Is Watching most modern TV
Incompatible With Being a Christian?

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The television - a spiritual health warning

The dictatorship of relativism and Ten anti-Commandments of the TV

1) The TV puts false gods before the Lord God
The gods of all faiths are equal, that materialism, self-centredness, and all morals are relative, are put before the Gospel of Jesus.

2) The TV and Blasphemy
Not only taking of the Lord’s name in vain but at the BBC’s “Impartiality seminar,” staff confirmed they would allow the Bible to be sacrilegiously treated, but not the Koran.

3) The TV and the desecration of the Lord’s Day
Sunday’s TV is like any other day containing programmes of sex and violence. No longer a day of rest and worship of God. Sunday TV is for the worship of sport and materialism.

4) The TV and the destruction of the family.
How can children honour their mother and their father when the TV constantly denigrates family values, and shows fornication, and same-sex marriage in a positive light?

5) The TV and the trivialisation of killing
Empirical studies have shown, TV violence leads to violence and killings. Stabbings and shootings are now all too common on our streets with the constant lowering of TV standards.

6) The TV, the promoter of adultery
Our Lady of Fatima said to the visionaries that more souls go to hell because of sins against purity than any other sin. On the TV the promotion of impurity and adultery are writ large.

7) The TV and the theft of souls
Satin is the thief of souls. St. Elizabeth Seton (c1800s) had a vision she did not understand. She saw a black box in every American home, through which the devil would enter.

8) The TV, the false witness
Every year more programmes are made that bare false witness against the Church.

9) The TV, the author of sexual covetousness
Jesus said: “If your right eye causes you to sin pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matt 5:29).

10) The TV as the author material covetousness
Advertising promotes materialism and things you don’t need or really want. Pester power turns children into the allies of the advertising executives and the enemy of poor parents.

Towards a Dictatorship of Relativism

By Stefano Mazzeo

During his homily for the Mass of the Conclave the then Cardinal Ratzinger said, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”1 I have been intrigued by these words ever since and in this article here I wish to explore relativism and its dictator.
I sometimes get invited to give talks to church groups or a priest might ask me to say a few words after Mass. On one occasion I was going through my three minute slot after Mass when I heard grumbling coming from the back of the church. Afterwards, a man came up to me and said I was being dictatorial. So I answered him that surely he can’t begrudge me three minutes to point out the dangers of the TV when he will spend at least four hours in front of the box today. If he believes in free speech he will listen to the other side of the argument but no, this citizen of the ‘Republic of Relativism’ continued to disrupt my giving out of newsletters and leaflets. I concluded later that this was a victim of the Dictatorship of Relativism. He would not listen because he believed in free speech!
What does the Holy Father mean when he warns us about Relativism or more precisely the Dictatorship of Relativism. Relativism is the belief that everything is equal; all faiths are the same and so are morals, especially sexual morals and are relative to the desires of the self. There is no truth, one man’s truth is as good and the next, e.g. homosexuality is the equal of heterosexuality and they have the right to have children even though they can’t. So the government enacts legislation that crushes natural law, legalises ‘Civil Partnerships’ and gives homosexuals the right to adopt children. No agency may refuse them on the grounds of religious beliefs. Even in this the government are not the real dictators of relativism, they are merely the lackeys of the Dictator. This Dictator tells us that all morals are relative except murder, unless of course they are weak and old, or very ill then they should be treated with dignity – and killed! The dictators of relativism will go into long discourses and seek out all views, for all views are equal. After all what is truth as Pilot said to Jesus. Theft is still wrong unless it is your faith or your soul. Blasphemy, materialism fornication, adultery, violence, and family values are all relative. It is only children that really suffer and children should be seen and not heard. Unless of course they are unborn, therefore they are neither seen or heard for out of sight is out of mind. The dictator of relativism is pro-choice, for choice is a good thing. Unless of course you are a child in your mother’s womb then you have no voice or choice.
We are told all religions are ultimately the same and even Paganism is equal to Christianity in terms of being efficacious of spiritual awareness. That we are all on different roads but travelling to the same place. This may sound good and charitable, even to some Catholics but it is wrong and not what our faith teaches us. I am not saying that there are not some truly wonderfully good people in other faiths. We believe know that a good person who is invincibility ignorant of Jesus may be saved. However, it is true charity and the duty of all Christians is to share the Good News of Jesus with all mankind. For ‘Christ is the only Son of God…and that the man Jesus is eternally God, is God Himself’2 However the dictator of relativism would rather we believed that - ‘Instead of being the man who is God, Christ becomes the one who experienced God in a special way.’3
Jesus is no different to any other religious leader, therefore all religions are the same and as they all say different things perhaps ultimately none can be true. So God is either very vague or dose not exist– just what Satan wants us to think.

The Hypnotic effect of the television
The real dictator of relativism is of course the Devil, the great deceiver, and the giver of the knowledge of good and evil, but not the wisdom to know the difference. There are many weapons, which the dictator of relativism will use to attack us. The vast array of media genre with secular intellectuals who tell us to have an open mind and governments that legislate and enact laws to follow their lead. But of all the weapons in the Dictator of Relativism’s arsenal the television is most effective. The television is not only mildly hypnotic, it also desensitises the reasoning logical side of the brain and plays on the emotional side. The accumulative effect of this is devastating and it is difficult to see what’s happening but its ill effects are all around us. The TV is in virtually every person’s home and watched by almost everyone. Many dramas and documentaries that play on our emotions have a relativistic agenda and will try and discredit the Churches teachings on faith and morals. Against these attacks the Church is given very little chance to answer and when she does all the tricks of the book is deployed against her. It is this hypnotic quality that is the Dictator of Relativism’s most dangerous weapon. Against its onslaught there is not much most people can do for they are unaware there is a problem. The television acts on humanity like an anti-spiritual neutron bomb; it leaves the body intact (superficially) but destroys the soul.
The television can be very subtle, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish good and bad television programmes for they are all treated equally, given the same amount of time and demand the same attention. Most of the classics may be harmless e.g. Austin and Dickens, however there are programmes of a similar genre that not so harmless.
The disastrous effect the TV has had on the last few countries to receive it are well known by scientists who study the TV4. For the introduction of television has always coincided with a dramatic increase in violence, theft, murder, and rape. The corrosive effect on people by television is well documented but not well publicised, for the broadcasters control what we see what we hear and even what we think.
There are thousands of TV channels broadcasting seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Cultural and moral vandalism is endemic. The Virginia University killer sent a tape of himself to NBC TV between his massacres, which to much dismay was broadcast.
Only people with a strong faith can see the wrong in it all for they have a measure from which to see. They know that to be intrigued by the backbiting, gossipy, angry storylines of soaps is incompatible with the Gospel. They know the truth when the Church is attacked, and they can see the agenda. They can see through the biased, relativistic documentaries. They question everything using their faith and the Gospel of Jesus as a guide. These people will eventually throw out the TV, if they haven’t already done so.

References:
1.(Benedict XVI), homely 18th April 2005
2 & 3. Introduction to Christianity (Benedict XVI) p.21 2004
4. Dr Aric Sigman, Remotely Controlled, Vermilion, 2005

RTE’s Middle Class, Elitist Ghetto of Dublin 4

By Dominic Casey in Dublin

You could write a book or even volumes on the effect the television has had on the Irish People. The main Irish broadcasting network RTE is situated in Donnybrook, Dublin 4. It is a well to do area. There is now a term ‘The Dublin 4 set’ and ‘the Dublin 4 mentality’. Dublin 4 meaning RTE. The ‘Dublin 4 set’ would consist of high earners and the upper middle class. They would be out of university. They would be of a liberal mindset and all that would suggest. Anti-Catholic or at least indifferent to church issues, especially on morality. This would be the type that would hold sway in RTE. So this is the message that would be continuously transmitted from there. No doubt there are good church abiding people working at RTE but they would be the minority and in less influential positions. Dònnacha O’Dualing of Fàifteisteach fame would probably be of this latter type.

However, we may be witnessing the destruction of Irish Culture itself. Ireland was once known as the most Catholic country in Europe and Celtic Catholicism had its own particular ethnicity that permeated every strand of Irish society. The media has been to the fore in Church bashing regarding the scandals. That the abuses have been highlighted and brought out into the open is not such a bad thing. But the media and RTE in particular threw out the baby with the bath water. When the scandals broke there was a decrease in church attendance. And everything about the Church was painted black. In doing this they are destroying the soul of Irish culture. Dublin is now indistinguishable from any big ‘British city’ with loud ruckus behaviour and bad manners. Where once they was a gentle sparkle in the eyes of young Irish children raised on the Sacraments and the Rosary there is now only the dull blankness archived by hours of daily TV and computer viewing.

People tune into the popular chat shows for their daily diet of gossip and opinion. Foremost among them would be ‘The Late Late Show’ on Friday night with Pat Kenny and his daily radio show on RTE 1. There is the Gerry Ryan show on Radio RTE 2. Ryan is unashamedly liberal who enjoys constantly having a swipe at the Church. The nature and content of his show is very dissolute and he enjoys a wide listenership. This obviously all impacts on society.
In the case of the television (as has been pointed out in CUT’s Autumn 06 issue), it desensitises the beta waves of the left hemisphere of the brain, which would deal with information logically. This inevitably makes the person a prey to the standards that are presented to him.

RTE has constantly come under criticism for its biased and unfair handling of moral issues in its current affairs programmes. I would say Ireland would be not much different than Britain in how it has been affected by television. In the past twenty years church attendances has dropped by a good bit. Divorce has been introduced. Marriage break-ups are up. Co-habitation is the norm, teenage pregnancies are up, Condom sales have been introduced and there has been the inevitable increase in S.T.D.S. Has the television influenced Irish society?u decide.

Irish TV Protest

Recently a dissatisfied customer decided to register his complaint to R.T.E. He drove his car through the front barriers. Drove through the front door of the building, while the Late Late Show was going on. - That’s complaining Irish style!

Homosexuality and the Television

By Stefano Mazzeo

It is an act of Christian charity to point out when someone is going astray. This is not being judgemental, for not to do so would be negligent. On the basis of Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, homosexual acts are a grave sin. We must therefore point out the link between the acceptance of homosexuality by society, and the television. For within ten years of the television coming into widespread use in Britain, homosexuality was legalised. Since then there has been the constant lowering of the age of homosexual consent until parity with heterosexual consent was achieved. Now legalised homosexual partnerships have the right to adopt children. Just when ordinary Christians thought things couldn’t get any worse, the government brings fourth draconian legislation that will force Catholic adoption agencies to close down or let homosexuals adopt from them.

It is not surprising that this has happened with the sheer number of pro-homosexual television programmes broadcast down the years. Today we have openly homosexual television presenters, commentators, and actors. Makeover programmes show homosexual couples choosing the décor for their pads. There are also the constant pro-homosexual story lines in the soaps and other dramas. This trait has even spilled over onto BBC Radio with the ‘Gay-marriage’ in the Archers. Also prevalent in these programmes are storylines that demonise anyone who are portrayed as ‘anti-gay,’ these people are usually shown as nasty, brutish and violent. Words like ‘bigoted’, ‘gay-bashing’, or ‘homophobic’ are used to put down anyone who dares speak up against homosexual acts.

It is also very clear that the BBC is especially ‘pro-Gay’ with a disproportionate number of homosexuals on its staff. They are particularly over represented among those in influential positions. There are many who believe that this is the main reason why the BBC attacks Catholicism so often. Why you may ask have so many homosexuals risen so high in the world of television? There are many reasons; in order to keep people’s attention, new and inventive storylines for showing relationships are constantly found. The homosexual lifestyle is not a stay-at-home family orientated one; therefore the hedonistic showbiz one suits them. Perhaps also in this contraceptive ‘Culture of Death’ society, there is the false perception that humans have over populated the world. There is also the false theory that humans have no control over their sexual desires, so homosexuality is a useful form of sterility. It is true that the television is no friend of chastity and has sexualised society beyond what is natural. Some like to cite the television series Sex in the City as authentically portraying modern female sexuality, yet they are wrong, for although originally created by a woman, homosexual men produced this series. The creator and producer of Desperate Housewives is also homosexual. An unnaturally over sexualised society plays into the hands of homosexual lobby whose raison d’être is unnatural sex. Yet despite all their efforts, homosexuality has not been found to be a cognitive, it is achieved through conditioning.

There is also the homosexual phenomenon of “Boy Love” as they like to call it (give me strength, Lord). There are a disproportionately high number of paedophiles amongst the male ‘Gay’ population. Researcher Dr Judith Reisman has stated that fewer than 2% of the male population are homosexual, yet they account for roughly half of all paedophiles cases. (See www.drjudithreismen.org for a fuller explanation). Yet the BBC will scour the earth for paedophile priests but will not do a documentary on “Boy Love” or the high proportion of ‘Gay’ paedophiles. Is this a case of the pro-homosexual media taking the speck out of other people’s eyes, yet forgetting the plank in their own?

News Cuttings

BBC anger at £2bn licence fee shortfall Daily Telegraph 19/1/07.
The BBC warned last night that it faced a £2 billion funding shortfall after the Government rejected calls for an above-inflation rise in the licence fee. CUT comment – lucky for the BBC that they’re not a private company.

‘Rome’ back with even more blood Sunday Telegraph 7/1/07.
A corpse being given breast milk from a nursing mother, a blood-soaked soldier carrying a head through the streets and a slave being tortured to death – these are the scenes that await viewers of the new series Rome, the BBC’s controversial hit drama. CUT – Should this kind of violent trash be ‘free’ to air?

Grubby EastEnders Daily Mail 4/1/07.
How sad and grubby were the episodes of EastEnders shown on TV over Christmas. I watched them because I wanted to see the final episodes starring Pauline (Wendy Richard). But the storyline about a young girl seducing an older man was horrible. CUT – Christmas at the BBC in the 21st century, sad and grubby.

Beeb takes artistic licence to get on down dirty Sunday Times 5/1/07.
The new licence fee is announced this week, so the BBC can finally breathe a sigh of relief and unleash its worst upon us. And the first big news is that BBC3 has commissioned a documentary about what modesty commands me to refer as the ladies’ front bottom. Called The History of the C-word, it will be at least an hour long and will take its place in the television canon alongside Channel 4’s W**k Week (probably sniggering as it does so). It’s barely a year since Germaine Greer gave viewers of BBC2’s Balderdash and Piffle an illuminating lecture on the origins of the word. Have these people no mercy? CUT - nope

Is it time to scrap the TV licence? The Economist 6/1/07
Debate has raged for years over whether the BBC should still be publicly financed, and specifically by a licence fee that is by all those with television sets. Many households, after all, now watch and listen to little of its output but almost all pay £131.50 a year for it. CUT - IT IS time to scrap the TV licence.

Yes, we are biased on religion and politics admit BBC executives Daily Mail 23/10/06 CUT – A leak from the BBC’s own Politburo

Last week’s vote results: Sunday Express 10/12/06
We asked for your views on falling standards of today’s television programmes:
Is today’s TV just a load of rubbish?
YES: 99% NO: 1%
CUT – So 99% of TV viewers admit they spent their time watching rubbish. Dose this sounds like drug addiction or hypnotism?

C4 ‘delight’ over Big Brother Daily Mail 23/1/07
Channel 4 chiefs congratulated themselves yesterday on the bumper rating of Celebrity Big Brother. They met to discuss the controversy over the allegedly racist bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty by other contestants including Jade Goody. CUT - After racist bullying and media hype C4 ratings sore. Sounds like mob rule via the TV.

Does Davina go too far in sex education show? Daily Mail 8/3/07
In [Channel 4’s] Let’s Talk sex, Miss McCall accompanies four teenagers and two school heads to a Dutch youth centre. The group sits in on sex education lessons in which children as young as four are taught about homosexuality and shown cartoons of various sex acts. At one point in the show, Miss McCall, a mother of three, unrolls a condom over a prosthetic sex aid in front of two schoolchildren. CUT – If that exasperates you, read this:

Don’t switch off Channel Phwoar- Its no good harruphing about too much sex on the box – the world has moved on. By Magnus Linklater The Times 15/11/06
I completely agree with Sir Jeremy Issacs that Channel 4 is obsessed with sex. I am less certain that this is a bad thing. Most of us, I fear – even Sir Jeremy perhaps – take a keen interest in the subject; at what point this shades into an unhealthy interest is hard to define.
CUT – with words like Phwoar and harruphing looks like The Times has moved on as well. However perhaps Mr Linklater should read the following.

Children film sex on their mobiles Sunday Times 4/2/07
Children are using mobiles phones to film each other having sex and are then sending the images to classmates. CUT – Where will these children use the skills they’ve acquired, Channel 4?

Young pupils abuse teachers with sexual swear words The Times 24/11/06
Children as young as 5 are consistently swearing at teachers with nearly 20 per cent of primary school teachers claiming to have been subject to sexually abusive insults from pupils. In a study commissioned by National Union of Teachers, England’s largest teaching union, researchers also found that 75 per cent of secondary school teachers said that pupils used language such as “F*** you” or “I’ve F***** your mum” to one another. CUT – We get tied of people saying, ‘I blame the parents’ when its really the TV’s fault – but then the parents do let children watch the TV.

Thursday’s TV Choice The Times 03-07
The blackest of comedies involving incest, deviant priests and necrophilia in a nursing home! CUT – This is bad even by channel 4’s standards, this new ‘comedy’ has been reported to evolve child abuse, suicide, drug addiction, priest spanking and even a dog that rapes a man. This might be the Times’ TV Choice but we say its more discussing filth by a channel that seems to be possessed by evil.

Schoolchildren of 11 get sex counsellors Daily Mail 25/10/06
CUT – No Comment

The Holy Father’s Message for the World Day of Social Communications

“The complex challenges facing education today are often linked to the pervasive influence of the media in our world… Indeed, some claim that the formative influence of the media rivals that of the school, the Church, and maybe even the home. Reality, for many, is what the media recognize as real.

So often freedom is presented as a relentless search for pleasure or new experience. Any trend to produce programs and products – including animated films and video games – which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behaviour or the trivialization of human sexuality is a perversion, all the more repulsive when these programs are directed at children and adolescents.


BBC executives admit they are anti-Christian

From Edward Botterell

Late last autumn BBC executives admitted what critics have known for years, that the corporation is institutionally biased. The revelation came from leaked details of an ‘impartiality’ summit called by its then chairman, Michael Grade. Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment. It was also suggested that the BBC is guilty of political correctness and was disproportionately over-represented by homosexuals. One senior BBC executive admitted that the summit had opened peoples’ eyes to how biased the BBC had become. ‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it’s very hard to change it.’ Jesus said: He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.’ St Luke (11:23).

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We support EWTN

At CUT we believe the television is fundamentally flawed and we will try and persuade people to give it up. However, we also support EWTN for we are realistic enough to realise we cannot get rid of the television completely. The gospel of Jesus should be proclaimed and his Church should be represented, wherever there are souls to be saved.

Notice board:

Many thanks to all who contributed to this newsletter, whether by articles, information, suggestions, research, letters of support and prayers. Thanks also for the generous response to our call for funds, to cover our print run and postage costs have doubled in the last year.

Request for information:
We have been recommended two books by our members that may be out of print: The Mask of Hate by David Holbrok, and Set Free Childhood by Martin Lurge – Can anyone help?

CUT suggests we give the licence fee to charity where it can do some good. Here are some suggestions:

Peters Pence – His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
0120 Vatican City State, Europe.
Or SPUC 5/6 Matthew Street, FREEPOST SW620, Westminster, London, SW1 2BR.
Or Aid to the Church in Need 1 Times Square, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1LL.
Or EWTN Britain: St Clare Media (EWTN) Ltd. (Charity No 1080782) PO Box 913, Enfield EN2 0WY
Or EWTN Ireland: St Brigid Media Ltd. (Charity No 15025) PO Box 352, Limerick, 061 394400

Contact us at:

C U T
(Catholics Unplug your Televisions)
Waun Llydan, St David’s Well
Llananno,
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Help us be effective in the fight against the secular fundamentalist’s most deadly weapon the television, please send donations to the above address with cheques made out to CUT or Catholics Unplug your Televisions.

Most important of all please remember us in your prayers.

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