Avatar messes with doctrines

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican newspaper and radio station have called the film “Avatar” simplistic, and criticized it for flirting with modern doctrines that promote the worship of nature as a substitute for religion. Here is the text, in part, of the article:


L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Radio dedicated ample coverage to James Cameron’s big-grossing, 3-D spectacle. But the reviews were lukewarm, calling the movie superficial in its eco-message, despite groundbreaking visual effects.

L’Osservatore said the film “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.” Similarly, Vatican Radio said it “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.”

“Nature is no longer a creation to defend, but a divinity to worship,” the radio said.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said that while the movie reviews are just that — film criticism, with no theological weight — they do reflect Pope Benedict XVI’s views on the dangers of turning nature into a “new divinity.”

Benedict has often spoken about the need to protect the environment, earning the nickname of “green pope.” But he has sometimes balanced that call with a warning against neo-paganism.

In a recent World Day of Peace message, the pontiff warned against any notions that equate human person and other living things. He said such notions “open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man’s salvation in nature alone.”

The Vatican newspaper occasionally likes to comment in its cultural pages on movies or pop culture icons, as it did recently about “The Simpsons” or U2. In one famous instance, several Vatican officials spoke out against “The Da Vinci Code.”

I love the line that reads, "...which would see the source of man's salvation in nature alone." Because, really, our salvation is in nature. It's because of mother nature that we are here, and because of her gentleness with us that we remain. Let's face it, if she didn't want us here, we wouldn't be here. She could wipe us all out in an hour. Less than an hour. A sunami here, an earthquake, volcanic eruption, avalanche or mudslide there....if all that didn't work, how about a permament ice age for a couple of years?

Like it or not, our life is in her hands. why not give her a little worship? Maybe it'll buy us a few more years' rent on this rock we call Earth.