Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

Regarding “Still the Name Above All Names” (Feb. 20-26):

Thank you for your article about respect for the Lord’s name and the Second Commandment. I am going to read it to my theology classes at Joliet Catholic Academy.

For four years now, whenever I hear a student say the Lord’s name in vain, I ask him or her to repeat after me, “Blessed be God, blessed be His holy name” — just as was suggested in your article. The students respond very well, and have even started to do it on their own when they catch themselves or someone else slip.

Blessed be God’s Holy Name!

Stephani Placek

Joliet, Illinois

Toothless Shark

I must take issue with the recent selection of the movie Shark Tale as a Weekly Video Pick by Steven D. Greydanus (Feb. 20-26). I took two of my children, ages 5 and 6, to see it just before it was released on DVD. Fortunately, I did not take my 10- and 12-year-olds.

One of the major subplots of this movie is the indoctrination of children into acceptance of alternative lifestyles. How could the reviewer have missed this? One of the characters is a shark who is afraid to tell anyone he is a vegetarian. Once he finally comes out, he feels so much better that he can be who he really is and not have to pretend anymore. A few scenes later, he is dressing up as a dolphin.

I am not overly prudish when it comes to movie-watching. My husband and I try to be cautious about content, but our family enjoys many of the pop-culture movies. However, this was so blatant! There is no way my preteens will be subjected to this subtle brainwashing.

Allyson T. Rodriguez
Irving, Texas

Steven Greydanus replies: I sure didn’t miss the interpretation that bothers you. In fact, I specifically cautioned parents that they might make the connections you do and find them annoying. These connections are not, though, nearly as cut and dried as you suggest. The shark’s dolphin disguise is just that — a disguise, to hide from his father. Upon being recognized, he discards it. He doesn’t “dress up” as a dolphin out of some secret wish to be one. The vegetarian shark, an obvious joke made earlier in Finding Nemo, is inoffensive on a literal plot level, which is how kids will take it. I believe St. Paul’s dictum, “To the pure all things are pure,” applies here; the messages kids will take away are the ones I highlighted in the Weekly Video Pick: You don’t need money to be somebody, stick with your friends and be proud of your family, and don’t fall for get-rich-quick schemes or gambling. Finally, also as noted in my review, I do not recommend Shark Tale for children as young as 5 or 6.

Million-Dollar Babble 

Regarding “More Than a Game” (Jan. 30-Feb. 5):

Hollywood has just elevated Million Dollar Baby to “best picture of the year” and, by doing so, has declared itself as an unapologetic advocate of killing people whose lives do not measure up to a certain standard of physical or mental health.

This movie is, first and foremost, a rhetorical argument in favor of mercy killing. Its narrative’s pathos is designed to convince us that, when someone’s quality of life passes below a certain threshold — as the quality of life of Hilary Swank’s character is supposed to have done — death, even if it means murder, is the only loving response.

Meanwhile, in Rome, there is a man bent and broken, with slurred speech and contorted features who takes on the charge to defend human dignity from the healthy, tan, glib and glittering Hollywood elite. The Pope, by his steadfastness in decrepitude and frailty, is testifying against that terrible modern measure of “quality of life.” He’s reminding us that the true quality of a man’s life, or of the man himself, cannot be determined by any human or human society.

By the measure of Million Dollar Baby, the Pope is not fit for his job: His “quality of life” has deteriorated past the point where he is useful to secular society. God and God’s Church see it otherwise: The Holy Father has only gained greater value because of his diseased body.

By remaining steadfast as Vicar of Christ on earth, the Pope reminds us that the divine gift that is our humanity renders meaningless any human measure whereby our value is determined. Without such a measure, Million Dollar Baby is an apology for murder most foul and the elevation of that film on Oscars night marks the beginning of the end of Hollywood’s reign as our civilization’s storyteller.

Paul D’Andrea

Herndon, Virginia

Hollywood ‘Heroism’

Except for the sentence, “Money is more powerful to them than anti-Christianity,”  I totally agree with Register reader Ralph Kraus (“Hit Hollywood Where it Hurts,” Letters, Feb. 27-March 5).

In his interview on EWTN, Michael Medved indicated that anti-Christianity and, in particular, anti-Catholicism is so strong in Hollywood that money is now secondary. He pointed out that this year’s best-picture nominees — together — grossed less than The Passion of the Christ. In years past a top-grossing film was a shoe-in for best-picture consideration.

It is amazing how the Hollywood elite continue to foist immoral movies on an unsuspecting public. The marketing and advertisements of this year’s “best picture” — Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby — withheld the movie’s full storyline. For example, the synopsis on the Academy Awards website said this: “When Frankie Dunn, a fight trainer who runs a Los Angeles gym, is approached by Maggie Fitzgerald, a young waitress who is determined to become a boxer, he at first refuses her request to become her manager. Frankie’s friend, Scrap, however, recognizes the determination behind Maggie’s dream and convinces Frankie to reconsider.”

By now nearly everyone knows what the movie was really about: promoting euthanasia. Would many moviegoers have attended this movie had they not been deceived?

Another movie popular among critics (although not nominated for Best Picture) was The Sea Inside. It, too, portrays assisted suicide as an explicitly and unequivocally “heroic” choice. Medved wrote that its success “suggests that if Hollywood ever gets around to making The Jack Kevorkian Story, it, too, would become an automatic candidate for major awards.”

“Meanwhile,” he added, “Vera Drake (nominated for best actress, best director and best original screenplay) portrays abortion in a positive, almost sacramental light.”

Is it any wonder that Oregon has legal euthanasia and that California has a bill pending to legalize euthanasia? Is it any wonder that society wants to starve Terri Schiavo to death?

Parents, beware of Hollywood movies, as your children will grow up believing that euthanasia, abortion and genocide are morally acceptable. So acceptable that you might be the one they want to starve to death.

Frank Cunningham

Milroy, Pennsylvania

The writer is secretary of the Mifflin-Juniata chapter of Citizens Concerned for Human Life, Inc.

Better Off Dog

Regarding “Brain-Damaged Woman Speaks After 20 Years” (Media Watch, Feb. 27-March 5):

It shows how far we have slid down the slippery slope of the culture of death when a woman in Prince William County, Va., is sentenced to jail for starving her dogs — while Florida courts are seriously considering granting permission to Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael to starve her to death.

Having been struck in 1984 at age 18 by a drunken driver who left her confined to a hospital bed unable to communicate or feed herself, Sarah Scantlin was in a position similar to the one Terri Schiavo is in now. Suddenly, inexplicably — 20 years later — Sarah has regained her ability to speak and her memory, to the delight of those who cared for her, loved her and didn’t try to kill her.

If Terri Schiavo is starved to death, who’s next? Alzheimer’s victims? The elderly in nursing homes? The handicapped? The 2000 Census reported 1,720,500 people living in nursing homes.

Will we be allowed to do to people what is illegal to do to dogs?

 
Daniel John Sobieski
Chicago

Singer’s Song

Regarding “Life or Death: A Conversation with Peter Singer ” (Feb. 20-26):

Muchas gracias for some great coverage of life-or-death issues spinning off the conversation with Peter Singer, ethics professor at Princeton University. I hope subscribers share this edition with others, as there is so much confusion about the subject, both inside and outside our Roman Catholic faith.

In my case, I’m sharing this e-mail with some friends, hoping they can get their hands on this edition of your newspaper.

K. Dale Anderson

Randallstown, Maryland