Doctor Who and Catholicism

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you will know two things about me:

1. I am Catholic
2. I am a fangirl.

If you put those two things together, you can reasonably say that I am also a Catholic fangirl. I converted to Catholicism and I love everything about it. As each year passes, my love for my Catholic faith grows deeper and deeper. That said, my second most serious fandom has to be the British sci-fi series, Doctor Who.

For those of you who don't know that series, allow me to give you a brief description. Doctor Who involves a character called The Doctor who travels through time and space having adventures, saving planets and peoples (and occasionally the whole universe), righting wrongs, and inspiring hope everywhere he goes. He looks like a human (or as he says, we humans look like Time Lords) but he is really an alien from another planet. He travels in a spaceship called the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) which looks like a blue 1960s style London police call box on the outside, but which is MUCH bigger on the inside. He goes on his adventures with various humans (and the odd alien) who are referred to in the series as his "companions." The people who encounter The Doctor -- both his companions and others -- are forever changed by the experience.

Matt Smith (as the 11th Doctor) exiting the TARDIS somewhere in central London.

One of the reasons I love both the Catholic faith and Doctor Who is that they make me think and ponder deeper subjects. Naturally, through the past few years, my thinking in one area has kinda bled over into the other area and recently as I was brainstorming ideas for this blog, it occurred to me that there are a lot of connections between the realities of Catholicism and the fiction of Doctor Who. The following is just some of the things that kind of popped into my head. Some of them may be a little loosey goosey, so bear with me.

Ordinary Things

Doctor Who is brilliant at taking ordinary things and turning them into the stuff of nightmares -- shadows, statues, broken clocks, cracks in the wall, astronauts, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The good thing is that The Doctor knows about the evil in these seemingly ordinary things and he helps his companions and others avoid a variety of terrible fates because he sees these things for what they are and knows how to fight them.

Satan is rather talented at taking ordinary things and using them to distract us from God, lure us into sin, and in some cases, destroy us completely. One of the things I love best about Catholicism is that it takes sin very seriously and as such, is very, very clear about the kinds of things that constitute sin and lays that out for us as Catholics. When we find ourselves tempted by these ordinary things that Satan has twisted for his own nefarious purposes or we have fallen for his lies and into sin, the Church, like The Doctor, is there to help us identify where we've gone wrong, avoid sin when we're tempted, and fight back when we fall victim to the lies of the Evil One. The biggest weapons in the Church's arsenal are the graces found in the seven sacraments -- particularly, the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) and the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (communion).

Companions = Saints?

As I said before, The Doctor almost always goes on his adventures with one or more companions along for fun and company. His companions are an exceptional bunch of folks and each one is very different and has a very different relationship with The Doctor. The common thread that they all share is that each of them is not only along for the ride, but each one helps The Doctor find his way to doing the right thing. They act as a sort of conscience for him at times, they help him fight his battles, and they encourage him when he's down. In Catholicism, we have thousands upon thousands of saints. The saints are very similar to The Doctor's companions in that they are a rather varied group of very special individuals and because of this, we relate to different saints in different ways. One of the great things about the saints is that they are not just our companions, but our brothers and sisters in the faith who are in a unique position (thanks to their being totally perfected and in the presence of God) to help us fight our battles by praying for us, to act as a sort of conscience for us by the witness of their lives, and to encourage us by the writings and accounts of their lives that we have here on earth.

Save ALL the People!

The Doctor is, at his hearts (he has two of them), a do-gooder. He wants to help those in need and when someone needs saving, he's your man. He's such a do-gooder that he wants to save all the people, even sometimes those who have long been his enemies. But he can't. He tries his best, but even on the days when he saves most everyone, there are always those who fall through the cracks because they were too proud to accept his help or too arrogant to listen when he tried to warn them of some impending danger. When he fails to save people, it really hurts him. Even if he carries on, makes a joke, or presents a stiff upper lip about it, you see it in his eyes, in a flicker of a frown that crosses his face, or in the slump of his shoulders. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:4 that God wills that all men should be saved and that is because the nature of God is love and His love is so great for all of His creation that He wants each and every one of us to be with Him -- even those who regard God as an enemy. He wants this for all of us and that is why He sacrificed His only son Jesus that ALL of mankind might be redeemed. Of course, as we also know, He gave us free will. We are redeemed by Christ's sacrifice, but we must do the work of accepting that gift. The problem is that some of us are too proud to accept it or too arrogant to listen when they are presented with the Truth of the Gospel or warned away from serious sin. The result is that although we as Catholics may hope that all men will be saved, the reality is that the likelihood of hell being empty is pretty slim to none. In the end, those who are saved by The Doctor are saved because they put their trust in his ability to save them and likewise, we find salvation by putting our trust in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to save us from sin and death.

Words, Not Weapons  

In the Doctor Who universe, there are quite a few weapons at The Doctor's disposal, but he doesn't own a single one of them. So how does he save the day? By using his trusty sonic screwdriver (futuristic Swiss army knife + universal remote control + every sci-fi hand-held scanner device in existence) and his imagination, quick wit, previous experiences, and vast intelligence. He can stun an enemy into silence with a single word or turn back an entire army with a very well-crafted speech. When he speaks, it behooves you to listen. Just so, the Catholic Church has been fighting against those who would try to tear her apart by using scripture, logic, reason, and intelligent arguments based on 2000 years of prayer, experience, and tradition. She follows the example of Jesus who used words and not weapons to change hearts and lives and fight against those who sought to hurt others or entrap him and so derail his mission. True, the Church has had some less than stellar moments and yes, there have been some people who have used violence in the name of Christ and His Church (and this is most decidedly wrong), but this has a parallel in Doctor Who too. The Doctor doesn't use weapons, but sometimes -- most especially when he travels alone for too long -- he forgets his way and allows things to happen that he could prevent or even lashes out angrily when there is no just reason for it.


The Pope is a Time Lord?

For me, one of the most obvious connections is between the Pope and the Doctor. The Doctor is a member of a race of people called the Time Lords. As I said before, he appears to be a human on the outside, but he does have some unique things about his physiology that are most decidedly alien. One is that he has two hearts instead of one, but the most interesting difference is his ability to regenerate. When The Doctor is near death, instead of dying, his body goes through a process called regeneration where his whole body is transformed into a completely new and different looking body from head to foot. He looks, sounds, and feels like a totally new person. He has different tastes in clothes, food, and the things that appeal to him and yet, he retains all of his memories from his previous incarnations and if you, as the audience, look carefully, you can even see glimpses of his previous incarnations peeking through the eyes of the current one. He is a totally new person, but he is the same person too. The Pope has a similar sort of thing going on. Obviously, he doesn't almost die and then regenerate, but he does change -- either when the current pope dies or when he retires, like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did in 2013. Each new pope brings with him a new face, voice, personality, and way of doing things to the office of the papacy, but he retains and defends the 2000 years' worth of dogma, doctrine, and Traditions of the Church. Like The Doctor, even though he has a new face, you can often see glimpses of his predecessors in the things he says and does or even his pastoral style. He is most definitely a different person, but because his apostolic authority and the unbroken line of apostolic succession (the office of the pope is often referred to as the See of Peter -- the first pope), he is in some ways most definitely the same person as the men who came before him.


There are many other things I could say about how these two fandoms of mine are connected, but I think for now, that's quite enough to be getting on with. If you would like to read a little more, here's another blog post about the TARDIS and the Catholic Church by Catholic blogger Billy Kangas.