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Q and A on Noah

Russell Crowe as NoahQ. The movie Noah, starring Russell Crowe, has inspired me to look into the biblical Noah. What does the Bible say about Noah and the Flood in Genesis 6:5-8:22?

A. It’s important to realize, as scholar John Walton reminds us, that the biblical account of the Flood has been “watered down” by the way most of us learned about it in Sunday School. Kids love boats and animals, so most childrens’ books and materials about the Flood focus on these things.

As we get older, we should realize that the main message about the Flood is not about Noah, the animals, the ark, or the water. It is about God. In fact, Noah never speaks at all in the account of the Flood. We only hear what God thinks about Noah – that he was “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). This is the standard we should aim for, too. God notices and cares when people try to live for him in the midst of a depraved culture – like the one Noah lived in, or like the one we live in today.

Q. What does the Flood account teach us about God?

A. Saint Peter, writing in the New Testament, teaches that the Flood reminds us of the approaching final judgment (2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-6). Walton points out four facts we can learn from this:

1. “The Lord knows how to rescue godly people from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:9).

2.  The only reason God is delaying the final judgment is to allow more people time to turn back to God. But this is a “limited-time offer” that will not last forever: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

3. The Flood meant destruction for the wicked, but a new world for those who were saved. The same will occur in the future: “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).

4. These future realities should impact the way we live our lives today: “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:11).

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On the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Pope Pius IX, who defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854)

Pope Pius IX, who defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854)

Today’s great Solemnity of the Immaculate conception of Mary is usually celebrated on December 8. However, due to the second Sunday of Advent falling on that date yesterday, the Solemnity was communicated to today this year. And it’s certainly a doctrine that is misunderstood by many.

The Immaculate Conception is not the Virginal Conception of Jesus. Nor does it have anything to do with this, sports fans.

Here’s the actual definition, from Blessed Pope Pius IX, “Pio Nono”:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

–Ineffabilis Deus, Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX solemnly defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 1854.

the basis for the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the New Testament is well-known, but today I’d like to share about one of the ways the doctrine is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In his masterful devotional series, In Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez writes about Mary as the new Temple in which God dwells:

In the litany of Loreto we call upon Mary, House of Gold, the abode of greatest conceivable splendor. When a family turns a house into a home by taking up residence there, the place reflects the individual qualities of the people. They accentuate the beauty of the dwelling place. Just like the Holy Spirit dwelling in Our Lady, the home and its inhabitants make up a particular unity, in much the same way as the body and its garments do. The foremost Tabernacle in the Old Testament, later to be the Temple, is the House of God, where the meeting of Yahweh and his people takes place. When Solomon makes the decision to build the Temple, the Prophets specify that the best available materials are to be used – abundant cedar wood on the inside and clad with gold on the outside. The most highly skilled craftsmen are to work on its construction.

Before God made known his coming into the world in the fullness of time, He prepared Mary as the suitable creature within whom He would dwell for nine months, from the moment of his Incarnation until his birth in Bethlehem. Evidence of God’s power and love show forth in his creation. Mary is the House of Gold, the new Temple of God, and is adorned with so great a beauty that no greater perfection is possible. The grace of her Immaculate Conception, including all the graces and gifts God ever bestowed on her soul, are directed towards the fulfillment of her divine Maternity.

God’s gift of supernatural life to her exceeds that of all the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins combined. It reaches far beyond the experience of anyone who has ever lived, or ever will live, until the end of time. God dwells in Our Lady more than in all the angels and saints, since the foundation of the world, taken together. Truly God has prepared a human vessel in keeping with the dignity of his eternal Son. When we say that Mary has an almost infinite dignity, we mean that among all God’s creatures she is the one who enjoys the most intimate relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Her absolute honor is the highest possible and her majesty is in every way unique. She is the firstborn and most highly favored daughter of the Father, as she has often been called throughout the history of the Church, and as has been reiterated by the Second Vatican Council, Our Lady’s blood relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, leads her to a singular relationship with him.

Mary is indeed the new Temple and Tabernacle of God.

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Pope Francis’ Inauguration Homily

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HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS
INAUGURATION OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY
ST PETER’S SQUARE
19 MARCH 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I thank the Lord that I can celebrate this Holy Mass for the inauguration of my Petrine ministry on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary and the patron of the universal Church. It is a significant coincidence, and it is also the name-day of my venerable predecessor: we are close to him with our prayers, full of affection and gratitude.

I offer a warm greeting to my brother cardinals and bishops, the priests, deacons, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful. I thank the representatives of the other Churches and ecclesial Communities, as well as the representatives of the Jewish community and the other religious communities, for their presence. My cordial greetings go to the Heads of State and Government, the members of the official Delegations from many countries throughout the world, and the Diplomatic Corps.

In the Gospel we heard that “Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife” (Mt 1:24). These words already point to the mission which God entrusts to Joseph: he is to be the custos, the protector. The protector of whom? Of Mary and Jesus; but this protection is then extended to the Church, as Blessed John Paul II pointed out: “Just as Saint Joseph took loving care of Mary and gladly dedicated himself to Jesus Christ’s upbringing, he likewise watches over and protects Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, of which the Virgin Mary is the exemplar and model” (Redemptoris Custos, 1).

How does Joseph exercise his role as protector? Discreetly, humbly and silently, but with an unfailing presence and utter fidelity, even when he finds it hard to understand. From the time of his betrothal to Mary until the finding of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, he is there at every moment with loving care. As the spouse of Mary, he is at her side in good times and bad, on the journey to Bethlehem for the census and in the anxious and joyful hours when she gave birth; amid the drama of the flight into Egypt and during the frantic search for their child in the Temple; and later in the day-to-day life of the home of Nazareth, in the workshop where he taught his trade to Jesus.

How does Joseph respond to his calling to be the protector of Mary, Jesus and the Church? By being constantly attentive to God, open to the signs of God’s presence and receptive to God’s plans, and not simply to his own. This is what God asked of David, as we heard in the first reading. God does not want a house built by men, but faithfulness to his word, to his plan. It is God himself who builds the house, but from living stones sealed by his Spirit. Joseph is a “protector” because he is able to hear God’s voice and be guided by his will; and for this reason he is all the more sensitive to the persons entrusted to his safekeeping. He can look at things realistically, he is in touch with his surroundings, he can make truly wise decisions. In him, dear friends, we learn how to respond to God’s call, readily and willingly, but we also see the core of the Christian vocation, which is Christ! Let us protect Christ in our lives, so that we can protect others, so that we can protect creation!

The vocation of being a “protector”, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about. It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents. It means building sincere friendships in which we protect one another in trust, respect, and goodness. In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!

Whenever human beings fail to live up to this responsibility, whenever we fail to care for creation and for our brothers and sisters, the way is opened to destruction and hearts are hardened. Tragically, in every period of history there are “Herods” who plot death, wreak havoc, and mar the countenance of men and women.

Please, I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: let us be “protectors” of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment. Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world! But to be “protectors”, we also have to keep watch over ourselves! Let us not forget that hatred, envy and pride defile our lives! Being protectors, then, also means keeping watch over our emotions, over our hearts, because they are the seat of good and evil intentions: intentions that build up and tear down! We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness!

Here I would add one more thing: caring, protecting, demands goodness, it calls for a certain tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!

Today, together with the feast of Saint Joseph, we are celebrating the beginning of the ministry of the new Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Peter, which also involves a certain power. Certainly, Jesus Christ conferred power upon Peter, but what sort of power was it? Jesus’ three questions to Peter about love are followed by three commands: feed my lambs, feed my sheep. Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross. He must be inspired by the lowly, concrete and faithful service which marked Saint Joseph and, like him, he must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-46). Only those who serve with love are able to protect!

In the second reading, Saint Paul speaks of Abraham, who, “hoping against hope, believed” (Rom 4:18). Hoping against hope! Today too, amid so much darkness, we need to see the light of hope and to be men and women who bring hope to others. To protect creation, to protect every man and every woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love, is to open up a horizon of hope; it is to let a shaft of light break through the heavy clouds; it is to bring the warmth of hope! For believers, for us Christians, like Abraham, like Saint Joseph, the hope that we bring is set against the horizon of God, which has opened up before us in Christ. It is a hope built on the rock which is God.

To protect Jesus with Mary, to protect the whole of creation, to protect each person, especially the poorest, to protect ourselves: this is a service that the Bishop of Rome is called to carry out, yet one to which all of us are called, so that the star of hope will shine brightly. Let us protect with love all that God has given us!

I implore the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saints Peter and Paul, and Saint Francis, that the Holy Spirit may accompany my ministry, and I ask all of you to pray for me! Amen.

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Debunking the Debunkers

Here’s my latest article from the June issue of Catholic Insight magazine. Hope you like it!

Debunking the Debunkers

by Cale Clarke

Just as surely as the lillies bloom every spring, each Easter season brings with it some new theories about what really happened at the first Easter. Martin Luther’s dictum describing early Protestantism comes to mind: “There are as many interpretations as there are heads”. Here are a couple of this year’s takes:

First, on Holy Saturday, the National Post ran a piece about a new book by art historian (and amateur theologian) Thomas de Wesselow, The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection. And what, pray tell, is that secret? According to de Wesselow, the shroud really is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ – but get this: he thinks it was the shroud that the Apostles encountered after the death of Christ, not his resurrected body. Huh? So, when “doubting” Thomas stuck his hand in Jesus’ side, was he only wiggling his fingers through a hole in the sheet? Not sure this is the sort of stuff that inspires martyrdom.

And then there’s the perennial publicity hound Simcha Jacobovici (TV’s The Naked Archaeologist), who, along with James Cameron (whenever the latter is not tied up making bad movies about blue people or sinking boats), spends a lot of his time looking for the lost tomb of Jesus. It’s a project that has as much potential as the maiden Titanic voyage.

As real biblical scholar Craig Evans pointed out recently in The Huffington Post, the archaeological community scoffs at the idea that the tomb in the Jerusalem area that Jacobovici shows off in The Jesus Discovery belongs to Jesus of Nazareth. And, if Jesus’ bones are still in a tomb, then how does Jacobovici explain the fact that even the enemies of the early Christian movement say it’s empty? It seems as if The Naked Archaeologist has no clothes.

The fact is that the disciples claimed to have encountered the resurrected Jesus. People who days earlier had denied even knowing Jesus (like Peter) are, post-Easter, quite willing to lay down their lives for their conviction that Jesus lives. Skeptics, even persecutors like Saul the Pharisee (better known now as Paul the Apostle) claim to have had the same experience. After his death and burial, Jesus is said to have appeared to numerous individuals and groups of people over a 40-day period, including 500 people at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6). Forget about mass hallucinations – you can’t catch a hallucination like a common cold. And what these folks claimed was not even that they had seen a “vision” of Jesus – a category well accepted in Jewish circles.

No, what they claimed was not that they had seen a ghost, or even – sorry, Thomas de Wesselow – a shroud. They claimed to have experienced Jesus’ physical body, back from the dead. Transformed, yes, but still him, still sporting the crucifixion wounds as a type of I.D. Able to be touched, able to scarf down some food to make a point of his being corporeal (cf. Luke 24:36-43; Acts 10:41). A resurrection is a lot harder to prove than a vision. A “vision” of Jesus, encouraging the disciples to continue the mission, wouldn’t require an empty tomb. And preaching the resurrection in the very city where Jesus was crucified would have been impossible if the tomb were occupied. This is even more evident when one considers that the location of the tomb was no secret, not waiting thousands of years to be discovered by Cameron and Jacobovici – it belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, the very council which condemned Jesus to death, and a known public figure.

Could the disciples have stolen the body? That was, after all, the explanation proffered by the enemies of the nascent Church as to how the tomb came to be empty. But this view overlooks an important fact: the disciples died for their belief in the resurrection. True, many have died (and continue to do so) for what they believe to be true – suicide bombers, for instance. But no one in their right mind willingly would give their life for what they knew to be false. If the disciples really had Jesus’ body locked in the trunk of a car somewhere, I doubt they’d be in a hurry to get themselves crucified upside-down, or sawed in two.

Whatever one’s theory is about what happened that first Easter, one ought to at least take into account all the known facts of the case. But, unfortunately for a gullible public, the Jacobovicis and de Wesselows of the world have never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Cale Clarke is the Director of The Faith Explained Seminars (TheFaithExplained.com), and the creator of The New Mass app.

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The Year of The Priest Seminar

A new seminar I’m offering in this “Year of the Priest” in the Catholic Church is called “The Priesthood Explained: Understanding Father’s Priesthood – and Yours”. To whet your appetite, here’s an article I wrote on the subject for Catholic Insight magazine.

The Priesthood(s) Jesus Gave Us by Cale Clarke

A Catholic must, in the words of our first pope, “always be ready with an answer for anyone who asks you” (1 Peter 3:15) about the faith. And especially in this Year of the Priest, queries about the Catholic priesthood abound.

A fundamental question we are often asked is about the origin of the Catholic ministerial priesthood itself. Many doubt that Jesus meant to establish it. In fact, many see the priesthood as a later “invention” of the Church, a “Catholic accretion” to the gospel that must be done away with.

Speaking of 1 Peter, one major argument against the Catholic priesthood is found in 1 Peter 2:5, where all Christians are dubbed “a royal priesthood, a holy nation”. According to this text, the argument goes, since all believers are priests, a separate ministerial priesthood – the Catholic priesthood – is no longer necessary. We can return to the situation of Old Testament Israel, where all Israel was “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). At the dawn of the Protestant revolution, Martin Luther made heavy use of the “priesthood of all believers” doctrine, as he understood it, to persuade people that they could in good conscience leave the Church of Rome.

This idea is only half true. All believers are, indeed priests. On this, the Catholic Church agrees with Peter, naturally! But that does not mean that we don’t need a separate ministerial priesthood – and, ironically, appealing to the case of Israel only strengthens the Catholic case.

As Fr. Mario Romero points out in his book Unabridged Christianity, the structure of Catholic priesthood in the New Covenant strikingly parallels that of the Old: there are three different types in each.

1. The High Priesthood. In the Old Covenant (cf. Lev. 16), The high priest was designated to enter the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple and atone for the transgressions of the people on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ, our eternal High Priest, offers the one perfect sacrifice of himself in the true Holy of Holies (cf. Hebrews 7).

2. The Ordained, Ministerial Priesthood. Old Covenant Israel, of course, had the Levites as priests (Exodus 29 ff), who ministered on behalf of the other tribes. Some may say, “That was God’s response to the golden calf debacle, when only the Levites kept faith – prior to this, there was no unique priestly group. It is to this original state of Israel that God is calling us back to in the New Covenant”. This view fails to realize that, even prior to the establishment of the Levitical priesthood, there was already a separate priesthood (cf. Exodus 19:21,22).

The New Covenant also features an ordained, ministerial priesthood which ministers on behalf of God’s people. An oft-overlooked text that verifies this is Acts 1, when Matthias is chosen by lot to replace Judas in the apostolic band. Far from a game of chance, drawing lots is how priests were chosen for tasks in the temple (see Luke 1:9). Luke mentions this at the start of his second volume to link the new priesthood in the new temple (the Church) with the account of Zechariah’s Old Covenant priesthood in Luke 1.

Of course, there are also the stock texts one might turn to in support of a ministerial priesthood in the Church. In Romans 15:15-16, Saint Paul speaks of his “priestly service of the gospel”. The New Testament is replete with the ordinations of “presbyters” throughout – a Greek word that is translated into English as “priest” (eg. Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5).

3. The Universal Priesthood. This priesthood was shared by all Jews in the Old Covenant. It consisted of offering spiritual sacrifices to God. A similar universal, or “catholic” priesthood is conferred on all New Covenant believers at baptism, by which the believer shares in Christ’s threefold office of priest, prophet, and king (CCC 1268). All should offer the totality of their very lives (Romans 12:1) as their priestly offering to God – including their work and social lives, not simply their public and private worship. In both covenants, the ordained, ministerial priesthood is culled from the ranks of the universal priesthood.
This is the real “priesthood of all believers”. Contrary views must, sooner or later, be sacrificed on the altar of truth.

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The Gospel According to Superman

In light of my interview with Salt and Light TV tomorrow on superheroes and the faith (I’ll let you know when it airs), I thought I’d post my 2006 Superman article, published in Catholic Insight magazine, dealing with the release of the film, “Superman Returns”. You can also find my two-part article on the Batman film “The Dark Knight” in the archives here and here !

The Gospel According to Superman

by Cale Clarke

As a lifelong fan of comic book superheroes, I couldn’t wait for the latest installment of the long-dormant Superman movie franchise, Superman Returns, to swoop into theatres. And as a Catholic, watching the movie gave me more than I bargained for. I was looking for a little escapist fantasy. Instead, I found my thoughts soaring “up, up, and away”–as Superman would say-into the very heart of reality, heaven itself.

Why heaven? Because Jesus Christ is there. And Superman Returns draws some very interesting parallels between the Messiah and the Man of Steel. Just as St. Paul in Acts 17 used the works of Greek “pop culture” artists – namely, pagan poets Epimenides, Aratus, and Cleanthes – to draw first-century Athenians to Christ, there may be aspects of this movie that can connect modern spiritual seekers to the Saviour. To communicate the Gospel effectively today, we must, as St. Paul did, exegete the culture as well as the Scriptures.

Superman was created 70 years ago by Jewish teens Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (a Canadian!). No doubt they were thinking more of the original Moses than the new Moses (Jesus) when they dreamed up their iconic character, but the allusion to Moses is unmistakable in the Superman story. As their home planet, Krypton, is destroyed, Jor-El and his wife Lara set their infant son Kal-El adrift, not on the river Nile, but into outer space, in the hopes that a good family on Earth will raise their son as one of their own, even though he is truly a king. Of course, Jonathan and Martha Kent did just that in Smallville, Kansas, naming the boy Clark, Superman’s alter-ego.

Although the Superman legend springs from Jewish roots, just as Christianity itself does, the creators of Superman Returns have made their own mark on the character–a mark that looks an awful lot like the cross. Superman film directors like Richard Donner (1978’s Superman: the Movie) and Superman Returns’ director Bryan Singer chose to portray Superman as a Christ figure. The “S” on Superman’s chest might just as well stand for “Savior.” Singer acknowledged as much in a recent interview with Wizard magazine: “Superman is the Jesus Christ of superheroes.”

Obviously, Superman is a myth; Christ is a historical person, “born of the Virgin Mary …(Who) suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Superman is not Christ. But he is a Christlike figure, as we all should be. What we are dealing with is more of an allusion to Christ (a la Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings), rather than a straight Christian allegory like C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, where Aslan = Christ. But Superman Returns’ Christian allusions are no illusion.

Consider: Superman is sent to earth as a baby in a rocket ship shaped like a star, which lands in a rural cornfield. Christ’s arrival was also heralded by a star seen by shepherds in a field. Superman is raised on earth in a “backwater” town reminiscent of Nazareth: Smallville. Like Christ, Superman grows up where people have no idea of the powers he possesses, or what his true
identity – hiss true nature, a Catholic might say – really is.

Jesus was raised by an earthly stepfather named Joseph, a carpenter. Clark (which, incidentally, means “cleric”) was also raised by a manual labourer, farmer Jonathan Kent. Ironically, Clark’s parents were originally named Mary and Joseph in the comics, but later were changed to Martha and Jonathan. Superman’s Kryptonian father, Jor-El, sends Kal-El to earth with these words in Superman Returns: “They can be a great people, Kal-El; they wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. That is why I have sent them you, my only son.”

If this does not evoke echoes of John’s gospel, I don’t know what does! Jesus is “the light of the world” (John 1:4,5,9; 8:12) and God’s one and only Son (John 3:16,18). The early Church’s members were first called members of “the Way” (Acts 9:2). Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Interestingly, “El” is Hebrew for God, which may or may not have had some significance in the creation of the Kryptonian names of Superman and his father. El the father and El the son evoke the Trinity, as does the line repeated by Jor-El and Superman in Superman Returns, “The son becomes the father, and the father, the son.” Jesus said to Philip: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Superman hovers above earth and listens, via his super-hearing, to myriad cries for help from below. This scene echoes what he will later tell Lois: “You said the world doesn’t need a saviour. But every day, I hear people crying for one.” Superman answers those cries, flying to the rescue, faster than a speeding bullet, breaking the sound barrier with a boom. This recalls Christ’s hearing our prayers on earth. His response is even faster than Superman’s. God “is an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Superman’s mortal enemy is Lex Luthor: a name that phonetically evokes that of Lucifer. Luthor is insanely jealous of Superman’s powers, just as Lucifer was of God. There is a scene where Superman, weakened by Kryptonite, is savagely beaten by Luthor and his thugs. The violence is raw and very reminiscent of The Passion of the Christ. Seeing Superman stripped of his powers and thrashed reminds one of Jesus, holding back His great power, brutalized by the people he came to save. Superman is then stabbed in the side by Luthor with a shard of Kryptonite, an unmistakable allusion to the lance which pierced the heart of Christ on the cross.

Luthor’s gal pal Kitty Kowalski calls to mind Pontius Pilate’s wife Claudia, who tells Pilate not to harm Jesus, having been warned in a dream. Kitty is visibly disturbed during Superman’s beating, and later throws away Kryptonian Crystals possessed by Lex, which had given him the edge in his battle against Superman.

Just as Christ did away with sin through His death, burial, and resurrection, Superman, after saving earth, falls (in a cruciform
pose) from space to earth, where his impact “buries” him in a crater, seemingly dead. Is this the end for Superman? Not if Warner Brothers wants another sequel!

Much more can be said, more than we have space for here. Of course, the comparisons between Superman and Christ end when it comes down to the main surprise of the film (caution: spoiler ahead!): Superman has fathered a child out of wedlock with Lois Lane. No allusion to Christ here; Jesus was celibate and fathered no children, no matter what Dan Brown says.

Superman’s son, Jason, was conceived by Superman and Lois’ illicit union in Superman II. As a lifelong Superman fan, this is one development of his onscreen mythology that I have a huge problem with. Superman was always known for his moral purity; filmmakers Donner and Singer have taken far too much licence here, in a misguided attempt to make Superman “relatable” to modern viewers.

But they forget that what attracts us to the character of Superman is, well, his character, as well as his saving powers. He is to, as Jor-El intones in the film, “inspire others to moral good.” And what people are attracted to in Superman–the qualities and powers of a saviour–can only be found in the reality of Christ, the true Super Man.

In the movie, Superman returns after a long disappearance. We, too, are waiting for our hero, Jesus, to return in glory. However, as Catholics, we are not asking Our Lord, as Lois does of Superman after his long absence, “How could you leave us like that?” We always have Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, where He never leaves us or forsakes us. “I am with you always” (Matt. 28: 20).

Really, we can all identify a lot with Superman, because we are all aliens of a sort. This world is not our home, but “our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a saviour from there”–no, not Superman–“the Lord Jesus Christ, who … will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:20-21). When He returns, we will all be Super.

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