After roughly fifteen minutes of watching Dogma (1999), I had filled up roughly half a page of notes. As a Catholic film critic watching this movie, this should come as no surprise. After all, the first thing you see is a disclaimer stating that what you are about to see is a comedy and not intended to offend any specific religion. That may have been the intent, but Catholicism is clearly the main target throughout. It is okay, though. None of what is said about the Faith is original, and it is easily debunked, as you shall see. Further, there are some other concepts in here that are meant to be provocative, like having God (Alanis Morissette/Bud Cort) appear as a woman. What writer and director Kevin Smith, who also plays Silent Bob in the film (and reprises that character in a number of other productions), did was insert a bunch of Catholic stereotypes into the story and present them as what the Church actually believes. Some of it is true, much of it is not, but my job is to tell you all about it.

Dogma wastes little time putting its peculiar version of Catholic theology to work. Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon) are two angels banished from Heaven to Wisconsin after Loki, formerly the angel of death, resigned his position at Bartleby’s urging. They learn that Cardinal Ignatius Glick (George Carlin) is rededicating a church in Red Bank, New Jersey, where, according to the film’s decidedly creative interpretation of a plenary indulgence, anyone passing through its archway will receive complete forgiveness. If the angels become mortal, enter the church, and die, they believe they can return to Heaven. The problem is that doing so would contradict God’s decree banishing them, supposedly proving God fallible and causing all existence to disappear. One need not possess a theology degree to notice that the film has already begun taking some liberties here. In McHenry, Illinois, Bethany Sloane (Linda Fiorentino) is a Catholic experiencing a crisis of faith after her marriage ended and an infection left her unable to have children. Ironically, she works at an abortion clinic regularly picketed by pro-life protesters. One night, Metatron (Alan Rickman), the voice of God, appears in her bedroom and charges her with stopping Bartleby and Loki. He promises assistance from two prophets, who turn out to be foul-mouthed drug dealers Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob. After they save Bethany from three demonic Stygian Triplets, she reluctantly travels with her rescuers toward New Jersey. Along the way, a naked man falls from the sky and introduces himself as Rufus (Chris Rock), the thirteenth apostle, who claims he was omitted from Scripture because he is Black. He also insists that Jesus was like him, along with offering several other theological revisions that will give this Catholic plenty to discuss later. The travelers next encounter Serendipity (Salma Hayek), a muse working as a stripper because, despite inspiring others, she cannot create successfully for herself. Their theological conversation is interrupted by the Golgothan, a demon composed of human excrement supposedly created from waste left by those crucified at the place of Jesus’ execution. Silent Bob defeats it with air freshener, an unlikely but convenient victory. Meanwhile, Loki resumes killing people he considers deserving of divine punishment, including executives behind the fictional Mooby the Golden Calf franchise. Bartleby gradually becomes the more dangerous of the pair, increasingly resentful that God grants humanity repeated opportunities for forgiveness while holding angels to a different standard. On a train, Bethany unknowingly befriends Bartleby and drunkenly reveals the mission to stop him. He attacks her, but Silent Bob throws both angels from the train. Bethany later demands to know why she was chosen, and Rufus reveals that she is the last Scion, a direct descendant of Jesus’ bloodline. Overwhelmed, she rejects the mission until Metatron persuades her to continue. He also explains that God has disappeared while periodically assuming human form to play Skee-Ball on the New Jersey shore. Bethany’s group unsuccessfully asks Cardinal Glick to cancel the church ceremony, after which Jay steals one of the cardinal’s blessed golf clubs. Azrael (Jason Lee), a demon and former muse, then captures the group and reveals that he sent Bartleby and Loki information about the indulgence. Condemned to hell after refusing to take sides in the war between Heaven and Lucifer, Azrael would rather cease to exist than return there. Silent Bob discovers that Glick’s blessed golf club can kill him, while Bethany blesses water in a sink that destroys the Stygian Triplets. At the church, Bartleby and Loki have already massacred Cardinal Glick, parishioners, and bystanders. Loki, horrified by what they have done, cuts off his wings and becomes mortal, but Bartleby kills him when he tries to stop the plan. Jay then shoots away Bartleby’s wings, inadvertently making him mortal and capable, under the film’s rules, of exploiting the supposed loophole. Bethany finally realizes that a comatose homeless man called John Doe Jersey (Bud Cort), whose beating opened the film, is God’s trapped human form. She and Silent Bob race to the hospital, where Bethany removes him from life support. God is freed, but the force of the departure kills Bethany. Back at the church, Bartleby reaches the entrance only to encounter God, now appearing as a woman (Alanis Morissette), accompanied by Metatron. Bartleby breaks down, receives God’s forgiveness, and is destroyed by the overwhelming power of the Divine voice. God then resurrects Bethany, heals her infertility so completely that she is now pregnant with the next Scion, and removes the evidence of Bartleby’s massacre. God, Metatron, Rufus, and Serendipity depart for Heaven, while Bethany remains with Jay and Silent Bob, her faith restored.

Dogma thus ends with existence saved, Bethany expecting a child, and Catholic theology having survived two hours of Kevin Smith taking a sledgehammer to it, though not without giving this reviewer enough material for considerably more than half a page of notes. There are so many inflection points to start with, but I will begin with a general criticism. While the film makes the claim that organized religion is the problem, it is Catholicism that is focused on, and it is presented as being too legalistic. The perception, to which Smith seems to subscribe, is that there are all these rules the Church expects people to follow. For someone who does not accept Her teachings, this can appear to be missing the point, and that is a charitable assessment. For example, plenary indulgences are a real thing, but they are not the automatic forgiveness of sin portrayed here, nor can a cardinal simply invent one on his own authority. An indulgence concerns the remission of temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, and it is obtained under prescribed conditions. A further complaint about such things is that they have no Scriptural basis. I am not here to quote chapter and verse to you, and you can shake your head at me when I simply tell you to look such things up for yourselves. The more fundamental response, though, is that Catholicism does not operate according to Scripture alone. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition together form the one deposit of faith, authentically interpreted by the Magisterium. Catholic teaching is therefore not supposed to arise arbitrarily, even when someone outside the Church does not immediately see the reasoning behind it. There is also the suggestion in the film that the Church is behind the times, which, again, makes sense on the kind of surface level that leads to people believing stereotypes. If Catholicism is old-fashioned in appearance, it is because it has been around for roughly 2,000 years and does not change revealed truth merely to accommodate every passing fashion. That does not mean the Church never changes Her disciplines, methods, or ways of communicating the Faith. The movie is correct that the Church has a human dimension, and human beings can make some pretty bad mistakes. She is not, however, merely a human-led institution. The Church is both human and Divine, a visible society and the Mystical Body of Christ. Pope Leo XIV himself has emphasized this distinction, acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of the people who make up the Church while affirming Her Divine dimension. At the same time, the “Buddy Jesus” and “Catholicism Wow!” bits presented by Cardinal Glick are not that crazy in principle, even if the execution is deliberately ridiculous. The Faith must be communicated to the people and cultures of the times in which we live without changing the truth being communicated. Otherwise, what are we doing?

So, while Catholicism probably would try to go for something less hokey than “Buddy Jesus” and “Catholicism Wow!”, Dogma does not present a version of the Faith that is completely off base. It is just critical of the wrong things. The Church is not restrictive in the sense that Smith suggests. Her moral teachings place limits on human behavior, certainly, but Catholicism understands those limits as directing us toward genuine freedom rather than taking freedom away. Thus, if you are going to watch this movie, know that it is problematic, but not for the reasons you might think.