IT is veering close to 'Fr Trendy' territory, but another of Dermot Morgan's favourite characters will be a star attraction in a new series of sermons aimed at attracting more people to church. 'The Gospel according to Fr Ted (Part I)' will be heard in Trinity College Chapel in Dublin for the first time today (Sunday) and will be followed, in the coming weeks, by sermons on 'Desperate Housewives', 'Sex and the City', 'Harry Potter' and the 'Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', among others.
"The main reason for it is that I like these things and I think that when you look at them you see that they deal very often with the big issues of life and the universe," the Reverend Darren McCallig said yesterday.
"They touch on love, good and evil, life and death, forgiveness, hope, all the big issues of life, and that's the business we're in here in the chaplaincy, namely examining the big issues of life, and this is a way to get people engaged."
Rev McCallig is in his second year as Church of Ireland chaplain in Trinity and said that his Sunday morning congregation -- which is made up largely of students and staff but with a generous sprinkling of tourists -- are probably absorbing Christian themes through popular culture without really thinking about it.
"Take the 'Sex and the City' movie which I was dragged along to," he said.
"That whole movie, from start to finish, is about forgiveness, a concept that we've been trying to get across for thousands of years."
Other sermons, he said, would eschew the obvious. "If you look at a movie like 'Superman' it is about a person coming from another place to Earth and saving people with mighty acts, and there is also the suggestion that Superman's name on Krypton (Kal-El) is Hebrew Old Testament for 'voice of God'.
"But in that sermon I will talk about how it might be a very good movie, but it's a very bad theology because the goodies are entirely good and the baddies are 100pc bad. But in life there are grey areas, and the problem in a movie where all the baddies are always destroyed is that I certainly don't think I am 100pc good or 100pc bad."
Everyman
Rev McCallig will start and end the eight-week series with 'Gospel according to Fr Ted', a personal favourite.
"Ted is an everyman," he said. "He has the twin obsessions that many of us have -- money and fame -- and he's a great man for justifying something dodgy such as fixing the raffle for the car or ripping off a song for the Eurovision.
"But there is a lot of love and loyalty there for his little 'family' on Craggy Island and we see that when he decides not to leave them for America."
Tomorrow's service takes place at 10.45am, with those planning to attend advised that it is not a two-way sermon -- the Fr Ted quotes can be left at home.
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(Source: II)