Find My Family

Here's a clip from ABC's new show Find My Family. The basis of the show is to reunite families that have been separated for various reasons. Monday's episode was about a woman who gave her daughter up for adoption.


In this clip the mom talks about entrusting the safety of her daughter to St. Jude and giving her a medal that the daughter has kept with her her whole life. In a letter to her birth-mother the daughter writes "thank you for giving me life."





Later in the episode when the mom and daughter meet, the daughter says "thank you for giving me life" and the mother's response? "It wasn't my life to take from you."


That statement pretty much sums it up. These are lives we are talking about. No matter what kind of semantics you try to get into the fact of the matter remains that a fetus is a human life. An innocent baby. Separate and distinct from the mother. We don't have the right to take that life.

V - Is The Pope An Alien?

There's a new show on ABC (that's a remake of an old show) called V. V is for visitors; that's what they call the aliens. It premiered last night and one of the main characters is a priest! Basically the plot is a bunch of alien spaceships arrive over 29 major cities in the world. They say they come in peace. But some people think they're lying!

Father Jack is a young(er) priest at St. Josephine's a small parish along with an older priest. Apparently their parishioners include only a couple of homeless people and a guy in a wheelchair who later takes advantage of the visitors' medical technology and universal (literally) health care. After the visitors arrive, though, the church is packed.

So far ABC seems to be doing an alright job with their portrayal. Although there does seem to be a vestment issue in the premiere (where's your chasuble, Fr. Jack!?). Very early on they let us know that the Vatican's answer to the existence of aliens is basically "we are all God's creatures." Fr. Jack appears to have some doubts about reconciling the existence of aliens with the existence of God as he has known Him. The elderly priest at St Josephine's takes the "don't question the Vatican" stance and sees the visitors as benign. Fr Jack is suspicious of them and preaches about it in his homily (sans chasuble).

Later we find out that the visitors aren't what they appear to be and that many of them have been here for years and infiltrated the important positions of authority in government, military, and yes - religion! So we'll see where this goes, but my bet is that the elderly priest may be an undercover visitor and if the pope turns out to be one I'm gonna flip - channels that is. Also, we'll need to see if ABC can resist the temptation for the relationship between the very attractive single mother FBI agent (played by Lost's Elizabeth Mitchell) and Fr Jack goes anywhere further than co-conspirators.

My message to ABC - we're watching you, so if you want us to watch, then watch how you portray our faith.

You can see video here.

Law & Order: Anti Abortion?

I saw last week's Law & Order episode based on the Tiller murder and was amazingly surprised on how pro-life it was. Many main characters admitted to being pro-life, admitted most of America is pro-life, or had a change of opinion from pro-abortion to pro-life. I kept waiting for the big twist that would reveal that they really thought all these pro-lifers were extremists crazies, but it never came. I couldn't find the full episode online but while looking for it ran across Jill Stanek's post on it - so I'll just link to her since she pretty much said what I was going to say anyway! It includes a clip from the episode. Click here!

Penn and Teller Talk Bullsh*t

Penn and Teller's program, Bullsh*t, on Showtime (owned by CBS), spent its season finale blatantly spewing ignorance, bigotry, and outright lies about the Catholic Church. Catholic League president Bill Donohue has this to say:

Go to our website at www.catholicleague.org and click on the Penn & Teller video. There you will be able to see in its entirety the vile August 27 episode of their Showtime program. The mass mailing of the DVD to religious and lay leaders across the United States begins today and will continue until completed.

It is important that CBS, which owns Showtime, hears from you about this unprecedented attack. I spoke to a high-ranking CBS official on Monday about this, and though he was genuinely concerned and very professional in his response, it is still important that all CBS officials be sent the message: Enough is Enough—show Penn & Teller the gate.

Contact CBS rep Nancy Tellem at nancy.tellem@tvc.cbs.com.

-Or-

Mr. Leslie Moonves

Chairman of CBS

7800 Beverly Blvd., Rm. 23

Los Angeles, CA 90036-2112

Just imagine what would happen in the media and in the public if this were any group other than Catholics.

The Prisoner

Catholic actor and Jesus stand-in, Jim Caviezel, stars in the upcoming new reimagining of the 1960s classic television series, The Prisoner. A nine minute trailer/preview premiered at Comic Con recently. I for one am really excited about seeing this. Looks very much an opportunity for a study in nihilism, etc.!

Check it out here and let's discuss!