By all accounts, the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States was a smashing success. Media treatment of the papal visit was, with few exceptions, very fair. Protesters were few in number and without impact. From beginning to end, this papal visit proved to be the most triumphant of them all. The only [...]
The United Artists movie, Showgirls, which opened on September 22, was justly criticized for its indecency, and that is why it received an NC-17 rating. But the movie also contains a scene where vulgar words and behavior are used in reference to Our Blessed Mother. Language such as "The F_____ g Virgin Mary" is used and, [...]
What a sorry bunch of creeps. That's the only way I can describe the way I feel about those who mounted their little protest against the Pope. Pope John Paul II is arguably the greatest man of the 20th century and he is surely the most beloved person on earth today. Non-Catholics, as well as Catholics, [...]
On September 8, the FOX TV program TV Nation featured host Michael Moore offering an invita- tion to a young Catholic woman to confess her sins at several Catholic churches. The purported goal of this exercise was to com- pile a "consumer's guide" to penance. "Sinners can be winners" was the line used to tease the [...]
Using Mother Teresa to make a comedic point was not seen as very funny by the Catholic League. In September, a promotional spot for the Fox-TV program, The Preston Episodes, featured the show's star, David Alan Grier, taking a cheap shot at Mother Teresa. Grier pretended that Mother Teresa was walking toward him while he was [...]
The play, Nine, which has been playing this fall at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, contains several scenes that offend Catholics. Nuns, in particular, are treated in an insulting fashion. The Playhouse, a State Theatre of New Jersey, receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey Council on [...]
On September 12, Tom Snyder, host of the CBS program The Late, Late Show, ridiculed Catholicism with his guest Cyndi Lauper. Lauper, a rock singer, made several disparaging remarks about Catholicism and was abetted in this effort by Snyder. Here is a sample of Lauper's remarks: Lauper offered a "theory" that God had nothing to do [...]
In an affront to Catholics, Windows, a program which aired on September 24 on the cable network Bravo, featured a dance routine involving a priest dealing with temptation from a nun dressed like a hooker. The seg- ment was the last one on the program, taking place on a dark street. "Temptation" was sung by a [...]
The U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women ended without the virulent Catholic bashing that was evident at the 1994 Cairo Conference. Nonetheless, there was another attempt by Catholics for a Free Choice to unseat the Holy See from the U.N. And a press conference by pro-life groups was disrupted by lesbian activists. It was expected that [...]
When most people hear the term "children's rights," they think of the right to basic necessities and the right to be protected from abuse. But that is not what the children's rights movement is all about. Herewith some observations by Arthur J. Delaney on what the Western nations succeeded in doing in Beijing. Art is the [...]
