Hilary White goes all Hilary White on a certain venerable newspaper

My girl, Hilary!

ROME, October 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When I discovered the internet hullabalooo over that silly article, the latest in a string of silliness from L'Osservatore Romano, telling the world that Homer Simpson is a "real" Catholic, I just sighed. It was just one more little bit of cringeworthy sophomoric nonsense from a paper that seems to be struggling with a humiliating mid-life crisis.

The Daily Telegraph in England broke the "story" to the Anglosphere, and pretty much called it:

Once a staid and sober paper of record, L'Osservatore Romano has ventured into popular culture in the last three years under a new editor, commenting on everything from The Beatles and The Blues Brothers to the blockbuster film Avatar and the Harry Potter books and films.

"Yep," I thought, "that about sums it up. L'Osservatore Romano is an old person trying to be hip and cool. And there is nothing more excruciatingly, exquisitely embarrassing..."

The Telegraph noted that the whole business started with the appointment of the new editor, Gian Maria Vian. LSN has noted several occasions during Vian's tenure at the paper that have caused a lot of cringing around the grown-up world. And with this latest, the mainstream media is again enjoying a laugh at the Church's expense, producing headlines like "Doubting Homer Proclaimed a Catholic by Vatican Newspaper."

The Vatican paper article tells us that Homer is a crypto Catholic, a "real" Catholic because he "recites prayers before meals and, in [his] own peculiar way, believes in the life thereafter." It even quotes a Jesuit - so you know it must be true.

And the Simpsons seems to be L'Osservtore Roman's favourite show. A 2009 article, "The Virtue of Aristotle and the Doughnut of Homer" by the same staff writer, Luca Possati, holds the show up as a model of the new, post-1960s Catholic standards of virtue. The Simpsons, he says, is a "tender, irreverent, scandalous, and ironic, ramshackle and profound, philosophical and at times even theological synthesis of crazy pop culture and warm and nihilistic American middle class."

Now, I'll break it to the world: I like the Simpsons. On the few occasions when I've watched it, I've found it to be pretty funny. Their little ironic commentaries and critiques of the insanity of modern life appeal to me. I can think of a lot of shows that are worthy of outright condemnation, but the Simpsons isn't on that list.

The Simpsons is one of TV's longest running shows, and, like nearly everything else the post-Christian western world has to offer, it's got its good and bad. But there is something I'd like to say about it to the editor of L'Osservatore Romano. (As well as to those people confused by the headlines, asking, "Is Homer Simpson really a Catholic?")

You ready for my analysis?

It's just a TV show! Homer is just a cartoon character.