Science and Religion in Murdoch Mysteries
On the normalcy of a faithful Catholic man of science
Note: Very minor spoilers for season one ahead.
Murdoch Mysteries, if you’re not familiar with it, is a long-running and still airing (it was renewed for a 19th season!) Canadian police procedural set in Toronto beginning in 1895. Based on a series of novels by Maureen Jennings, it follows the cases of the titular Detective William Murdoch and his colleagues of the Toronto Constabulary. I watched a few seasons of it a couple years ago, after my mom got into it, and I’ve recently started rewatching it; I’m now six episodes into season two. Let that be my caveat for the following discussion: my observations are based only on my rewatch up to this point. Whether or not they hold true throughout the series, I cannot say.
But at least so far, in season one and into the early episodes of season two, I was struck by how explicitly religious our hero Murdoch is. And a religious minority at that—a Catholic in an overwhelmingly Protestant city and culture. At the same time, he is depicted as a man of science. And the show depicts his Catholic faith and his scientific nature as two equally fundamental aspects of his character, aspects that are harmonious rather than inherently contradictory. These are simply taken for granted by the core characters as who Murdoch is.
That’s not to say these are simply background details; on the contrary, both aspects are frequently emphasized and are, at times, essential plot points. But the show presents Murdoch as a fundamentally—well, for lack of a better word—normal person, even if he has some remarkable qualities that contribute to his superb detective skills.
By normal I don’t mean that he’s representative of all the other characters. He’s the only Catholic—and, indeed, the only explicitly religious—main character. I mean that the show does not treat Murdoch’s Catholicism as weird or exotic or compartmentalized. His faith is thoroughly integrated into his life, as a normal part of his day-to-day existence. We see him going to confession, and we hear him mention in passing that he attends services multiple times a week. Above all, we see him making the sign of the Cross, in the Roman Catholic fashion,1 whenever he encounters a dead body—which happens, in a murder mystery show, at least once an episode. In fact, this gesture, which he makes naturally and unselfconsciously, is both the initial and the most prominent marker of Murdoch’s Catholicism.
Sometimes the other main characters bring up Murdoch’s Catholicism. At one point, for example, Inspector Brackenreid asks—half joking, half exasperated—if Murdoch’s seemingly convoluted theories on a case are the product of his Jesuitical training. But they always treat his faith respectfully, again as a normal part of who he is.
The exceptions to this prove the rule. In an early episode, Murdoch is interviewing for an inspector position at another station and is asked about his religion. Later we see the police higher-up tell Inspector Brackenreid that Toronto is a Protestant city and always will be—that a Catholic will never be made inspector. Inspector Brackenreid tries to stand up for Murdoch but realizes the futility and then keeps silent. So there is a distinct whiff of anti-Catholicism in the cultural milieu, and early on we see Murdoch targeted. But the show presents this as a problem, and depicts Murdoch’s Catholicism as worthy of respect.
On occasion, we see Murdoch wrestling with his faith over issues that feel a bit anachronistic for the late 19th century. Most obviously, there is a season one episode featuring a victim who turns out to be homosexual. The way Murdoch is shown opening up in confession about how the case is causing him to doubt how the Church handles such matters feels distinctly contemporary. However, Murdoch remains a faithful Catholic. Moreover, this is not the only way the series can be anachronistic: some of the technologies that Murdoch employs are clearly way ahead of their time. Given this, some anachronism in matters of social issues doesn’t seem egregious.
The normalcy of the show’s depiction of Murdoch as a religious minority would itself be interesting and unusual, even if he were just a regular detective. But no, Murdoch is no ordinary detective—he is also a man of science. He frequently refers to ideas and techniques he reads about in medical and scientific journals. No mere armchair theoretician, he is something of a visionary and practical genius, constantly tinkering with and employing cutting-edge methods and technologies.
Some of these technologies appear in only one episode, such as the primitive lie detector machine Murdoch creates and employs when interrogating some suspects. Others become part and parcel of the procedural process, such as the lifting of “finger marks” from evidence. In these endeavors he is encouraged by his colleague Dr. Julia Ogden—yes, a female pathologist!—who introduces him to, for example, an early X-ray machine.
Of course, there is no inherent contradiction in being religious or Catholic and being a person of science; the Catholic Church has many fine scientists in its history and present day. But still, given the prevalence of tired modern narratives about the enmity of science and religion, it’s refreshing to see a lead character who is unabashedly religious and scientific. The show treats it as unremarkably normal that he’s both. Indeed, if he is regarded as an eccentric, it’s because of just how much he pushes cutting-edge science—not because of his religious faith.
The closest thing I have seen yet to a “conflict” between science and religion is in an episode that deals with paleontologists and fossils. At the unveiling of a new dinosaur skeleton, a young man bursts in shouting religious propaganda and, as an apparent zealot, is initially suspected of the murder revealed. But he is quickly ruled out as a suspect—and turns out not to be a zealot at all! After searching for him in various religious groups in Toronto, Murdoch eventually learns that the young man is a poor street person paid to pretend to be a religious zealot. As for our hero himself, he (naturally) has a life-long fascination with dinosaur hunting and paleontology. Clearly, this is not a tale of the conflict between science and religion.
To wrap this up, I’ll just add that I’m Orthodox, not Catholic. But if I were Catholic, I think I would, notwithstanding perhaps a few quibbles, overall be pretty happy with the respectful and nuanced depiction of Murdoch. He’s not the only Catholic detective I can think of on TV; there’s also the titular Father Brown and Law & Order: SVU’s Elliot Stabler. But I think his representation is still unique. Stabler’s Catholicism is nowhere near as prominent or faithful as Murdoch’s (from what I can remember, I haven’t watched the show in years). And Father Brown is a priest—and so a professional Catholic, as it were—whereas Murdoch is just a regular layman. As I keep saying, a normal guy—albeit a brilliant and slightly eccentric one.
On the Orthodox side of pop culture representation, we certainly have nothing on the scale of this massively successful and long-running series. There are good demographic reasons; Catholics make up a much bigger portion of the North American population than Orthodox. And they have played a much bigger role in the popular imagination.
But I am hard pressed to think of any Orthodox characters in mainstream American or Canadian TV shows, much less a main character or a lead. Broadening the scope to movies, the closest I can come up with is the My Big Fat Greek Wedding movies. (No disrespect to them! And they did become even funnier after I became Orthodox.) Less prominently, I suppose there are the Russian Orthodox villagers in Fiddler on the Roof. I’m not exactly a pop culture buff, so if you can think of any other examples, please comment below. Maybe one day we’ll have a mainstream lead Orthodox character as respectfully depicted as Murdoch.
Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholics make the sign of the Cross in the opposite direction to Roman Catholic practice, with the hand held in a different manner.