Valentine’s Day plans do not typically include domestic abuse.
Yet thousands of couples are already pre-purchasing their movie tickets for 50 Shades of Grey, a film which many critics are saying romanticizes and attempts to normalize violence against women.
The film is set for an international release on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. The film is based on the first installment of a three-book series by British writer E.L. James, which has topped best-seller lists all over the world, including in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the series, wealthy, 27-year-old Christian Grey grooms naive 21 year-old Anastasia to engage in a sadistic sexual relationship.
The book series the film is based on is being called “Twilight for grownups”, as well as “Mommy porn”.
More than 100 million copies have been sold worldwide, and the series has been translated into 52 languages, but its reception has been fraught with controversy. Christian leaders and Catholic bishops are speaking out against the upcoming film, calling it misogynistic and a dangerous portrayal of violence as romance.
(Editor’s note): “In his reflections on Theology of the Body, Catholic apologist and founder of Totus Tuus Ministries, Jim Seghers, notes that “twisted notions of love disconnects the body from personhood and becomes exploitive, selfish and violent, ultimately cheapening and belittling the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.” When we accept the lie of Shades of Grey and all types of pornography, we are ultimately left unhappy, disillusioned, confused and denigrated. Why? Because we are seeking something that has been designed to prey upon our human weaknesses and draw us away from God. It then becomes harder for us to recognize ourselves as children of God and temples of the Holy Spirit”. –from a Catholic Exchange article by Judy Keane.
Dr. Gail Dines and others in her feminist organization Stop Porn Culture came up with a social media campaign to boycott the movie, but with an ingenious twist: take the $50 that would be spent on dinner and movie tickets for two, and instead donate it to a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Dines said she credits the huge response to the #50dollarsnot50shades campaign in part to women are tired of being silent in a pornography-obsessed culture.
Learn more about the #50DollarsNot50Shades campaign at: https://www.facebook.com/50dollarsnotfiftyshades/info
This article comes from a Febuary 11 Catholic News Agency article by Mary Rezac
A boycott is an interesting approach. But far more is needed.
“Fifty Shades” has become “mommy porn” as current literature suggests that many a soccer mon and pals are lapping this fantasy up. So, what does this say?
Well, it says that Catholic, and general Christian, notions of modesty are completely gone. Of course, you can tell this by talking to your daughter/granddaughter as they seek out very revealing bathing suits (even if they and friends all go to Catholic schools). Showing off of the female figure, even for school kids is taken as “normal” by most women and girls today.
Do you ever ask yourselves if priests even mention this in sermons. Wait, wait — “Warning Will Robinson, warning . . .” the Church leadership, with very few exceptions, refuses to tread on issues of sexual ethics, and even its externals, like fashion. Certainly a Church that is even debating — and whose Pope insisted on inserting rejected writings on “welcoming” of sodomites — homosexual and fornication and adultery accepting “disciplines” (to quote simpering Cardinal Wuerl “The Girl”), cannot stand up against “middle class” fantasy-porn.
Put another way: what good does it do to put out a small fire in the garage, when the entire building is engulfed in flames? What is needed is a “million person march” against acceptance of homosexual sex, easy divorce, no-fault fornication, pornography in general, easy access to contraceptives, easy access to abortion, and the manner in which sex is taught in schools.
The Catholic Church needs desperately to preach and teach her Faith and Morals, and inculcate a solid moral conscience, in all her parishioners, from babyhood! Catholics today need much more MATURITY, HUMILITY— and RESPECT FOR GOD!! They need to be taught, once again, that sexual sins are very serious MORTAL SINS, and must be avoided at all costs! One CANNOT receive Holy Communion after committing a MORTAL SIN– one must immediately GO TO CONFESSION!!! One’s relationship with God is seriously impaired!! Yet, God loves and forgives all His children; His love and mercy are boundless! And oh, YES— upon committing a MORTAL SIN, a Catholic is in need of TRUE SORROW for sin, natural, human GUILT and REMORSE — and REPENTANCE!! It is far too SHOCKING, that many people worldwide, have all been so BRAINWASHED, and evilly turned into “dirty, sinful, lawless, liberal hippies,” accepting evil and sin so easily– since the diabolic 1960’s!! Many simply have absolutely NO MORAL CONSCIENCE!! A HORROR!!
Linda Marie, I agree with your post.
Many Bishops and Priests do NOT encourage the literate to read the 2 most important books in the Catholic Faith at home –
a Catholic Bible and the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition” (of 1997).
https://whatcatholicsreallybelieve.com/
Most Bishops and Priests do not teach accurately and/or completely.
Therefore we must spread the word about these two books to stop the ignorance and Save Souls.
CCC: ” 1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.
In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.”
We each have an OBLIGATION to read.
There will be no excuse for the literate at our (personal) particular judgment before Jesus.
And Bishops and Priests who do not teach completely and accurately –
Hosea 4:6 ” My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children. ”
I would not want to be in their shoes at their judgment. Their sins of omission (and commission) could sent them straight to Hell, along with the Souls of those who were lost due to their lack of complete and accurate teaching.
If I want to see gruesome footage of people physically mistreating each other and demeaning our fellow man, I can just go watch ISIS videos on CNN. I don’t even have to buy a movie ticket.
Don, I agree 100% with you! ISIS has NO MORAL CONSCIENCE, and is universally DESPISED!! So– why aren’t these evil kinds of books and movies, likewise SCORNED and DESPISED, by everyone, worldwide?? Why aren’t people standing up to the evils of Human Trafficking, Sex Slavery, and Battered Women and Children??
Fifty shades of sadness for a society willing to tolerate such trash.
A few years ago, the previous San Francisco Archbishop Archbishop Niederauer, announced that he had just gone to the movies, PUBLICALLY, and PAID HIS MONEY– to see a very dirty film, all about gay love and sex– “Brokeback Mountain!” HORRIBLE!! Especially, for an Archbishop of our Church, to be seen by everyone, committing this sin, of paying (with God’s money) to see a dirty movie! Instead– he should have been actively CONDEMNING such movies, and letting all Catholics know– it is a MORTAL SIN to see something like that! We need the pre-Vatican II Legion of Decency, for movies, and the Church leaders must tell everyone, emphatically, “NO!!” to all sinful movies!!
I read a news article recently where a man and a woman met at a gas station. They married, but they then got into S&M. He accidentally killed her when he tied her up too tight one day, and the woman suffocated to death. One problem with this type of behavior is that it most often gets worse and worse as people seek more and different “thrills”, if you can call it that. Very dangerous!
The problem is in accepting grey areas in life. Life really is black and white. There is a right and a wrong way to act. In being non confrontational we allow exceptions in today’s society, because, hey, who are we to judge. How many young women will get caught up in a momentary excitement and then realize that bondage sex is just wrong. Many women, after hookin up, feel used and a discarded. The stakes will be so much higher after they allowed themselves to be humiliated and abused.
Why are there not strong laws, in our Nation, prohibiting this bizarre kind of sick, criminal behavior, with the police to come and immediately arrest these kinds of criminals?? ALL deviant sex behaviors, should actually be against the law! When two people marry (one man and one woman, ONLY!) they must understand, that the “marriage act,” sex, is for love— but the act is primarily of God’s use, for child-bearing, not “entertainments!” And YES— there is, most definitely— “right” and “wrong” in life, just as God tells us, in the Bible! It made me SICK, when deviant, lawless hippie criminals, in the 1960’s— began to brainwash youth to accept crazy, immoral, liberal ideas, such as irresponsible “situation ethics,” insisting that life was blurry, selfishly “personal,” and “grey,” in regards to morality, and brazenly demanding irresponsible “NON-JUDGMENT” for sinful beliefs and actions!! WHY aren’t Americans SMART ENOUGH, to see through this two-year-old, childish HOGWASH??
February 15 – Apparition of the Child Jesus to Lucia of Fatima (Pontevedra, Spain, 1926)
Taken from a moment with Mary
‘‘Strive to console me’’
“During her apparition in Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917, Our Lady announced, “To prevent the war, I will come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.”
“On December 10, 1925, Mary appeared with the Child Jesus to Sister Lucia in the Convent of Pontevedra, Spain, and said, “See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for salvation, those who, on the first Saturday of the month for five consecutive months, will go to confession, receive Holy Communion, recite the Rosary and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary with the intention of making reparation to me.”
“On February 15, 1926, the Child Jesus appeared to Sister Lucia. She told him that it was difficult for many people to go to confession on Saturdays, and asked if confession within eight days could be valid. Jesus answered, “Yes, they have several days to do it, provided that in receiving Me they should be in a state of grace and have the intention of making reparation for the offenses against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
Thank you, Catherine, for the information in your post! Our Lady of Fatima warned repeatedly, of the horrendous consequences to mankind, of sexual sins! She also gave her children the devotion of the First Five Saturdays, in reparation for sin! The Catholic Church has tragically failed to listen to Our Lady of Fatima!
I hate this film. God have mercy! Its already tough trying to be a traditional conservative woman and yet these terrible movies are created! I often find that men are excused and given more pleasures to indulge in while women are sold a lie to be loose. How often do women have to be reprogrammed and told that that they have to appeal to their men in areas of the bedroom. They are left vulnerable, forced to compete with porn ideals of this society! Look at Victoria’s secret commercials, look at the image they give of how women should appear. Disgusting! Not only are women victims but also men because they are being taught to indulge in their fleshly desires and imposing those ideals on to the women they seek out. It destroys family values and the dignity of the human soul! .
O Jesus, Who didst choose a life of poverty and obscurity, grant me that grace to keep my heart detached from the transitory things of the world. Be Thou henceforth my only treasure, for Thou art infinitely more precious than all other possessions. My heart is too solicitous for the vain and fleeting things of the earth. Make me always mindful of Thy warning words: “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?”. Grant me the grace to keep Thy holy example always before my eyes, that I may despise the nothingness of this world and make thee the object of all my desires and affections. Amen.