The Catholic Sun :: Phoenix Diocesan Newspaper

“The Golden Compass” (New Line Cinema) is the film adaptation of award-winning British author Philip Pullman’s book of the same name. The book is the first of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, which promotes atheism and is rife with an anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bias.

While the film’s producers claimed to have “watered down” the book’s negative religious overtones, some aren’t buying it.

“Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. He believes that the film “will entice parents to buy his trilogy as a Christmas gift.”

The debate continues, saturating Internet blogs and Web sites over the last few months. Should parents take their kids? Should the books be banned from Catholic school libraries?

In short, is this story as dangerous as it’s made out to be?

Atheism’s ‘Pied Piper’

Sandra Miesel, co-author of “The Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children’s Fantasy” (Ignatius Press) with Pete Vere, firmly believes the dangerous label is deserved.

“Pullman is basically rewriting ‘Paradise Lost’ and saying that the wrong side won,” Miesel said of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy.

“The rebel angels were the good angels and the loyal angels were the bad guys and God was an imposter,” she said. “He is merely the oldest angel and he’s tricked the other angels into thinking he is their creator when he is nothing of the sort.”

The book’s god — called Yahweh, Adonai and Elohim throughout the novels — is presented “as feeble, senile and weak” and is killed by the main characters, Miesel said.

The main characters in the trilogy are fighting against an evil, power-obsessed group — which is called the Church in the book and the magisterium in the film. While film producers say the use of the word “magisterium” — a term that refers to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church — is less offensive, it singles out the Catholic Church as the locus of evil in the film.

“The church in question has bishops in purple, cardinals in red and a Vatican guarded by Swiss Guards. How much more unique and specific do you have to be?” Miesel said. The series is “anti-God, anti-Catholic Church and anti-all Christianity. At one point a character says all churches are the same — ‘they are the enemies of joy and truth.’”

The anti-Christian bent of Pullman’s work is a great concern for many.

Mike Phelan, director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life for the Diocese of Phoenix, is also concerned about the promotion of atheism.

“Atheism is dangerous to the soul,” Phelan said. “A worldview without God — while we have to be ready to dialogue with those who don’t believe in God — is putting one’s soul at risk.”

Phelan has no doubt adults are able to face this danger, but is concerned about children being exposed to atheism in such an imaginative form.

“Philip Pullman has been very clear about his aims, calling himself ‘C.S. Lewis in reverse’ and things like that. His aim is not to argue that there is no God, but to provide imagery that God is weak and God is really non-existent,” Phelan said.

“As somebody very concerned about helping parents raise their children, I would say you do not introduce your children to atheism at the powerful level of the imagination,” he said.

The images formed in children’s minds form their thoughts about the world, Phelan said, so “it’s very important to choose the books that they read carefully and to try and build up images that are life-giving.”

Phelan believes that the works of Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien are examples of positive imaginative works.

Potter vs. Pullman

There are many negative images in Pullman’s work. Beyond an implied physical relationship between two 12-year-olds “we also have suicide, euthanasia, torture, cannibalism and the opening of the gates of hell in the third book,” Miesel said.

The disturbing themes and images that pepper the pages of “His Dark Materials” are much more threatening than those of the often-protested “Harry Potter” series, she said.

The Potter series ends with “a round of marriages and children and new families that are formed,” Miesel said. “The world is getting better because these children will do new things. At the end of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, every single couple is dead or parted.”

Although “The Golden Compass” was published prior to the first “Harry Potter” book, Miesel believes Pullman’s work slipped under many Christians’ radar because the titles didn’t mention anything about magic. The first book of the Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” implies the magical focus of the series.

“Some really false things were said about ‘Harry Potter,’” said Miesel, who believes the books provide a positive portrayal of chastity and family. “There was a deliberate misrepresentation of the content, but you don’t have to misrepresent anything in Philip Pullman — it’s there.”

Parents vs. the media

From “Harry Potter” to Philip Pullman, Phelan believes that parents should filter their children’s media consumption.

While it takes a lot of time, parents who read books or watch films and then discuss them with their children take advantage of a “precious learning opportunity.”

“Children can then ask questions of their parents as they go through the material,” he said. Phelan calls this kind of parental commitment “the sacrifice of being present.”

“With these things that are being marketed to children and to the Christian family, it’s important to stay as informed as possible,” he said, “to limit the use of and time spent with media and to focus on those other things in which media can be a part of education.”

He suggests family movie nights, or watching a show together.

“Those can be fun things and good things and teaching moments — very powerful teaching moments,” he said. “Every series of images is trying to impart something and so to be as involved as possible and limiting media” is an important duty of the Catholic parent.

In the face of anti-Catholic media, such as “The DaVinci Code” and “His Dark Materials,” Miesel believes all Christians need to act as “smart consumers of cultural goods.”

“Don’t go out seeing something because it’s touted as pious. Remember that there are certainly unbelieving directors that make very fine films,” she said, such as Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” series. Responsible Catholics must “discriminate between the moral essence and the product.”

This is of particular importance when considering films like “The Golden Compass.” The film was marketed to Christian families who backed the “Lord of the Rings” series and “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

Early trailers of “The Golden Compass” even began with the teaser, “First there was ‘Lord of the Rings’ and now there is ‘The Golden Compass,’” Miesel said.

“The artwork and ads were intended to remind you of the Narnia film because you have talking animals and the little girl on the bear and there’s snow like in Narnia and so forth,” she said.

In movie theaters across the country a trailer for the upcoming “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” precedes “The Golden Compass.” The financial value of the Christian market is important to studios, which seem to misunderstand the whole picture of Christian family morals.

Ironically, Pullman disdains both Lewis’ and Tolkien’s work. Nonetheless, advertisers tried to exploit the connection people have with those Christian fantasy authors in order to sell tickets to “The Golden Compass.”

Still, as Miesel and Phelan agreed, it isn’t a time to become scared of feature films. It is rather a time to approach family-marketed media with a high level of discernment.

Phelan believes parents must “pray constantly that God is helping provide those images in the child’s imagination which are leading them to a joyful understanding of God’s presence in the world."

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