There is no such thing as completely objective journalism, despite the protestations to the contrary by reporters, writers, photographers and documentary-makers. Media producers always work from a personal and often an institutional point of view as well.

Though this is not always a negative thing, the documentary "Celibacy," from award-winning South African director, producer, writer and narrator Antony Thomas --- to be aired on HBO beginning June 28 and throughout July (times vary; check local listings) --- proves that impartiality regarding the facts of a story can be calmly paraded as truth, but not to the thoughtful viewer.

I, too, have a perspective that influences how I analyze films that deal with topics that are important to me. I am a 60-year-old, white, male Jesuit priest, who entered religious life at the age of 50 after having been widowed for four years. I have three sons, two wonderful granddaughters, and another on the way. I have experienced the great joys and challenges of married and celibate life.

I also produce documentaries and videos. So, I have an interest in the craft and art of the documentary and can speak to the theological, spiritual and practical dimensions of both the married and celibate life as a Catholic.

HBO's documentary "Celibacy" is presented through its series "America Undercover," and in many ways this episode should have stayed undercover (it was made with Carlton Television in the UK). "Celibacy" is a mishmash of pseudo-social science, aspects of moral theology and religious history, past and present. It is the director's clear agenda to present the practice of celibacy as the main cause of the current Roman Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, although it purports to simply question if there is such a link.

The documentary begins with a brief look at the reasons for and the modes of the practice of celibacy throughout history in various religions and sects throughout the world. It then attempts to explore the Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandal by throwing together selective interviews and facts from the church's treatment of women to the male dominated hierarchical structure of the institution.

Victims of sexual abuse are interviewed both in the U.S. and in Ireland. Terrible, disturbing stories are told, but together they lack coherence from which to draw anything other than the simplistic conclusions that reflect the filmmaker's worldview: the practice of celibacy is obviously bad and celibacy is the reason for the decline in vocations in the priesthood and religious life and the disgruntlement of those who live "enforced" celibacy.

Is the denial to clergy and religious of the release of "the most powerful biological drive on the planet" harmful? The documentary wants to lead viewers to the conclusion that celibacy is the root cause for deviant behavior among those who practice celibacy. Take a closer look, though. The documentary implicitly promotes that it's really the church's teaching on sexual morality in general that is the cause for sexual abuse and deviance.

The interviews with Freudian psychoanalysts and neuroscientists would have the audience understand this whole issue in terms of biological and psychological drives that have been stunted and repressed, and that these natural urges can only be released through unhealthy sexual and even violent actions.

The documentary seems to be stuck in medieval times. The only nuns we see are in a monastery wearing traditional habits or undergoing initiation ceremonies in Romania that hearken back to the Middle Ages. The director often confuses Orthodox religious orders and their practices with Roman Catholic orders. Ireland's sex abuse scandal, horrific as it is, is mixed with the U.S. scandal, and is used, according to the filmmaker, to indicate how widespread the problem is.

Former Benedictine monk Richard Sipe is presented as an expert on sexual abuse issues, but his moral theology statement that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that "all thoughts, desires, actions, involving sex are mortally sinful," nicely misstates the totality of the church's moral teachings on sex and the human body. In fact, Pope John Paul's landmark teaching on the theology of the body is never even referred to.

Parts of the documentary will be too graphic for some, from genital mutilation practiced by some Hindu sects to the bloody presentation of some Good Friday rituals in the Philippines. In case we don't get it: the documentary continually reinforces their perspective that repressed sex drives and violent sadomasochistic actions are "two sides of the same coin."

Today, in seminaries and religious formation programs, the theology of the body, intimacy, friendships, relationships, maintaining appropriate boundaries, and the joys and, sometimes, sorrows of living the vow of celibacy, are all addressed in seminary and religious life formation curriculum. The documentary consistently and subtly uses the term "enforced celibacy" to characterize the celibate way of life. Though the history of the vow of celibacy is continually used as the point of departure to build the premise of the film, it presents only a one-sided look and finds only nefarious reasons for the adoption of this vow for the clergy and religious.

If Thomas, exercising total artistic and content control over the project, can get it in there he throws it in. By the end of the program, we are left with the image of Archbishop John Foley, stating the church's teaching on sexual morality and that is that, but the documentary has made its claim about the evils of celibacy

Even if we can attribute the best of intentions to the maker of a one-hour documentary, the fact that Thomas does not know the difference between priestly celibacy and religious chastity demonstrates either shoddy research at best or the lack of desire to do a thorough investigation at worst.

In order to be informed about this cultural artifact and thus be able to converse about it credibly, one needs to watch this documentary, as one might read "The Da Vinci Code." "Celibacy" is a mix of science and history, fiction and truth. Approach it with a critical eye.

And by the way, in the final analysis, it really has very little to do with celibacy. That documentary is yet to be made.

'Celibacy': Another view
By David DiCerto

"Celibacy" uses a stacked-deck approach to investigate the socio-religious roots of abstinence among various faith traditions, with a focused emphasis on Roman Catholicism and celibacy's alleged link to the church's sexual abuse scandal.

What starts off as a comparative study of religious attitudes toward institutional chastity quickly becomes a polemic against the Catholic Church's entire sexual ethos in claiming that a repeat of the recent sex scandal could be avoided if the Vatican lifted its ban on a married clergy. No mention is made of the fact that married and single men of all faiths or no faith can be pedophiles, without having the excuse of religious celibacy as an explanation.

Full of unsubstantiated, anecdotal assertions, the documentary starts off on a seemingly unbiased note by acknowledging that Christianity is not unique in its practice of celibacy and examining parallels in both the Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions.

But, having thus established a patina of disinterest, the filmmaker quickly turns his critical lens on the Catholic Church, keeping it locked in his sights for the remainder of the show. And while conceding that other world religions even require it for those members who enter special states of life, the program then commits the non sequitur of saying that only Catholicism makes it mandatory for its priests.

Producer Antony Thomas' underlying argument can be distilled down to the moth-eaten canard that most of the problems facing the church can be blamed on what he sees as the Catholic hierarchy's repressive and dysfunctional attitude toward human sexuality, which the show terms "the contemporary church's Galileo" --- referring to the church's rejection of the astronomer's belief that the Earth moves around the sun, and not vice versa.

While the film accurately dates mandatory celibacy in the Roman rite to 1139, a supposedly unbiased expert misleadingly asserts that the final decision was one based solely on questions concerning the inheritance of church property. At no point does the documentary take seriously that following the example of the celibate Christ is a motive for priestly celibacy. Primacy is always given to motives other than spiritual.

While trotting out the hoary chestnuts about the church's thinking that sex is, at best, a necessary evil, it ignores anything positive in Catholic theology about sexuality, including the fact that it is an essential element in the sacrament of matrimony. In fact, Pope John Paul II made it his first catechetical project in 1979 to promote a better understanding of what he called the "theology of the body." Far from considering sex morally evil, the pope extolled erotic desire and conjugal intimacy, when properly understood, as not only "good" but holy.

The church does not deny that certain members of the clergy have committed heinous crimes resulting in immeasurable harm by their betraying the trust of those they were sent to serve. But the show's oversimplified prognosis, which recommends ending celibacy as a panacea to the ills facing the church, is hardly convincing.

Jesuit Father Ron Schmidt is a producer with Loyola Productions Inc. in Los Angeles. David DiCerto is on staff of the U.S. Bishops' Office of Film and Broadcasting. For DiCerto's complete review, see page 12 of the June 25 Tidings.