by Ted Kavanau
Saturday, Feb 26, 2005

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  Movie critic Roger Ebert, for instance, said fellow critic-turned talk show host Michael Medved had committed an "unforgivable" error when he complained about the "deceptive packaging of Clint Eastwood's boxing-and-euthanasia epic."

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd also attacked Medved, asking whether he wanted to "Medvedize" the movie by turning it into an "Ozzie and Harriet" episode. Her colleague Frank Rich chimed in as well, calling the film critic a leader of "the usual gang of ayatollahs."

In the film Eastwood plays a smalltime boxing gym owner and trainer who very reluctantly agrees to train a neophyte female boxer, played by Hilary Swank.

With Eastwood's training and managing, Swank's character is on her way to great success until she is sucker-punched during a bout and ends up hospitalized as a quadriplegic.

Preferring to die rather than live with her disability, Swank persuades Eastwood to fulfill her wish and help her die. The movie portrays Eastwood's decision to euthanize Swank as an act of sympathy and love for her plight.

However, the assisted-suicide theme isn't the only aspect of "Million Dollar Baby" that might offend Christian sensibilities.

Eastwood's boxing gym owner, for instance, has some very unusual intellectual interests for someone in the fight game.

Though he attends Mass every day, the gym owner greatly irritates his parish priest by continually calling into question the basic tenets of the Catholic faith.

In one scene the priest gets so angry he curses the boxing manager and denounces him as a "pagan."

Another scene in the film shows Eastwood's character teaching himself to read from the works of the famous early 20th century Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats.

Yeats is an interesting choice, and the decision to interject his name into the film fuels suspicions of a hidden agenda.

Scholars say many of Yeats' poems focused on pagan Irish themes; he had a lifelong interest in Irish mythology and folklore as well as the occult. A dedicated Irish nationalist, he celebrated in his writings a pre-Christian, Gaelic-speaking Irish age.

According to noted author George Orwell, Yeats had "a hatred of modern western civilization and desire to return to the Bronze Age, or perhaps to the Middle Ages." He believed the era of Christianity was ending and that a chaotic period would follow.

Yeats' ideas were apparently well understood by the author FX Toole, whose short story "Rope Burns" was the basis for the Eastwood film.

Like Yeats, Eastwood's character rejects the Church, in the person of the film's priest, who warns of the dire consequences to Eastwood's conscience if he helps Swank's character die. Instead, Eastwood - portrayed as kinder and wiser than the priest - decides to defy Catholic teaching.

With Church teaching cast aside in favor of more modern sensibilities, "Million Dollar Baby's" anti-Christian message is an unmistakable theme in this year's Best Picture front-runner - an aspect that will only improve its chances of winning.

Ted Kavanau is the co-founder and former vice president of CNN.

Editor's note: