Last weekend Netflix launched the new season of its comic book inspired series “Daredevil,” about blind New York City lawyer Matt Murdock, who doubles as the superhero protector of Hell’s Kitchen [light spoilers to follow]. When the show debuted last fall, it turned heads both for its gritty realism and its incredible fight sequences, which really are like nothing on television anywhere.
But what was equally interesting about “Daredevil” was the main character’s Catholicism. Television has such a difficult time with religion, almost always turning it into hocus pocus, simplistic aphorisms or inhumane preachery. (And hey, let’s be honest, we who work in the church have some role in all of that. To the extent that we preach or behave in ways that don’t make sense to people, we can hardly be frustrated that media portrayals are equally nonsensical. If we want to say our lives and struggles reflected in a meaningful way onscreen, we may need to spend more time on barstools and in coffee shops, being real with people.)
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