Long Warning on The Golden Compass

Pete Vere  and Sandra Meisel (a well known Catholic literary critic and author) have just completed a short book about the the serious problems with "The Golden Compass". It's titled Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy . It is not yet published, but will be soon, apparently.

There has been a lot of discussion about this movie and the trilogy it is based on. Here, though this is long, I am going to give you much of the information that I have found online in ONE entry on my blog. I will put a second one on with videos on the topic. Once you are informed, if you choose to see the movie or purchase the books, it is with eye's wide open.

Please note the final section here, with a mother's reaction to the book. HER concern is the oversexualisation of an eleven year old.

First, because of some concerns, I found these:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp
http://catholicleague.org/catalyst.php?year=2007&month=October&read=2322
Watch the video that is hyper-linked there.

It is written by an atheist who is very blatant and outspoken about his intent. The movie is dumbed down, but will be a vehicle to introduce children to the trilogy. Each gets worse. Scholastic is helping to promote both the movie and the books in schools, including a study or 'discussion' guide for teachers, prizes offered (books and tickets). So it isn't just in the libraries for the kids to take out.

They also have on their website defense of Pullman and his work, video of him on Today Show, etc.

The 'discussion book' is found here:

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/teachers_guides/9780375823459.pdf

They even bring in JPII's name in the piece about the book on this page:
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3747818

If you scroll down, you can see other articles, one of which is

Enter the Golden Compass Movie Student Sweepstakes for a chance to win a hometown movie screening for 200 of your closest friends

And related resources:
The Golden Compass: Language Arts Lessons & Activities
Featuring The Golden Compass, these turnkey language arts lessons and activities on symbolism and characterization help students understand the... 

This is Scholastic Magazine, which YEARLY goes into schools and has book sales, prizes, etc!!

A friend has told me SHE is reading it, and said that this is also, in addition to anti-Christian  another of the theme of smart kid/stupid adult. In Narnia, the Professor was wise, and the children learned as they got older. She is an English Major now Editor of a Christian online 'magazine' ( crosswalk.com).

She also said..... "evil Magisterium" and Consecration during Mass! If they say they're not purposefully referencing "In this movie that supposedly doesn't reference "the church" one of the villains is named "Fra Pavol" - he works for thethe photo of him is essentially a snapshot of a Catholic priest saying Mass!!! He doesn't have the exact Catholic vestments, but seriously, if you see the photo, any practicing Catholic would instantly recognize the image as being a reenactment of thethe Church, they're lying."

I found the character on the ifficial movie website, under Lyra's World, in the center section, which you can move to see the main characters. He is holding something that could pass for a Host, with a wine decanter in front of him.

My sister, a home-schooler got the series to read to see if it was worth allowing her two oldest to read and compare to Narnia. Her response to my concerns about it being blatantly anti-Catholic/Christian and a way of teaching children that there IS no God? She is a college graduate, not that that makes any difference, except that she has had a lot of experience reading a lot of literature over the years. She is also a very strong Catholic with seven kids. A and J are 15 and 13. Note the way she ends her email.

Here are HER words...

I am currently reading the books and an on the second one.  The anti-Catholicism is bad, but the oversexualizing of an 11 year old girl is to me FAR more troubling.  Philip Pullman is totally hung up on describing death and mayhem very graphically and his casual disregard for purity is disgusting.  I started reading the books to see if A and J could do sort of a comparison contrast between them and Narnia under my supervision.  NOOOO WAYYYYY!

Hope you are well.

S