As I mentioned, we were delayed in returning from New York last night. Consequently, I read what parts of the Times as were available in the lobby of the decrepit terminal at La Guardia.

Two articles from the same page really struck my attention.

First was another broadside about Mel Gibson’s The Passion. The same gripes seen lots of places so far and the same irascible refusal to wait and see the finished product when it is complete. It becomes an even bigger issue in conjunction with the other article on the page.

This one was so worthy of attention that I saved a page to facilitate exact quotes. It was a review of The Magdalene Sisters. Astounding.

TMS is a fictional story set in the Magdalene laundries of Ireland. They were religious workhouses for girls and women. They were probably somewhat too strict to start with and there is no doubt that some girls and women suffered horrible abuse there. These instances are a major focus of the film. Here are some choice bits from the review:

The moral horror of the Magdalene laundries is that the abuses the perpetrated were not the outgrowths of simple sadism, or even of unmindful ness, but of a belief that they were intended for the victims’ own good. It is difficult to understand now that even in my childhood, people who were neither insane nor stupid believed in a literal hell fire, a torment that was physical and spiritual and went on for all eternity.

No anti-religious bias at the Times, eh? So what’s changed since the childhood of this Mary Gordon that now only people who are either insane or stupid would believe in one of the basic beliefs of Christianity?

Their abuse was hidden from the world by a wall of long-skirted, veiled Brides of Christ, who were themselves incarcerated: if it was good enough for them, why wasn’t it good enough for ordinary sinners?

Well, no one was really incarcerated. The nuns were there in fulfillment of their vows. The workers could be released at any time on the request of a male relative. Apparently many of the girls and women spent relatively short periods of time in the laundries. It is worth remembering that many, if not all, reasons that women were sent to the laundries were illegal activities.

One of the most arresting scenes in the film is the one in which Sister Bridget, the Mother Superior, watches, in tears, while Ingrid Bergman, as Sister Benedict in “The Bells of St. Mary’s”, weeps while she prays. We can see Sister Bridget’s image of herself: rapt in her romance with the Divine, able to endure any hardship on earth for her Lover in heaven. The image was easily accessible to one type of Catholic imagination, for which the nun, in her consecrate [sic] virginity, was the only vessel in which femaleness could safely be contained without the contamination of sexuality.

There’s a grave misunderstanding about the Church’s teachings on sex. It usually boils down to: the Church says that what I want to do sexually is bad, therefore it hates sex. This is an inversion of the truth. Instead, the Church recognizes the immense value of human sexuality and, as such, wants people to use it appropriately. If that means foregoing adultery, masturbation, the one-night-stand, contraception, abortion, pornography, prostitution, orgies, bestiality, “intergenerational love” or other unspeakable distortions of the sex drive that grip someone’s imagination, then so be it. If the Church really believed that sexuality were corrupting, we’d be Albigensians and there’d be not very many of us. Most people are called to the married life and a full sexual expression within their own marriage. Most of the women who were sent to work in the laundries were sent there because of the sexual sins of themselves or of others. Those who lived responsible sex lives (and who did not face the double injustice of being raped and blamed for it) had little to fear.

There is a cruel irony in choosing Magdalene as the patroness of the laundries’ punishing enterprise. Jesus’ dealings with Mary Magdalene are saturated with forgiveness; there is no hint of punishment. Magdalene, the prostitute*, pours perfume over Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair.** He gives here a place of honor – it is Judas who objects, and it is after the incident with Magdalene that he decides to betray Jesus.*** In the Gospel of [St.] John, Magdalene is the first to see Jesus after the resurrection.

So if the instances of abuse are a major focus of the film and not its only focus, what else is there? Reflexive hostility to any serious approach to morality, at least from the review. It’s as adamant as Andrew Sullivan, and right in the same camp. There’s an old saying that if the law’s against you, you argue the facts; if the facts are against you, you argue the law and if both the law and the facts are against you, you should holler and pound on the table. So it is with the libertines who pretend that the only functional morality is to discard objective morality.

*There is substantial disagreement that Mary Magdalene is in fact the reformed prostitute.

**That’s repentance. Probably the goal of the “punishment” was to bring the girls to repentance. It’s not necessarily the best way to do it, but it’s a valid goal since one cannot be forgiven of something without first repenting of it. Repentance is worth a great deal indeed. We know that St. Mary Magdalene was repentant for whatever sins she ever committed, and she was honored with being the first to see our Risen Lord. We don’t know whether or not Judas repented.

***It was also after the healing of the centurion’s child, but there’s no evidence to support this assertion that Judas betrayed our Lord either out of jealousy over the attention He gave Mary Magdalene or out of upset at His mercy to Roman.