Brendan O’ReganMedia bias brings a bad start to the viewing week, writes Brendan O’Regan
My reviewing week didn’t get off to a great start. The Ray D’Arcy Show (RTÉ Radio 1, midweek afternoons) has long been edgy in a juvenile kind of way. For example, in a remarkable revelation of media bias he started a show after the marriage referendum with a declaration that the show was going to celebrate the result.
On Monday of last week he had an item about sexual fantasies, which included a most graphic reading and this in mid-afternoon as children would have been in cars coming home from school. Is anyone concerned at RTÉ? Doesn’t look like it, as D’Arcy has recently been rewarded with a Saturday night TV show.
On that show last Saturday night one of his guests was former Dublin footballer Ger Brennan, a man for whom religious faith is important, as this newspaper’s readers will be well aware. The interview was cheerful and largely positive though unfortunately the faith element didn’t really figure.
However, his stand against the marriage referendum was raised which earned him what seemed like some off-camera heckling from the audience, no surprise there. He said he would still vote ‘No’ due to his concerns about children and family, and dealt with the matter graciously.
Returning to my bad start to the week, Tuesday’s Today With Seán O’Rourke (RTÉ Radio 1) improved matters with some positive items – there was an inspiring interview with a woman who suffered from depression and had planned suicide. It didn’t happen and with the help of the ‘Grow’ initiative she has turned her life around, now playing a full role in the social and sacramental life of her local parish. Also on the show there was an item from Limerick about positive initiatives with the families of prisoners. One woman reckoned her jailed partner was learning his lesson and she seemed quite hopeful about the future.
On Thursday evening a creepy new drama series with strong religious content started on UTV Ireland. Midwinter of the Spirit features a female clerical exorcist of the Church of England confronted with a bizarre murder in which a man was crucified, an act she regarded as sacrilege as well as murder.
When I saw that her character was called ‘Merrily’ I thought it was going to be lighter, but this show is light years away from Vicar of Dilby – it takes the presence of intense evil very seriously. It opened will a training session for exorcists, when the trainer insisted that when something apparently supernatural happens all natural explanations must be ruled out first.
He declared that “deliverance ministry requires a wide skillset” and believes Merrily has potential in the area because she’s neither fundamentalist nor ‘happy clappy’! He warned that she’s vulnerable because her husband had died recently and because she is a female minister. She encountered a canon who feels he is failing in his struggle against a great evil in the parish and a deeply nasty man whose evil seemed to live on after he died in Merrily’s presence. It’s not for the faint-hearted and apart from that I’m always uneasy to see religious symbolism used in gruesome horror stories. The ‘joy of the Gospel’ isn’t in evidence, but at least evil is recognised for what it is, faith is prominent, and there are good, but flawed, people struggling to cope as well as they can.
Meanwhile, on the synod front, last Sunday morning’s Sunday Spirit (RTÉ Radio 1 Extra) featured insightful (of course!) commentary on the event from our own Michael Kelly, in easy-going conversation with Michael Comyn. The online synod coverage from Salt and Light TV is worth following as well and features interviews with many of the synod participants.
EWTN’s News Nightly and their other update programmes have been very useful in following the day-to-day events at the synod – one of these shows covered the call of Archbishop Chaput (Philadelphia) for the synod to take a more global view, not to be too narrowly focussed on concerns of the West and of the USA in particular.
These concerns are important, mostly relating to sexual matters, but the secular media tend to focus almost exclusively on them, illustrated by last weekend’s Sunday Sequence (BBC Radio Ulster) which just dealt with synod discussions on communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, discussions which presenter Roisin McAuley characterised as “dancing around dogma”!
Pick of the Week
Sunday Sequence
BBC Radio Ulster, Sunday, Oct 18, 8.30am
Roisin McAuley and Audrey Carville explore the week’s religious and ethical news with guests and examine the key debates from the worlds of culture and ideas.
Sunday Morning Live
BBC 1, Sunday, Oct 18, 10am
As Sunday Morning Live celebrates ‘Faith in the World Week’, Sian Williams is joined by a panel of guests to discuss the moral and ethical issues of the day.
EWTN Season Preview
EWTN, Sunday, Oct 18, 11.30am and Mon 10.30pm
Host Doug Keck offers viewers an inside look at the new series EWTN will be airing in the 2015 autumn
season.