Ellis quotes, "The misguided protestors who malign "Dogma" miss entirely the point that the movie is irreverent not about God, but about man. It's about the dogmatics." (Ellis 1) .
Perhaps background on the movie is needed to better explain these points of view. Christopher Null of filmcritics.com explains, " "Dogma" tells the story of two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) who decide to take advantage of a loophole in Catholic dogma and weasel their way back into Heaven. God's messenger (Alan Rickman) is sent to convince the cynical Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) to stop the angels because if they make it into Heaven, the world will end. Along the way, Bethany enlists the aid of a half-dozen nutty characters, including prophets Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith), the muse Serendipity (Selma Hayek), and the 13th Apostle Rufus (Chris Rock)."(Null 1). Along the way, these fallen angels are doing whatever they have wanted to do while they were on Earth, including a killing spree. The other most controversial part of the movie involves the use of George Carlin (and avid anti-Catholic) to portray a Catholic Cardinal who introduces a proposal to retire the crucifix as the symbol for Catholicism and replace it with the more hip and popular "Buddy Christ", which is basically a statue of Jesus winking and giving the thumbs up. .
Particularly perturbed about the alleged mockery of Catholicism was the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. A spokesperson for the group was quoted on their website as saying, "Written and directed by Kevin Smith, the film was about as dumb and boring a comedy as ever hit the screen. But that didn't stop the movie critics from liking it, nor did it impact on our decision to brand it anti-Catholic." (Catholic League 1) Nowhere in their 1999 year end report did the Catholic League mention exactly what parts of the movie were anti-Catholic.