The other day I visited an elderly couple.

They were watching television — a tennis match between Serena Williams and Ekaterina Makarova.

They wanted me to watch with them, so I did, for about ten minutes.

A few minutes can’t do much harm, I thought.

I don’t know if you’ve watched television lately.

I was amazed.

It was nothing like I remembered it – the screen perhaps ten times the size I had been used to — the clearness almost overpowering.

You could almost count the players’ hair follicles.

* * *

A persuasive, potent, compelling weapon — especially if directed at those who can’t or don’t read much.

Even the most appalling behaviour and ideas could be made to seem tolerable.

And viewers rendered even less likely to find the motivation to spend generous time with God.

* * *

How much more meaningful our lives could be if we found even small periods of time for silence and reflection . . . .

Would we not, then, experience what Saint Mary MacKillop described, “God’s presence seems to follow me everywhere and make everything I do, or wish to do, a prayer . . . .”

Mr Rick Santorum is not favourite to win the American presidency — but it is not impossible.

Santorum hasn’t got as much money as the other candidates.

He does not have the blessing of the rich who own the media.

Western “democratic” nations are less demo-cratic than they are pluto-cratic.

The big money owns the media. The media own (or endeavour fairly successfully to own) the minds of the TV-watching punters/voters.

Anybody who presents himself in the public arena as a practising Catholic will be killed off by the journalists – that is what they being paid to do.

* * *

Journalists are far worse people than prostitutes.

To prostitute your body is not as immoral as to prostitute the Word.

Is Santorum mankind’s only hope?

If he gets elected, will they not simply kill him — like they killed that other Catholic president?

Santorum is a lot more Catholic than Kennedy ever was.

Municipal Council tips are full of discarded analog television sets whose cathode ray tubes contain toxic components and cannot be recycled or just left lying around.

It costs a council about $20 each to have them properly disposed of.

One suggested alternative is to sell such sets off cheap as spare sets to put in children’s bedrooms . . .

* * *

No, please.

Already our children are mentally obtunded by the television seen in the lounge room. Shouldn’t we be discouraging such harmful passivity, not encouraging more of it?

And what will they be watching in the privacy of their room?

If a person entered your children’s room, swore continually, committed violent acts and indulged in acts of adultery in front of them, wouldn’t you get him/her out in a hurry?

Why install a machine which continuously portrays foul language, violence and adultery . . . ?

* * *

Think about making yours a television-free home.

If we don’t watch it ourselves, we’ll find more time to spend with our children

Help them become less dependent on artificial electronic amusements – to enjoy doing things, making things and reading decent books.

The Australian media are currently over-full of tennis and cricket results.

Why?

Because that’s what attracts the most readers/viewers, who, on seeing the advertisements, will obediently buy the products advertised– thus making the owners of the media and sporting teams richer.

Sport is, of course, good in its way.

The Pope (speaking to soccer players in Spain) said as much:

“Sport should promote the virtues of loyalty, fairness, sobriety and mutual respect.”

* * *

It is important that sport does not promote assaulting other people, either physically or verbally.

And does not promote passively sitting in front of a screen and consuming junk food and alcohol.

And it should not promote turning Sunday, the traditional day for worshipping God, into a day of celebrity-idolising and self-worship.

* * *

If we get our attitude to sport wrong, we are on the way to cultural and spiritual suicide.

On Judgment day, God will not be asking you how much sport you played or whether your country’s team won the Ashes.

The other day, Stephen Conroy, Australia’s Communications Minister, got a few headlines for using offensive language on television.

18 months ago, he was in the headlines for a different reason – being named “Internet Villain of the Year” by Britain’s internet industry, when he announced the government’s intention to force Internet Service Providers to block websites carrying offensive material.

Mr Conroy, by his lapse the other day, let himself down a bit.

To quote Mexican bishop, Felipe Arizmendi, “If on television and the internet and so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste.”

Only belief in God offers sufficient motive to raise us above our worst instincts. It’s a matter of self-control.

If the government can reduce the availability of impure material on screen, it will assist us as individuals, and help make a better society.

Pro-homosexual activis-journaliststs are now claiming that same sex marriage is ALREADY a human right.

Why?

Because the United Nations says so – in its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

OK.

* * *

Let’s not forget that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) asserts that states which have signed (e.g. Australia) “recognize that every child has the inherent right to life. . . ”

And “shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”

It stipulates also that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.

* * *

So will Australia’s secular media now campaign to spread the word that abortion (killing the child before birth) is illegal – because the United Nations says so?

Perhaps not.

Perhaps we only quote the UN when what they say happens to suit current fashionable thought.