The Catholic Imagination in Popular Film & Television

A year ago, when Professor Marsden invited me to serve as guest editor for a theme issue of the Journal of Popular film and Television I very much wanted this issue to reflect, as I indicated in the Call for Papers, "a broad spectrum of perspectives" that would "address the question of what popular film and television reveal about the varieties of religious experience in the twentieth century." Now that the selection and revision process is completed, I am both elated by the papers and a bit disconcerted by the overall undeniably Roman Catholic slant. This issue seems entirely too much in the image of its editor, particularly since the rather "un-catholic Catholicity" of contributions confirms one of my pet theories (which led me to Andrew Greeley's fiction seven years ago): the essential congruence of popular culture and the Catholic tendency to see God in the world.