Vatican praises The Simpsons
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, has commended The Simpsons on the 20th anniversary of the show, saying that despite the regrettable crude language and occasions of violence, "serious analysts praise the realism and intelligence of its scripts".
The paper describes the show as a "tender and irreverent, scandalous and ironic, boisterous and profound, philosophical and sometimes even theological, nutty synthesis of pop culture and of the lukewarm and nihilistic American middle class".
Among themes featured in the show's almost 450 episodes, "one of the most important, and most serious" is that of God and the relationship between each person and God, done in a way that mirrors "the religious and spiritual confusion of our times," it said.
Religion, from the snore evoking sermons of the Reverend Lovejoy to Homer's face to face talks with God, appears so frequently on the show that it could be possible to come up with a "Simpsonian theology," the Associated Press reports the Vatican newspaper saying.
Homer's religious confusion and ignorance are "a mirror of the indifference and the need that modern man feels toward faith," the paper said.
Source: CNS/AP