Posted on 12/18/2007 12:52:02 PM PST by GratianGasparri
USCCB Reviewer Caught Okaying Another Film Celebrating Homosexual Immorality
Special to LifeSiteNews.com by Pete Vere
NEW YORK, December 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Harry Forbes, director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Office of Film and Broadcasting, has given a positive review to the homosexually-themed "Rent".
Forbes, whose initial positive review of "Brokeback Mountain" two years' ago was subsequently modified by the USCCB, became the center of controversy earlier this month after the USCCB withdrew his positive review of "The Golden Compass".
The 2005 movie "Rent" is based upon a musical of the same name.
The movie's plot follows the relationships between a group of friends who come together through New York City's East Village fine arts community.
Three of the eight main characters are HIV-positive, while a fourth named Angel is a transvestite street musician with full-blown AIDS.
One of these HIV-positive characters is Mimi, a heroin addict who earns a living as a stripper and a prostitute. The movie portrays some scenes of her performing in the club.
A second HIV-positive character is Tom, a philosophy professor who finds himself in a homosexual relationship with Angel.
Two of the other main characters include Maureen, a bisexual performance artist, who breaks her engagement to aspiring film-maker Mark in order to enter into a sexual relationship with Joanne, a lesbian lawyer. Maureen and Joanne will hold a commitment ceremony part way through the movie.
The only one of the eight friends to settle down and marry is Benjamin, who is often portrayed as the antagonist for "selling out" the fine arts community. In fact, the name "Rent" comes from Benjamin's attempt to fulfill his family obligations by collecting rent from the other seven characters.
Although Forbes admits in his 2005 review that the "film's subject matter may turn off many viewers," he nevertheless describes it as "a snapshot of a piece of cultural history -- both the era depicted and the musical itself," calling it "an impressive achievement."
"The cast is superb," writes Forbes. "The original cast members wear the years lightly, while newcomers Dawson and Thoms fit in beautifully with the ensemble. [...] The dissolute, countercultural lifestyles of some of the characters take second place to the overriding themes of love, connection, dealing with loss and appreciation of life."
Sample lyrics to "La Vie Boheme", one of the musical's main songs, include the following:
"Bisexuals, trisexuals, Homo Sapiens, Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men, Pee Wee Herman German wine, turpentine, Gertrude Stein"
As well as:
"To sodomy It's between God and me To S & M"
See Forbes' Review of Rent published by the Catholic News Service: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/05mv673.htm
To express concerns contact:
USCCB President Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. Archdiocese of Chicago 155 E. Superior Street Chicago, IL 60611 312-751- 8200 mfox@archchicago.org
Pete Vere is a canon lawyer and co-author of "Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy" available at http://www.atheismforchildren.com As well as Surprised by Canon Law II (St. Anthony Messenger Press)
ping!
Whoever wrote the screenplay for “Rent” should have his (or her) head examined - whoever heard of this sort of nonsense?
Ping for later
Wouldn’t it be nice if their views actually reflected Catholicism?
Talk about bringing the lowest elements society has to offer all in one package. Wow. That took a lot of skill. /s
We’re talking about the USCCB, right?
Shamefull.
When will they disband the USCCB?
I think the Pope would love to disband all the national bishops’ conferences. They’re non-canonical organizations that simply exist to extend and enforce the modernist agenda, on the one hand, and exempt the bishops from taking any individual response, on the other.
Don’t worry, no one will ever watch it.
Domestic Total Gross: $29,077,547
OK, Mama’s got a brand new tagline.
Bizarre.
“I think the Pope would love to disband all the national bishops’ conferences.”
He did make a somewhat passive-aggressive gesture to the Italian Council of Bishops. It had been traditional for the Pope to appoint the head of the Italian Council. Benedict XVI when asked to appoint the next head told them to just go and select their own head!
Sounds good to me! And since the good bishops have forgotten their Latin, they won’t even know what it means!
My wife and I went to New York (from Newport, RI) the weekend after 9/11 because they were having discounts on everything to get people back to visit. Well we decided to grab a bite and see a broadway show. Yieks! What did we see? Rent!!! It was ghastly!! Horrible! We still tell people how stupid we were and what we thought the show was going to be about was New York City but more in line with Phantom of the Opera which we did see and we saw the Lion King at another time so we thought why not. We have not seen a show since. We may never again!!! lol.
That’s a start. All the “respect” they receive from the Pope and the rest of the heirarchy is based on absolutely nothing. They have no canonical status, and in fact I don’t believe that bishops in a given country can even be required to be members of that country’s council. Naturally, most of them don’t have enough backbone not to join, of course.
And the reason this guy hasn’t been fired is...?
Never saw “Rent”. My ex and I walked out of “Kiss of the Spider Woman”. My mom wanted me to drive to see one of the misicals as part of a Broadway series in Seattle to see “Edward Sissorshand” I walked out about five minutes into the performance.
That Johnny-a Depp, he make-a me cry!
While you are correct about the USCCB and its leftist tendencies, i believe that it is actually a “canonical organization” inasmuch as national conferences are addressed specifically by canon law.
While you are correct about the USCCB and its leftist tendencies, i believe that it is actually a “canonical organization” inasmuch as national conferences are addressed specifically by canon law.
This guy/gal needs to be fired.
“While you are correct about the USCCB and its leftist tendencies, i believe that it is actually a “canonical organization” inasmuch as national conferences are addressed specifically by canon law.”
This is correct. In fact, Pete Vere and Michael Trueman, both of them young orthodox lay canonists, devote a chapter to episcopal conferences in their new book “Surprised by Canon Law, volume 2”.
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>>Don’t worry, no one will ever watch it.<<
Don’t bet on that. Rent was extremely popular on Broadway.
Musicals are making a comeback. Hairspray opened in movie theaters as the highest grossing musical adaptation in history. Beating out even Chicago. People will see Rent.
The pity of it is, there are great musicals to be made into movies. Sweeney Todd is coming out soon. It is dark. People will look at the names Johnny Depp and Tim Burton then flock to see it. It is a “mad slasher” musical. A horrible combo for the mainstream. My nephew who manages a theater (and a huge Tim Burton fan), called and told me NOT to see it. And definitely not to take my kids.
I’m looking for someone to do Sugar. The musical version of Some Like it Hot. Great music, good story, a classic with music. People would love it. (I’d cast James Marsden in the Tony Curtis/Tony Roberts role, but who am I?)
No, they give us Rent. Figures.
Wicked
YES!!!!!!!!
I just saw TinMan on the Sci-Fi channel. I’m 61 and I still watch anything Oz.
I have a friend whose daughter just had Ruby Slippers made for her wedding. You are not alone!
Thanks, I didn’t realize that. I understood that they were basically improvised, so to speak, and didn’t have any official standing other than what they gave themselves. Perhaps that was their origin, and they were later regulated?
If so, exactly what are their duties and powers?
Canon 455
#1 A conference of bishops can only issue general decrees in cases where universal law has prescribed it or a special mandate of the Apostolic See has established it either motu proprio or at the request of the conference of bishops.
#2 The decrees mentioned in #1, in order to be enacted validly in a plenary meeting, must be passed by at least two thirds vote of the prelates who belong to the conference and possess a deliberative vote. They do not obtain binding force unless they have been legitimately promulgated after having been reviewed by the Apostolic See.
#4 In cases in which neither universal law nor a special mandate of the Apostolic See has granted the power in #1 to a conference of bishops, the competence of each diocesan bishop remains intact, nor is a conference or its president able to act in the name of all bishops unless each and every bishop has given consent.
Thank you. Fortunately, it doesn’t really sound as if these national conferences have much power on their own. Of course, I guess they have the power of simply existing and babbling to the press to make it sound as if they have a lot of other powers.
I suppose the purpose of bishop conferences is to dilute the Holy Ghost. A lonely bishop staring at the carnage in his diocese and, maybe thinking with compunction about his role in all that, might just succumb to the crazy idea in his head that now is the time to fight for the Faith.
No, no, no. The community, the community, the committee.
LOL! Well, it would be LOL if it weren't so sad and true. Excellent way of putting it.
Not soon enough. Apparently there are still some pockets of conservative and/or orthodox and/or faithful-to-Rome Dioceses out there. That means there’s more work to do. Or so they seem to think. Sigh.
I prefer the light, whimsical treatments of Sweeney Todd.
bump
The bishops, unfortunately grew up in Democratic households, and cannot get it into their heads that the New Deal coalition of which Catholic union leaders were a part, was shattered in 1972. It is now the party of the Unitarian George McGovern. While nominal Catholic like Pelosi, pretend to be moved by Catholic social doctrines, and they sometimes use the language, they are radical laicists who only listen to the liberal abbes at place like George town.
Honestly, on Broadway there was no blood and guts flowing. The film is a teen slasher film, so I’ve been told.
agree!! Yet, it’s that political view which unfortunately is being disguiesed as a theological view by certain bishops, for certain by the apparatchiks at the USCCB like Kathy Sailes, and by so called catholic in name only politicians.
They have what you might call a “bully” pulpit. And, while national conferences are cannonical creatures, their unique institutional natures are, I believe (and with defference to a view of a cannonical scholar) formed without cannonical regulation. The USCCB is an ideological cesspool and, again looking at these stupid movie reviews as only a symptom, largely a wing of the democratic party. That is why you see at best a muted USCCB cry and hue over the conduct of politicians from any party who flout their so called catholicism in defiance of natural law and church teaching regarding abortion, euthanasia and family v homosexual agendas. You will also see that the USCCB incrementally undermines the Church’s theological teachings on such things as subsidiarity and immigration. Thus, what happens is that the USCCB is a safe harbor for the socialists and democrats seeking backing for leftist policies such as federalizing all aspects of our lives and open borders. In that sense, the USCCB has entered the political fray and unfortunately it does tend to confuse many catholics and it does abuse the power of its often used institutionalized prudential “guidance” on a host of issues.
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