T.V. and the Home

Television and the Catholic Home
by Jeff Culbreath

When I was 13 or 14 years old, my mother offered me $10 to read a book titled “Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television” by leftist commentator Jerry Mander. I read the book, collected my $10, and never gave it much thought until about ten years later. Before our first child was born, my wife LeXuan and I decided to completely renounce broadcast television, retaining only the ability to watch an occasional video. This is one of the best decisions we have ever made, and we have never looked back.

The decision to be TV-free has enriched our marriage, liberated our children, and deepened our spiritual lives. It has also earned the wrath of the Devil, who has rewarded us with plenty of mischief. In this four-part presentation I will explore television’s moral content, information content, neurological effects, and spiritual effects as they relate to the Catholic home.

Moral Content of Television and Film

The Popes have been cautiously optimistic about television, understanding that technology is a tool that can be used for good as well as evil. But they have also issued dire warnings about its potential for mischief — a potential which in our time has been fully realized. Pope Pius XI was aware of the dangers as early as 1936, when he issued the encyclical Vigilanti Cura. This encyclical gave a ringing papal endorsement to the American Legion of Decency, which had been formed two years earlier to combat the immorality that has dominated the film industry from the very beginning. He wrote:

“All men know how much harm is done by bad films; they sing the praises of lust and desire, and at the same time provide occasions of sin; they seduce the young from the right path; they present life in a false light; they obscure and weaken the wise counsel of attaining perfection; they destroy pure love, the sanctity of matrimony and the intimate needs of family life. They seek moreover to inculcate prejudiced and false opinions among individuals, classes of society, and the different nations and peoples.

“Moreover stories and actions are presented, through the cinema, by men and women whose natural gifts are increased by training and embellished by every known art, in a manner which may become an additional source of corruption, especially to the young … Wherefore especially the minds of boys and young people are affected and held by the fascination of these plays; so that the cinema exercises its greatest strength and power at the very age at which the sense of honor is implanted and develops, at which the principles of justice and goodness emerge from the mind, at which the notions of duty and all the best principles of perfection make their appearance. But alas! This power, in the present state of affairs, is too often used for harm. Wherefore when we consider the ruin caused among youths and children, whose innocence and chastity is endangered in these theatres, we remember that severe word spoken against the corrupters of youth by Jesus Christ: ‘But who shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and the he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”

Pope Pius XI saw that the emerging cinematic technology posed a serious threat to the innocence of childhood. Professor Neil Postman, in his book “The Disappearance of Childhood”, expands upon this insight considerably. He notes that television, unlike literature, does not discriminate or segregate by age. TV watching requires no special skills, makes no complex demands on the intellect, and appeals to senses and passions that are common to all ages. As a social phenomenon, television erodes the distinction between child and adult.

Pope Pius XI also noted that “There are surely many Catholics among the executives, directors, authors, and actors who take part in this business; it is much to be regretted that their actions do not always conform to their faith and principles.” It follows that another consideration for the Catholic viewer of television and film must be whether it is licit to view a film that is not only an occasion of sin for viewers, but is also an occasion of sin for the actors, writers, and producers? To what extent does voluntary viewing of immoral films or television programs cooperate with the evil in producing them?


For a time, the Legion of Decency was highly influential in Hollywood and in the ranks of the Catholic faithful. Between nine and 11 million Catholics took the Legion’s Pledge against immorality on film. The Pledge reads as follows:

“I wish to join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country, and to religion. Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality. I promise further to secure as many members as possible for the Legion of Decency. I make this protest in a spirit of self-respect, and with the conviction that the American public does not demand filthy pictures, but clean entertainment and educational features.”

We do well to ask ourselves whether we would take that same pledge today with respect to television programs.

The Legion created a rating system as a guide for Catholic filmgoers and the public at large. An “A” rating meant the film was morally unobjectionable; a “B” rating meant that the film was morally objectionable in part; a “C” rating meant that the film was condemned and that Catholics were forbidden to see it. According to Fr. Frank Poncelet, founder of a Catholic anti-TV apostolate, any Catholic who knowingly attended a “C” film would have committed a mortal sin. In his book “Television: Prelude to Chaos”, Fr. Poncelet tells us what it was like in those days:

“Soon the ratings of all movies were printed in virtually every diocesan paper, and it was the practice of all good Catholics to check the Legion of Decency rating before attending a movie. One movie with a ‘C’ rating is extremely important to note here, and which this author recalls very clearly from the list in approximately 1940. ‘Gone With The Wind’ was rated ‘C’, but was receiving great raves in the papers and on previews. A few of us wanted to see ‘Gone With The Wind’ and approached our pastor asking for an exception to the rule. We heard that its rating of ‘C’ was too severe; that others considered it OK to see. His reply was swift and short; in fact, only one word with two letters: ‘NO’. We did not attend the movie, but many others did, and it marked a change in the strict adherence to the Legion’s rating system.”

“Gone With The Wind” was condemned by the Legion in 1940 primarily because it undermined the sanctity of marriage, and because Rhett Butler spoke a single profanity. Today, most Catholics have seen or heard this much before breakfast — if not on television, then on the radio during the morning commute. If ‘Gone With The Wind” was a danger to Catholic faith and morals in 1940, how much more dangerous is 90% of television and film today! Most of our favorite films would not make the grade. Indeed, the six o'clock news would not make the grade.

A final comment on the moral content of modern television and film. Even today’s seemingly innocent ‘G’ rated material can be harmful. A very common fault of children’s films today is that they undermine parental authority and the respect children should have for parents. The children of today’s “G” rated movies are often disobedient and smart-alecky, and this attitude is presented as a positive, liberating thing. “Free Willy” comes immediately to mind.

Along the same lines, most “G” rated films are poisoned by egalitarian, feminist, and New Age undercurrents. This can be as subtle as a voice: if you listen, you will notice that the Bad Guys usually have deep and masculine voices, and the Good Guys usually have female or effeminate male voices. But very often it is not so subtle. The latest films about Pocahontas, Mulan, and even Saint Joan of Arc, are inspired by feminist revisionism. Pocahontas, for instance, is portrayed as a pantheistic New Age priestess, a feminist prototype who defies her father and teaches Captian John Smith about the ways of the world. Of course nothing is said about the most important thing in her life: her baptism and conversion to Christianity.

Children’s television programming has similar problems with political correctness. Many characters — especially in cartoons — are purposely of indeterminate sex. Styles of dress are typically androgynous. And when boys and girls are noticeably boys and girls, care is taken never to show girls doing anything uniquely feminine, or boys doing anything uniquely masculine, or girls and boys doing anything separately. Parents are almost nowhere to be found, and when they do show up, it is usually just one or the other. It is true, many of these programs do try to support the virtue of kindness, but this is almost always in the confusing context of Non-Judgmentalism. Much more could be said about the dangers of television due to immoral content, but we’ll leave it at that for now.

Information Content of Television


In addition to entertainment, television claims to be a purveyor of information. To that extent, perhaps it is redeemable. But the way in which television presents information should be analyzed carefully. Richard Weaver, writing in 1948, described the beginnings of the information revolution in his famous book “Ideas Have Consequences”. The following remarks pertain to radio but are perhaps even more relevant with respect to television:

“In our listening, voluntary or not, we are made to grow accustomed to the weirdest of juxtapositions: the serious and the trivial, the comic and the tragic, follow one another in mechanical sequence without real transition. During the recent war what person of feeling was not struck by the insanity of hearing advertisements for laxatives between announcements of the destruction of famous cities by aerial bombardment? Is it not a travesty of all sense to hear reports fraught with disaster followed by the comedy-variety with its cheap wit and arranged applause (this applause, of course, tells the listeners when to react and how and so further submerges them in massness). Here, it would seem, is the apothesis; here is the final collapsing of values, a fantasia of effects, suggesting in its wild disorder the debris left by a storm. Here is the daily mechanical wrecking of hierarchy.

Not to be overlooked in any gauging of influence is the voice of announcer and commentator. The metaphysical dream of progress dictates the tone, which is one of cheery confidence, assuring us in the face of all contrary evidence that the best is yet to be. Recalling the war years once more, who has not heard the news of some terrible tragedy, which might stagger the imagination and cause the conscientious artist to hesitate at the thought of its depiction, given to the world in the same tone that commends a brand of soap or predicts fair weather for the morrow?”

1948 was a long time ago. Now we have three generations of Catholics who have had their normal human sensitivity destroyed by radio and television news. Whatever the potential of television might be, the way in which television always presents the news has the effect of confusing the senses and dulling the conscience.

It should be noted that all men have been given an hierarchical order of charity. As a priest once explained to me, we owe the greatest charity to God and to those nearest to us. The constant news of tragedies and calamities around the world tends to disorder our priorities. When we let the evening news set our agenda, we give more thought and energy to problems 3,000 miles away than we do to our own families and neighborhoods.

In point of fact, television news is really no different from television entertainment. Most stories range from a few seconds to a minute in duration: there is no time to provide proper context, no time to explore cause and effect, and no intention of following up later. And every newscast uses the standard manipulations of television entertainment. Neil Postman, in his insightful book titled “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (which I highly recommend), writes the following:

“All television news programs begin, end, and are somewhere in between punctuated with music. I have found very few Americans who regard this custom as peculiar, which in fact I have taken as evidence for the dissolution of lines of demarcation between serious public discourse and entertainment. What has music to do with the news? Why is it there? It is there, I assume, for the same reason music is used in the theatre and in films — to create a mood and provide a theme for the entertainment. If there were no music — as is the case when any television program is interrupted for a news flash — viewers would expect something truly alarming, possibly life-altering. But as long as the music is there as a frame for the program, the viewer is comforted to believe that there is nothing to be greatly alarmed about; that, in fact, the events that are reported have as much relation to reality as do scenes in a play.”

Apart from the effort by news producers to manipulate the mood of the viewer and pre-determine his reaction, much of the news reported turns out to be completely meaningless anyway. This is especially true when it comes to opinion polls, which give us answers without questions, and opinions without knowledge. If pollsters were required to verify the knowledge of poll respondents, there would undoubtedly be far fewer polls. Neil Postman provides a humorous example hearkening back to the Reagan years:

“The latest poll indicates that 72 percent of the American public believes we should withdraw economic aid from Nicaragua. Of those who expressed this opinion, 28 percent thought Nicaragua was in central Asia, 18 percent thought it was an island near New Zealand, and 27.4 percent believed that ‘Africans should help themselves’, obviously confusing Nicaragua with Nigeria. Of those polled, 61.8 percent did not know that we give economic aid to Nicaragua, and 23 percent did not know what ‘economic aid’ means.”

cont...

This is the sort of thing that a television news-junkie fills his head with. Television discharges a vast amount of so-called information without any context or relevance: the news junkie doesn’t really understand it, and even if he did, there is nothing he may legitimately do with it. The news junkie is therefore deceived into thinking he has an informed opinion on everything under the sun, and if he doesn’t have an opinion, he had better get one fast. But the reality is that his opinions have been created and pre-packaged for popular consumption. Sometimes the news junkie will wake up and realize he has been manipulated for years. But he still clings to the idea that he must have a strong opinion on everything reported in the news, just so long as it is not a “mainstream” opinion. The news junkie only becomes free when he realizes that he knows next-to-nothing about NAFTA, next-to-nothing about fighting terrorism, next-to-nothing about the candidates in the next election — and that not being an expert on everything is OK. He becomes free when he empties his mind of the news and makes room for better things.

The Neurological Effects of Television


Suppose we lived in a better world, where television did not contain any material that was a menace to Catholic faith and morals, and did not overwhelm people with useless information. Would there still be a problem? I think there would.

Much of what follows is taken from research performed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by advertising consultants. Advertisers wanted to know how TV “works“ in order to get the most bang for their dollar. Before we get to the research, consider the television commercials from the 1950s. A pretty, smiling, conservatively dressed woman stands behind two washing machines and is about to do two loads of laundry. She explains that both sets of clothes are very dirty, and that she is going to wash one load with Brand X Detergent, and the other load with Brand Y detergent. Then she tells us something about the ingredients and the price of each detergent. Fast forward to an hour later. The clothes have been washed. The camera now provides a close-up of the laundry from each load. Clearly, the clothes washed by Brand X are cleaner. Now go to the store and get some Brand X. The ingredients are superior to Brand Y, and it costs less than Brand Y. The commercial is a simple, straightforward, logical argument, appealing to the intellect. Today’s commercials, by contrast, do nothing of the sort. From the 1970s forward, advertisers ditched the logical arguments and appealed, instead, to our senses and our passions. And it worked like a charm.

Why the change in methods? Researchers found that watching television dramatically alters the functioning of the brain. This alteration happens immediately upon watching television, without regard to content. In an article titled “Television: Opiate of the Masses”, commentator Wes Moore explains the process:

“First of all, when you’re watching television the higher brain regions (like the mid-brain and the neo-cortex) are shut down, and most activity shifts to the lower brain regions (like the limbic system). The neurological processes that take place in these regions cannot accurately be called ‘cognitive’. The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded ‘fight or flight’ response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on. Studies have proven that, in the long run, too much activity in the lower brain leads to atrophy in the higher brain regions.

“Herbert Krugman’s research proved that watching television numbs the left hemisphere and leaves the right hemisphere to perform all cognitive duties. This has some harrowing implications for the effects of television on brain development and health. For one, the left hemisphere is the critical region for organizing, analyzing, and judging incoming data. The right hemisphere treats incoming data uncritically, and it does not decode or process information into its component parts. The right hemisphere processes information in wholes, leading to emotional rather than intelligent responses.

“Levels of brain activity are measured by an electroencenograph (EEG) machine. While watching television, the brain appears to slow to a halt, registering low alpha wave readings on the EEG machine. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology within the television set. Even if you’re reading text on a television screen the brain registers low levels of activity. Once again, regardless of content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system.”

The dramatic shift of brain activity from the Left Hemisphere to the Right Hemisphere releases a surge of endorphins — an addiction-forming chemical that is structurally identical to opium. A number of studies have shown that television viewers who suddenly stop watching television experience the usual symptoms of opiate-withdrawal, including increased frustration, anxiety, and even depression. Habitual television viewing is literally a bio-chemical addiction.

Neurologically, one enters a semi-hypnotic state when watching television. Researchers are unsure exactly why this is. It probably has something to do with the dynamics of light emitted by television. It may also have something to do with the fact that light is the only thing that is really there. Jerry Mander explains:

“Television light is purposeful and directed rather than ambient … When you are watching television and believe you are looking at pictures, you are actually looking at the phosphorescent glow of three hundred thousand tiny dots. There is no picture there. These dots seem to be lit constantly, but in fact they are not. All the dots go off thirty times per second, creating what is called the flicker effect of television.”

Additional research has linked television viewing with ADD, ADHD, hyper-activity, and learning disabilities in children. The scene on your television screen changes once every 3.5 seconds for normal programming, once every 2.5 seconds for commercials. This constant stream of rapidly changing images literally programs your brain to expect frequent stimulation in order to stay focused. When that stimulation is absent, the mind and body wander restlessly in search of more stimuli. Perhaps that is why modern Catholics cannot endure more than a ten-minute homily.

The Spiritual Effects of Television


I once asked a visiting seminarian, whom everyone suspected of a secret piety, about the prospects for restoration in the Church. He replied that the answer may be deceptively simple: it may be as easy as Catholics turning off their televisions. John Senior expresses the same opinion in his book “The Restoration of Christian Culture”. He writes:

“First, negatively, smash the television set. The Catholic Church is not opposed to violence, only to unjust violence, so smash the television set. And, positively, put the time and money you now spend on entertainment into a piano so that music is restored to your home: common, ordinary Christian music, much of which is very simple to play … And then families will be together at home of an evening and love will grow again without thinking about it, because they are moving in harmony together … But first, you cannot be serious about the restoration of the Church and the nation if you haven’t the common sense to smash the television set … It is not a matter of selecting the best programs, influencing producers and advertisers or starting your own network. Its two principal defects are its radical passivity, physical and imaginative, and its distortion of reality. Watching it, we fail to exercise the eye, selecting and focusing detail — what poets call noticing things; neither do we exercise imagination as you must in reading metaphor where you actively leap to the ‘third thing’ in juxtaposed images, picking out similarities and differences, skills which Aristotle says is a chief sign of intelligence.”

Television is detrimental to the spiritual life because it trains the mind and the will in a negative way. Meditation, for instance, comes only with difficulty to souls that have been formed by thousands of hours of television viewing. Recall that television viewing plunges the viewer into a hypnotic-like trance. Television, like hypnosis, does not demand that viewers supply anything from within themselves. By contrast, the practice of meditation requires that images and suggestions be generated internally. Professional hypnotists have observed that people good at meditation are the most difficult to hypnotize because they so easily generate their own material.

It is a common practice for many families to leave the television going even when no one is watching. As a result, television has become one of the many devices that people use to avoid silence. This fear of silence — this addiction to noise — is one of the more bizarre characteristics of modern man. Artificial noise permeates the outside world. Rare is the business lobby that does not have a television blaring. Rare is the jogger without headphones. Music is even piped into public restrooms! Some commentators have said that our addiction to noise is a flight from conscience, and I think this is true. In silence, we are left alone with ourselves and there is a danger that our consciences may speak to us. That is why silence is enforced in monasteries: the saints all repent in silence.

The Catholic home should be a refuge from this madness. Many times my family has entertained guests who have told us, “Your home is so peaceful!” That seemed a very odd compliment. I mean, our kids were running around and bouncing off the walls and making all kinds of racket. My wife was making all kinds of noise in the kitchen. Then it occurred to me: our guests were not used to being in a home without the background noise of television or radio. That is what gave them a sense of peace!

The average American watches four hours of television per day: that’s four hours in which the average American could be praying, reading good books, reading out loud to his children, talking with his wife, listening to classical music, or just smoking his pipe in silence. One John Senior reminds us of the Catholic obligation to prayer:

“There are three degrees of prayer. The first, of the consecrated religious, is total. They pray always, according to the counsel of Our Lord. Their whole life is the Divine Office, Mass, spiritual reading, mental prayer, devotions and the minimum work necessary to maintain physical health. They pray eight hours, sleep eight hours and divide the other eight between physical work and recreation. The second degree is the mixed life in the active orders and the secular priesthood, which is still primarily devoted to prayer. These pray four hours, sleep eight, work eight — preaching, teaching, caring for the sick and poor — and have four hours for recreation. The third degree is for those in the married state (or single life) who offer a tithe of their time for prayer — about two and one-half hours per day — with eight hours for work, eight for sleep and the remaining five and a half for recreation with the family.

“Everyone will say at once it can’t be done. That is what I meant when I said that the first thing said about prayer is that we don’t have time for it. But the reason why we don’t is that priests don’t lead the way by praying four hours every day, and monks and nuns don’t lead them by keeping the vigils of the night. We are suffering from the domino effect. Every layman owes his tithe of prayer — two and one-half hours per day!”

How did the Catholics of days gone by accomplish this? I don’t know. Even without television I have found many other ways to avoid my tithe of prayer. But the man without television has one less excuse. He is more likely to get to a weekday Mass. He is more likely, at the very least, to pray his beads every day. He is more likely to pick up some spiritual reading. He is more likely, in the silence, to hear the stirrings of his conscience, and to give his silence to God.