Kevin Smith's film Dogma went into national release last weekend, trailing protesters and defended by its creator, who swears that he's confused and dismayed by the fuss: "But to say that either the movie or myself is anti-Catholic is just downright …insulting! If anything, I think I'm pro-Catholic and I think the movie proves that."" (Toronto Sun, 9/7/99) Opinions might differ. Dogma features:

*A foul-mouthed lothario of a 13th apostle named Rufus who asserts that the Church has conspired to edit the Scriptures and cover up the truth about Jesus.

*A cardinal played by one of the most reliably vicious anti-Catholic entertainers of the late 20th century, George Carlin

*A jokey dismissal of the ancient tradition of Mary's perpetual virginity: saying that even the Virgin Birth is more believable than a man never having sex with his wife.

*The traditional stock lies, presented as indisputable fact, that the Church supported the slave trade and "maintained a policy of silence about the Holocaust"

So yes, it's conceivable that some would see Dogma as a film infected with anti-Catholicism, and Kevin Smith's failure to grasp this seems disingenuous, to say the least. It's only fair, though, to take a good look at Dogma within the context of the filmmaker's own stated intentions. Smith says, It's "my own celebration of faith…I just wanted to do something that was pro-faith and expressed my spirituality - my Catholicism." (Interview magazine(9/10/99)) The ribald, sophomoric and irreverent tone of Dogma will naturally limit Smith's audience, and he knows it. This is, as he states, a film offered, not so much to the general public, but to his own fan base that reveres his haphazard slacker style, barrage of pop culture references, loopy dialogue and a dense vocabulary of in-house jokes built over the course of four films. "It's pretty much for the teenagers who have reached the point where the parents stop dragging them to church and they decide." (Interview Magazine 9/10/99) "I'm trying to say it's okay to go to church…It's not stupid, it's not the tooth fairy." (George Magazine, 11/99) For the sake of argument, we'll buy it. Now - does Dogma work on those terms, set up by Kevin Smith himself? The plot of Dogma is convoluted. Two angels, Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck), have been exiled by God to Wisconsin. They receive a tip about a way back to heaven: The Catholic Church, in an attempt to draw more adherents, isoffering all those who pass through the door of a certain New Jersey church a plenary indulgence, in the film misinterpreted as forgiveness of all sins.

A problem: in turning the tables on God, they'll be violating His very nature and, as a consequence bringing all of existence to an abrupt end. Enter Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a practicing, yet faithless Catholic. She's been pegged to go stop the angels, and the film follows her reluctant acceptance of her mission and adventures along the way with various eccentric otherworldly beings, some friendly, others definitely not. So the thing just goes on and on, with characters spouting high school takes on the Meaning of Life and confronting various comic-book type bad guys. Once in Jersey, the bad angels are stopped and God finally makes her appearance as Alanis Morisette, looking like an unfortunately horse-faced figure on a Grecian urn at first, carrying some daisies. Then she strips off the gauzy gown to reveal a cute little white poofy-skirted number and bolero jacket, restores life to everyone who's been killed by the avenging angels who (by the way) hoped to get some righteous slaughter in before they walk through the magic doorway. Then She does a handstand in the garden. Okay. Got it?

Dogma meanders. It wanders. It stands absolutely still at times. The script is undisciplined and confusing. Its many assertions about God are contradictory and superficial. The special effects are pretty sad. In other words, as a movie, it's not well made. But let's give him credit. Smith is asking thoroughly legitimate questions and they seem to be honestly posed. Where is God? What does it mean to belong to God? What's the relationship between individual faith and institutional religion? How do you find your faith again once you lose it? What's unfortunate, besides the reliance on sophomoric humor, is that Smith just can't get very far in answering those good questions. He can't reach beyond aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities that are fundamentally adolescent.

It's as if he's a kid who's making a collage on "My Faith" for CCD class and concludes that it would really tick the catechist off to have that 13th apostle or a photograph of Alanis Morisette sitting on God's throne. For whatever reason, whether it be ignorance, stubbornness or just immaturity, Smith seems to be spiritually mired in that moment when a kid spies the Monsignor a bit tipsy on his feet and realizes - this Church is not all it seems to be. So, Smith has his heavenly characters affirm , "It doesn't matter what you believe, just that you believe something." It's old, it's tired, and it's easy to say. But Smith hasn't thought it through, and it doesn't work, not just because it's false, but also because the attempted message is in deep conflict with the story that conveys it: the plot revolves around beings who are suffering the consequences of conflict with God, indicating that maybe the content of belief matters, after all. If God doesn't like "dogma" and it's an illegitimate contortion of His will, how can he be held hostage to a falsehood? How can God be held hostage to anything, come to think of it? As lame and offensive as this film is at times, some have chosen to take offense at the wrong things, like the fact that Bethany, the unwilling pilgrim, initially works in an abortion clinic. So? She's not a happy Christian, she's miserable, empty and faithless. What better way to express life without God than having her making her living by contributing to death?

There's also this "Catholicism Wow!" campaign in which the Church has decided to engage in a "renewal of faith and style." The first act is replacing the crucifix in churches ("Christ didn't come to earth to give us the willies") with the grinning, two-thumbs up "Buddy Christ." How is this offensive? It seems to me to be a pretty apt dig at the anxiety for "relevance" in the contemporary Church. The problem, again, though, is that Smith is inconsistent: He can't take dumbed-down Catholicism to task when that seems to be precisely what he's proposing as a solution to his concern about contemporary Catholics who see faith as "a burden, not a blessing." Dogma's really not any good, it's stupid, and it's definitely not an "obviously devout, enlightened parable….with unexpected intellectual heft.." Has Janet Maslin thought about religion since she was twelve? Dorothy Day - obviously devout. Augustine - enlightened. Aquinas - hefty. But Dogma? Nah. But I'm willing to look past the offense and see the film in the way Smith says he wants me to. What's evident then is that that lurking behind the confused, unthinking and ignorant answers lies a searching soul. Let's hope that the next time Smith wrestles with his faith in public, he's figured out some basics that his apparently typically vapid post-Vatican II Catholic education evidently failed to convey: that individual faith isn't possible without a Church to transmit and nurture it. That Church isn't a set of rules - it's Christ offering His love through two thousand years of prayer, reflection, beauty, and sacrificial faith, and all of that's nothing but gift. Smith says he wants to reach a certain audience that the Church has missed with the news that God is real. Good for him - really. But next time, it might be better to leave the Gospel according to Kevin at home, and deal with the real thing, instead.