Protestantized Arthurian Fantasy Masquerades as Catholic Culture on EWTN Platform
The National Catholic Register, a flagship organ of the EWTN media empire, publishes a laudatory commentary by former diplomat and EWTN contributor Alberto M. Fernandez on The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, a fantasy series produced by the Protestant-owned Daily Wire+ and streaming on Amazon Prime. Fernandez, identifying as a “Christian” and “right-winger,” praises the production for its “visceral, masculine Christianity,” its reliance on medieval sources like Geoffrey of Monmouth, and its alleged avoidance of “saccharine or heavy-handed preachiness.” He hails it as a model of “creating culture, not just criticizing it.” This endorsement by a post-conciliar “Catholic” outlet of a Protestant fantasy series as a vehicle for Christian culture exposes the utter vacuity of the neo-church’s cultural project: it has abandoned the Social Kingship of Christ for a generic, naturalistic “Judeo-Christian” aesthetic consumable on a secular streaming platform.