KERALA, India (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic bishops of India have condemned an anti-Catholic film and warned against insidious efforts to promote homosexuality in “artworks, movies, dramas and television serials” aimed at targeting Indian youth.
The regional Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), which just completed its winter session from December 4-6, warned that homosexuality “will turn upside down time-tested traditional social concepts and will have wide ramifications, including chaos in society.”
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The regional meeting, led by Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, president of the KCBC and head of the Kerala-based Eastern rite Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, focused on the promotion of homosexuality among younger generations by way of immoral, overly-sexualized media and entertainment.
The bishops’ warning followed on the heels of a strong condemnation they made against a popular Malayalam movie Kaathal (Core), whose protagonist is homosexual.
In a statement published just days before their winter session, the bishops denounced the pro-homosexual movie, taking issue with the movie’s clear agenda to push the acceptance of “gay rights” in society and the notion that homosexuality is “a natural phenomenon.”
“The influence of some of the ideas that are propagated today in various ways under the label of progressive thoughts, is evident in the film,” the bishops said.
There are organizations and activists all over the world who are working hard to promote LGBTQIA+ ideas and work for alternative sexual rights. Although such campaigns are not so prevalent in the general society in Kerala, there are frequent campaigns centered on educational institutions. Ideas focusing on homosexuality are often used by self-proclaimed progressives as arguments to proclaim themselves as votaries of progressive ideas.
The plot of the film is told by associating the ‘progressive’ idea of homosexuality with left wing political ideology. While everyone else in the film views homosexuality with disdain, the left-wing political leadership supports the hero. The basic idea that the film seeks to convey is the success and ‘glory’ of that stand. It may not be a coincidence that the film puts forward the idea that the left wing in Kerala are supporters of homosexuals at a time when misguided and unnatural propaganda on sexuality is being carried on by left wing student movements in educational institutions.
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The bishops denounced “the indirect propaganda that are directed against the Christian community and the Christian faith,” and the “overemphasis given to sex” in the film. “It can be justifiably suspected that the makers of the film had the intention of challenging the moral values strongly advocated at all times by the Catholic Church” they wrote.
Noting that a “Catholic family and church settings were chosen as the setting for the film,” and that “a religious background was not a necessity for the concept presented by the film,” the bishops acutely remarked, “It cannot be assumed that such a family was chosen without purpose.”
“A Catholic priest who thinks ‘progressively’ is also a character in the film,” they continued. “It can be assumed that a family belonging to the Catholic community that rejects homosexuality was chosen as the characters, with the aim of indirectly establishing that the position of the Church in this regard is wrong.”
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The bishops also drew attention to the clear targeting of Indian youth and the attempt to undermine the faith of young Catholics. They wrote:
Another aspect of this film is the new generation members who are not believers in God. The daughter of devout Mathew and Omana is a college student who does not like to attend church, and as a ‘progressive’ thinker, supports her father’s homosexuality. A mother attending church with her son whom she persuades to come along by promising to serve him ‘tapioca and pork curry’ when they return home, and the son who is a little boy, appear as characters.
One wonders whether the church services attended by only a few people, the festival processions of no more than 50 people etc., are part of cost-cutting efforts or the director’s ‘brilliance’ in order to present the vulnerability of the faithful.
The broad-mindedness of Omana, a devout believer who understands her husband’s homosexuality and ‘lovingly’ lets him do as he wishes is also part of the film. It is clear that there is a conscious effort behind the film to bring up an issue which is not a topic of wide discussion in the mainstream of Kerala.
Although the film does not have a canvas larger than the director’s previous film ‘Great Indian Kitchen’, in which Suraj and Nimisha Sajayan played the leads, there is clearly another brilliant stroke of the director in casting two of India’s finest artists as the lead actors. The presence of the Mammootty-Jyothika duo enabled the film to be released across screens ten-fold and also helped to fill the theaters with viewers.
Condemning the film for using the Catholic Church as background to promote sexual perversion, the bishops concluded, “Neither the Christian community nor any morally conscious person can support the outrageous claims and interventions by sexual anarchists… We cannot agree with the basic ideas purveyed by the film which often lays overemphasis on sex, instead of adopting the mature approach of viewing sexual inclinations and sexual actions as two different issues. The act of misusing the background of the Christian faith for such propaganda is highly objectionable.”
Father Michael Pulickal, CMI, secretary of the KCBC Commission for Social Harmony and Vigilance, said the film had a “hidden agenda” to undermine the sexual morality “strongly advocated by the Church.”
“The film is trying to give the impression that the Catholic Church supports perverted acts, but it is not true,” Pulickal said, referring to the “progressive” priest in the film. He insisted that when a film “deliberately targets our faith under the guise of freedom of expression, we oppose.”