Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Blessed are the cheesemakers

The indispensable Religion Clause Blog reports that a Welsh town called Aberystwyth has elected Sue Jones-Davis, the actress who played Judith Iscariot in the Life of Brian as its mayor. The town, like a number of others in Wales, banned the movie as blasphempous shortly after its release.

Who knew? Once, when guest preaching at St. Paul's, I referred to the movie - positively - in a sermon. It was the bit about the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front. During the early service (a small group in our Morning Chapel), I noticed that one of the folks laughing most heartily was a rather conservative and very devout Catholic professor of theology. After the service, his wife told me that he really loves that movie.

As God wants him to.

2 comments:

Terrence Berres said...

A committee of the U.S. Catholic Bishops once published a brochure on Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion. It states "The Presence of Roman soldiers should likewise be shown on the stage throughout the play, to represent the oppressive and pervasive nature of the Roman occupation." And what demonstrates oppressive better that the film's scene "Romanes Eunt Domus" and pervasive better than the scene "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Display Name said...

I dunno, my high school physics teacher shows up in recurring dreams far more often than my Latin teacher.