From Holy Roman Empire to Hollywood

I am grateful to Emily Shartin for her piece on my campaign to see that this mucho macho black soldier-saint at least makes a blip on the radar of our young inner-city males ("St. Moritz: Give them strength," March 18, City Weekly).

I would also like to point out that few realize that as patron of the Holy Roman Empire -- the "Second Reich," according to German propaganda of WWII -- St. Moritz was the original source for the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the video game "Spear of Destiny."

The Lucas/Spielberg flick mesmerized a generation and was the prototype of the special-effects action extravaganzas that pack them in at the cineplex, while the video game was the mother of all the 3D shoot-'em-up fantasies that are today even more addictive to the male adolescent than drugs.

If at first the martyrdom of St. Moritz and his "posse" of 6,000-plus African troops for the faith doesn't win any recruits in the war against urban violence, I'm hoping that the wealth of wonderful black theological symbolism his color represented throughout the Middle Ages and his centuries-old image as the epitome of the chivalrous ideal eventually will.

Sancte Mauriti cum sociis tuis, ora pro nobis!

MARIO VALDES

Cambridge