I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought it rather weird that in between two of the usual thumbs-up reviews in a recent newspaper ad for the “Golden Compass” was a glowing review from … the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

“The Golden Compass” Is An Exciting Adventure Story, Entirely In Harmony With Catholic Teaching.

This is not a joke.

Considering the controversy surrounding the film’s release, it should be an encouraging sign for the Conference of Catholic Bishops to make such an unequivocal stand. But as one looks more closely at their full review, it becomes clear that they appreciate the film precisely because it has excised the theological complexity of Phillip Pullman’s novel:

The good news is that the first book’s explicit references to this church have been completely excised with only the term Magisterium retained. The choice is still a bit unfortunate, however, as the word refers so specifically to the church’s teaching authority. Yet the film’s only clue that the Magisterium is a religious body comes in the form of the icons which decorate one of their local headquarters …. Whatever author Pullman’s putative motives in writing the story, writer-director Chris Weitz’s film, taken purely on its own cinematic terms, can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism.

This back-handed compliment of a review brings me back to Donna Freitas, a Catholic theologian who I previously noted defended the film as deeply spiritual.

Freitas, in a recent essay on Salon, argues that the continuing uproar over the film (calls for banning the entire “Dark Materials” trilogy from Catholic libraries, for example) — far from scaring Catholics away from the story — will scare them away from Catholicism itself:

Who is really endangered by all this Pullman hysteria? I worry that the species actually at risk of losing their faith as a result of all the mud being slung about Pullman’s exquisite rereading of the biblical book of Genesis are those Catholics who have read the trilogy and adored it, or (God forbid) had already given it to their kids. I worry that these lovers of great literature now feel like they sit on a dirty little secret that, if revealed, might make them persona non grata in the Catholic world they call home. But, since when are believers supposed to choose between their faith and their imagination? Between the joy of reading and the joy of sects?

As Freitas goes on to explain how her Catholicism, steeped in feminism and liberation theology, is able to see and find inspiration from Pullman’s vision, you can’t help but want the old Catholic guard to get back in touch with their inner child.