This looks good...

Starting on Easter Sunday, the A&E Network is set to air a five-part documentary titled God Or the Girl. It tracks four seminarians who are at cross roads in their discernment. Think Hoop Dreams in a seminary.

I'm as jaded as the next orthodox Catholic about how the Church gets treated in the media, especially by nitwit documentarians. When I heard about God Or the Girl, the title made me grateful that they probably weren't going to drag in (pardon the metaphor) a token gay seminarian, but I was still suspicious that the other shoe would drop and they'd include a Richard McBrien clone. They always do.

Not this time.

I got an email today from one of the marketers of the show named Brian Walsh, so I called him back and he confirmed everything on the website: God Or the Girl portrays the Church very positively. It's gotten great buzz from many quarters, inclduing secular. For instance, from Timeout.com:

The most impressive thing about God or the Girl is its refusal to treat its subjects as weird: None of the guys embodies straight-arrow stereotypes, and Catholicism is neither swaddled in sentiment nor portrayed as an iron-fisted cult. What ultimately emerges is a series that pulls off the impressive trick of celebrating religion without making nonbelievers feel like jerks.—Andrew Johnston