The NBC show, Law and Order, seems to have a growing interest in the Catholic Church. In its November 29 episode, it featured a devout Catholic woman who confesses to a priest that she smothered to death her own child and then put the baby in a furnace. Throughout the program, those Catholics who appear to be the most well adjusted are also the ones who tend to be the most critical of Church teachings, while those who are the most loyal to the Church seem to have a problem.
This doesn’t mean that the program was anti-Catholic, but it does raise an interesting question: why is it that television producers more frequently portray practicing Catholics in a negative light while putting a positive spin on dissidents? Could it have anything to do with their own predilections?
One thing is certain: there is increasing evidence that Hollywood looks upon Catholicism the way Catholics (or at least Catholic League type Catholics) look upon Hollywood. The latter phenomenon is easy to understand, but we’re still not sure what we’ve done to cause the former.
