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1. The following is an email sent to the vatican in response to this article:
   
   I'm not a subscriber so I have had to go on several articles that are taken from the AP and if there is any truth to them, I am rather depressed and appalled that you would have anything to say positive about popular culture. Its one thing to be a curmudgeon and criticize more than the worst of the culture, its quite another to be worldly and seek its approval simply because its not the worst of it. In fact the culture has coarsened so much that I guess you don't realize how bad the Simpsons was when it came out so much that its creator Matt Groening once felt compelled to apologize for some of its content because he realized how harmful it was. He lives in Oregon which has one of the least churched populations in the US. In fact when the Catholic church came out against the State Proposition for Euthanasia, its founders attacked the church's opposition as the best reason to support it, want to bet Matt didn't have a problem with it since he thought it was such a big laugh in both the Simpsons and Futurama ( a show which is much coarser than the Simpsons ). However I digress, lets look at the some of statements the AP says you have say about the Simpsons shall we.
   
   "The paper also praised its philosophical leanings as well as its stinging and often irreverent take on religion, AP reports"
   How is irreverent takes on religion to be congratulated especially Christianity. I notice the pop culture doesn't do irreverent takes on Islam, maybe because the Muslims will kill them? However we are to suffer the bigotry of cowardly secularists simply because we are for the most part non violent?
   
   "Without Homer Simpson and the other yellow-skinned characters "many today wouldn't know how to laugh," said the article titled "Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut."
   Are you telling me that before Western Culture descended into the gutter no one ever laughed? It has been the rationalized excuse of popular culture that its only entertainment or a joke to excuse its excesses. More importantly it shows the break between asthetics and morality of post modern culture. Instead of a culture that serves the true, the good and the beautiful we have one that serves the ego and narcissism because of the afore mentioned break.
   
   The show is based on "realistic and intelligent writing," it said, though it added there was some reason to criticize its "excessively crude language, the violence of certain episodes or some extreme choices by the scriptwriters."
   Oh, really you think, how can the use of crude language be anything except excessive to anyone with and brains and education since the English language is extremely flexible and can convey any idea without resorting to the least common denominator. Well if its only some extreme choices then it must be ok, huh. Remember a time when the Christian inspired West turned out art, music and literature without extreme choices?
   
   "Religion, from the snore-evoking sermons of the Rev. Lovejoy to Homer's face-to-face talks with God, appears so frequently on the show that it could be possible to come up with a "Simpsonian theology," it said."
   This one's so lame it needs to be pointed out without wasting time commenting beyond that we will no longer be able to consider Theology the Queen of the Sciences.
   
   Vatican paper, L'Osservatore Romano, has congratulated "The Simpsons" TV show on its 20th anniversary, and praised it for opening up cartoons to adult audiences.
   Finally why should we praise the opening of the solipsistic world of children to adults. The problem of popular culture is its concept of perennial adolescence and its childish need for constant entertainment. Which is a far cry from the more serious adult world (when the term adult actually meant something) where the goal of culture through art literature and music was a serious spiritual, moral and intellectual pursuit for enlightenment.
   
   In the Final Chapter of 'The Marketing of Evil by David Kaplan, he points out how the religiosity of the US is deceptive, in that the thinking and behavior of Christians is little different from their neighbors. He points out that this is because of accommodation to the spirit of the age. The past century has shown very little positive influence of Christianity on the culture of the West, it has shown quite a bit of negative influence over Christianity from the culture. I am a convert to Catholicism and have lapsed, not because I have any problems with the churches teachings, quite the opposite I have problems with the church in Chesterton's words "Running to Catch up with the Culture". I found as Kaplan pointed out very little difference with people in any parish from any non church goer in intellectual and moral belief. Attending Mass on a weekly basis is just some kind of soul insurance in which they pay installments. I have no doubt this is primarily a failure of leadership in the church which I once just considered the incompetence of the American espiscopolate but I have over time come to see this also all the way up to the top in and I consider this as proof of that. I sincerely pray that ultimately church leadership passes out of the hands of Europeans and Americans over to African and Asian Bishops and Cardinals who will be less sympathetic towards accommodating Western secular postmodern culture.
   

   Posted By: Micahel Wrinkle

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