De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Good heavens! I could hardly believe my ears when I watched this edition of Russell Brand's The Trews in which he rants about the popularity of the newly released film of the notorious book Fifty Shades of Grey. One has to wonder if the long-haired-lothario has been secretly reading Pope St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body lectures? Certainly, many of the ideas he articulates here are straight from Church teaching and he mentions a priest who said that porn affects us not because it shows too much, but because it shows too little. In other words, it removes sex from its proper context, i.e. a mutual respectful, loving relationship. Porn effects the way adults relate to each other and the reality of our sexuality which is ultimately—factuality—scientifically—about pro-creation. Porn removes the essential context of our humanity and reduces it to image or idea. In reality, intimacy is about building a consensual, respectful relationship where we share each other in an i...

I find Russell Brand impossible not to like. He is a local lad, from Grays, which is just up the road from where I was born. He has had his share of issues and certainly comes across as a flamboyant extrovert. Yet he is intelligent and articulate and often what he says is rather deep and thought provoking. Recently he has written a number of newspaper articles, some of them have been fairly bland (if not Brand), but some have been very interesting. I guess he offends many people, and you might be surprised that I'm not among those who are critical of Russell, but I have to be honest, I think he's mostly, very funny, also very interesting. He's a bit like a wise, fascinated child, who is into everything. He has obviously read a fair bit and he has a beautiful mind for connecting up lots of ideas. I find that for the most part rather charming. On Monday,  Russell was invited to appear on MSNBC's Morning Joe programme, ostensibly to talk about his controversial wo...