The Polished Razor (January 1973)

Detarnishing the silver screen

Did you upchuck when Sonny Corleone ran into slug trouble at the toll booth? Did Love Story make you wonder whether leukemia is all bad? Well, take heart, for the American Baptist Convention has formed Gateway Films, a non-profit corporation dedicated to producing movies with a high moral standard. Hitting the theaters right now is Gateway's The Late Liz, a gripping true drama of a young woman who was rotting her brain with alcohol until she switched to Christianity.

Gateway's touchstone is “relevance,” and by sticking to modern themes the Baptists do avoid potential troubles. An X-rated Biblical epic might seem unlikely, but can you imagine what Phillip Roth could do with the screenplay of Onan's Complaint?

The Baptists' first effort, The Cross and the Switchblade, starring Pat Boone, was released to commercial theaters in late 1971 and has since grossed more than six million dollars. It is the biography of David Wilkerson, a country preacher who evangelized among the drug addicts of New York's slums. Many of them, I am told, became followers of Jesus. It may be a bit early to evaluate the full impact of this, but recent police statistics do indicate that muggers have been slashing their victims less frequently. On the other hand, there have been twelve crucifixions reported this year.

Job-hunting at the Vatican?

While on the religious news, we ought to nail down those rumors to the effect that Pope Paul VI is planning to retire. The reports have it that the Pontiff is under considerable mental strain brought on by the social activism permeating the Church and is particularly upset by the demands among the clergy for the abandonment of clerical celibacy.

However, the possible embarrassments from a living ex-Pope make retirement unlikely, I think. Catholics would cringe at the thought of a Times classified:

SITUATION WANTED

Vicar of Christ. Experienced, infallible, former chief executive of world-wide organization, supervisor of approximately 480,000,000 persons, fluent Latin, skilled in dogmas, anathemas, bulls and excommunications; desires top management position with international firm engaged in salvage operations.

Even if the Pope were to retire, however, I can assure you that there is no truth whatsoever to the rumors that he has been studying the abdication speech of Edward VIII in order to glean pointers for explaining his own personal problems to the faithful.

Lying in a fetal imposition

The forces of righteousness in Pennsylvania, led by Catholic legislators, are preparing to flay Governor Milton Schapp in the Democratic primary this April. Schapp vetoed a Catholic-sponsored abortion bill last December, thus incurring the wrath of John Cardinal Kroll, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and his conservative supporters. The bill, an alternative to a more liberal measure which was defeated, would have permitted abortion only if a panel of three physicians certified that the pregnant woman's life was in peril; it made no provision for conceptions resulting from rape or incest.

State Senator Henry Cianfrani, prominent Catholic legislator and one of the bill's leading advocates, had an affair with Democratic committeewoman Patricia Arney in 1970. Contraception being contrary to the Senator's moral principles—they are all, all honorable men—he knocked her up. But he was not completely unscrupulous about it: He paid for her trip to Canada, where Ms. Arney had an abortion.

No one seems to have noticed the underlying conflict of interest in the Catholic abortion bill: By disregarding rape and incest pregnancies, are the Pennsylvania lawmakers revealing that they have financial interests in Canadian hospitals, or are they perhaps indicating that they will put restrictions on any expansion of Senator Cianfrani's activities?

In any case, rumor now has it that Ms. Arney is in hiding and will shortly be indicted on a charge of bestiality.