Posted on 10/18/2010 6:57:23 AM PDT by WebFocus
The long-running cartoon series explores issues such as family, community, education and religion in a way that few other popular television programmes can match, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily broadsheet.
The newspaper acknowledged that Homer snores through the sermons of the Reverend Lovejoy and inflicts "never-ending humiliation" on his evangelical neighbour, Ned Flanders.
But in an article headlined "Homer and Bart are Catholics", the newspaper said: "The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes."
The family "recites prayers before meals and, in their own peculiar way, believes in the life thereafter".
It quoted an analysis by a Jesuit priest, Father Francesco Occhetta, of a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star, which revolved around Catholicism and was aired a few weeks after the death of Pope John Paul II.
The episode starts with Bart being expelled from Springfield Elementary School and being enrolled in a Catholic school where he meets a sympathetic priest, voiced by the actor Liam Neeson, who draws him into Catholicism with his kindness.
Homer then decides to convert to Catholicism, to the horror of his wife Marge, the Rev Lovejoy and Ned Flanders. The episode touches on issues such as religious conflict, interfaith dialogue, homosexuality and stem cell research.
"Few people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it, but it is true: Homer J Simpson is a Catholic," insists L'Osservatore Romano.
It is not the first time that the Vatican newspaper has praised The Simpsons. Last December, as the television series celebrated its 20th anniversary, the paper said that "the relationship between man and God" is one of its most important themes
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
LOLOL
I suppose for the newspaper it was a choice between obscurity and irrelevancy and the latter won out.
Homer Simpson and his family are Protestant.
Well, my self-esteem has improved with that revelation
Judging from the character of the Simpson family, its clear that their reliance of salvation is fully on Grace.
Simpsons attend the "Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield.
When did PC-USA and ELCA copulate in the dark alley and spawn that abomination? Alcohol surely must have been involved.
In our next exposé do we reveal the church affiliation of Micky Mouse, Superman, and Bugs Bunny ?
The only way to explain this widespread insanity is that someone, somewhere, is putting something the water.
Or the sacramental wine transformed into something unintended...
Does the Catholic church have nothing better to do with its time and money than this?
What about feeding the hungry? Clothing the poor? Providing medical care to the sick? Prosecuting pedophile priests?
What are they doing in all those impoverished countries?
Oh...
Welcome to FR.....
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