It’s a good question. Fear is a very human emotion. Maybe that’s why “Do not be afraid” is one of the most repeated phrases in the Bible — very often by Jesus himself.

Why are so many of us so afraid?

Do we really think our faith has so little to offer that we need to fear Pullman’s fiction?

Are we really afraid that if Catholics read the books and think for themselves they’ll choose atheism?

Are we afraid that our children’s experience of our Church will be uncomfortably close to Pullman’s depiction of a free-will-destroying “Magisterium”?

Are we afraid that the God we preach is anything like the miserable little fake god ready for death in the trilogy?

If any of these fears is realistic, then the fault is ours who are the Church, not Pullman’s, and our children’s faith is in far more danger from the church we give them than from a blatant atheist’s attack. We cannot effectively counter Pullman’s attacks if fear and anger lead us to act like the caricature of the Church he describes in the books.

But if we are living our faith the way we are meant to, what real harm can Pullman do to us? Why not just recognize him for what he is, and if people choose to read his books, help them deal with them in a way that builds faith?

And why not inoculate our children against attacks on the Church by sharing the balanced truth with them? Why not ask them to remember the good priests they know, the Catholic life they’ve seen their parents and grandparents live? Why not admit to them that the human Church on Earth is not perfect but weighted down by the combined sins and limitations of its billion-plus members, every one of them always in need of repentance and God’s grace. Why not be honest and admit that sinful, powerful people in the Church have sometimes been dictatorial and excessively authoritarian, corrupt, and power hungry, but that these are temptations faced by every human being, whether inside the Church or not. Why not remind them that the Church has also given us saints like Anthony, Francis, Margaret, Benedict, Thomas, and thousands more who represent the best we can be. Why not remind them how the Church has also championed the poor and helpless, started hospitals, and held up courage, virtue, and giving of oneself for others as ideals worth living and dying by. Would it be so bad to point out that some of the characters in Pullman’s books show those virtues and, thus, may represent the Church far better than Pullman’s caricature, far more than Pullman himself realizes? Why not tell our children that ours is a Church that tries to stay true to the message and mission of Jesus, as best as redeemed but still sinful and often hypocritical human beings can, and that, while the Holy Spirit leads and sustains us, each human being has the freedom to ignore the Spirit and thus make the Spirit’s job all the harder.

Catholic Digest is proud to have the word “Catholic” in our name. We think our faith is rich and deep enough to handle attacks and criticisms and to respond without fear or excessive rancor and charges of blasphemy.

And please let’s remember that Philip Pullman's is not the first blatant attack on our faith. Consider, for example, a piece of graffiti uncovered on a wall in Rome during a 19th-century excavation. The graffiti, say many scholars, may date to as early as the year 85 — about the time the Gospels of Luke and Matthew were being written. The graffiti image shows a man with a donkey’s head hanging on a cross, while another man prays to him. The scratched caption below the image says “Alexamenos worships his God.”

	Graffiti image found in Rome in 1857 and dated to the first century by many scholars. The scratched writing says "Alexamenos worships [his] God." The image is in the Palatine Museum in Rome.

Poor Alexamenos. Imagine living in a society where Jesus on the cross was scorned as an ass, where you and your fellow Christians were accused of being cannibals who had sex with their mothers and engaged in other abominations and were, ironically, condemned as atheists. Imagine living in a society that routinely scorned and ridiculed you — and sporadically decided to torture and kill you.

I’m glad we don’t live in those times, but maybe we can learn something from them. While early Christians sometimes vented their anger at their oppressors, they also engaged the Roman writers and critics who attacked them. They defended and explained what happened at Eucharist, and what Christians believed, and often out-thought their opponents. And above all they fearlessly preached Christ crucified and risen, and, like us, they did their best to live what they preached.

Despite the ridicule, condemnations, sporadic torture, and executions, Christianity could not be stopped. It grew and flourished in a strongly anti-Christian culture. More and more people found the new faith attractive and life-giving, even in the face of death. Do we really fear the same would not be true today?

And what of Alexamenos? How did he react to the graffiti? Did he get terribly angry — or fearful that the authorities might identify him as a Christian? We’ll never know. But there are two things we do know. First, he didn’t plaster over the offensive graffiti, and, second, someone, maybe Alexamenos himself, scratched another phrase into an adjoining wall: “Alexamenos fidelis”: Alexamenos [is] faithful.

Being faithful to Christ and the life of discipleship he calls us to: Can any response we might make to Pullman’s atheism be more powerful than that? To deal with the beam in our own eye instead of the speck in Pullman’s, to love Pullman and pray for him as Jesus calls us to do with all our “enemies,” and to spend more time focusing on our own, and the whole Church’s, continual need for conversion, to take care of the poor and the hungry and the suffering, to work for forgiveness and peace, to move more deeply into living the gospel, to learn to trust God and not be so fearful — is this not the life Jesus calls us to live?

That, in the end, is Catholic Digest’s response to "The Golden Compass" and the His Dark Materials trilogy: Watch and read them if you want to. Don’t watch or read them if you don’t want to. Keep your children from them if you wish. But if you choose to watch or read, and faith questions come up, discuss them and help your faith grow. Seek help from your pastor or parish religious education staff if you don’t have answers. As with all of us, be faithful to Christ as best you can and repent when you fail. And when the inevitable challenges, criticisms, and attacks come, respond to them intelligently, grow and strengthen your faith through them, and, above all, remember the command of Jesus and the frequent exhortation of Pope John Paul II: Be not afraid.

Dan Connors
Editor-in-Chief
Catholic Digest