Guilty Pleasures: Beyond Belief

I don’t watch that much TV but these days Thursday nights the Fox network in the US has a delightful hourlong program, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction?, presenting about five Twilight Zone-ish stories. The gimmick is some or all of the stories may be true. Of course they tell you at the end which is which. Parts of the fun: presenter Jonathan Frakes smirking as he makes bad puns and the obvious fact that the stories are cheaply ‘shawt’ (as most of the actors would say, eh?) in Canada. Star Trek geeks might remember Frakes as the second-in-command on one of the ’90s series. In real life he is a strong Christian (Lutheran) and once helped make some videos of Bible stories.



A new low in popular culture

Two lowlife DJs at a New York radio station had a contest in which the couple who had sex in the most public places would win a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery in Boston. A duo from Virginia did it in St Patrick’s Cathedral (on the feast of the Assumption!), got caught and were arrested. (Churches were 25 points in the game. Charming.)



I understand WNEW’s ‘Opie & Anthony’ show has been canceled.



One good thing AFAIK about, say, pre-1965 America is anyone who pulled such a stunt (very unlikely back then) would have been fired and probably never could work in the radio or TV business ever again. Fine with me, as long as it’s not the government doing the banning.



If I were a bishop, and any of the actors involved were nominal Orthodox in my eparchy and they did their deed in one of my churches, I’d slap them with a canonical penance, like excommunicating them for a couple of years. And share the info on the crime and the perps with all my priests to enforce it. Not that it would mean much to the perps, but even nonpracticing Christians in America want pretty church weddings, in only to have nice photos and to please the families. An excommunication would stop that, if any of them wanted to get married, and teach them a lesson about respect.



I know after some crimes like killing, a church has to be reconsecrated. I wonder if a simple blessing with holy water would suffice here.



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Можно писать здесь на русском? Да!