The Book of Daniel=Webster's Dictionary?

For all those Catholics who thought there might be a glimmer of hope for the married priesthood in the future, well, that glimmer is going to fade fast. And for all those Episcopalians who hope for some honest positive Christian virtues to be publicized about their church, well, you are going to be disappointed. Wait, disappointed is way too lame of a word for this.

It's the Book of Daniel, a TV series to be aired by NBC. When I first saw the preview for it last night, I thought it was a joke. But, no. No joke. The Book of Daniel takes every crisis and human failing and ties it into this Episcopalian priest, whose own addictions quite vividly puts a strangle hold on the very righteous values that he ought to be portraying as a minister of God.

The humor of this sitcom seems to likely fall short, only because the web it weaves looks like it would tangle itself over and over. So, maybe the humor will be that the Book of Daniel will be tripping over it's own plot lines.

Maybe the biggest laugh people might get is from the main character's name: Rev. Daniel Webster. Hey, isn't he one of those guys that wrote the Dictionary? Maybe the Book of Daniel is not referring to the Bible, but maybe to Webster's Dictionary, which explains it all.

Sure, churches will chastize the sitcom, especially the Episcopalian church. Oh, ok, just those righteous Episcopalians, who will condemn the misconceptions this TV show gives about their members and clergy.

However, I foresee the Catholic Church being overly quiet about this sitcom. Why? Because it reinforces that the thought of the married priesthood leads to no good. And that the Book of Daniel (overly) focuses on the flaws and errors of the Episcopal Church, which in the Catholic Church's eyes is the black sheep of Christian churches, and hopefully gets the focus off the bad press Catholics have faced against the dark accusations of priestly incest.

The issues behind the sitcom The Book of Daniel, should in any case, make Christians think about some of the insanely sinful human things we do just for pleasure, and pray that the Holy Spirit leads us out of those directions, at least just so we don't look as stupid and insensitive to our faith and beliefs as those actors portray us to be. And at the most, it will be an example not to follow that will push us to live our true faith, be true to our beliefs and true to our God.