In other words, Hollywood once chose to praise movies that eloquently affirmed the religious convictions of the mass audience. But in 2005, top nominations went to films that went out of their way to assault or insult the sensibilities of most believers. Both Million Dollar Baby (nominated for seven awards, including best picture, best director, best actor and best actress) and The Sea Inside (nominated for best foreign-language film) portray assisted suicide as an explicitly and unequivocally "heroic" choice. Their success suggests that if Hollywood ever gets around to making "The Jack Kevorkian Story," it, too, would become an automatic candidate for major awards.

Meanwhile, Vera Drake (nominated for best actress, best director and best original screenplay) portrays abortion in a positive, almost sacramental light, while Kinsey (nominated for best supporting actress) ridicules the religious orthodoxy of the main character's father and portrays all conventional inhibitions about sexuality as outmoded, ignorant and destructive.

At the same time, the Spanish-language film The Motorcycle Diaries earned significant recognition for best adapted screenplay with its nostalgic, deeply affectionate portrayal of the idealistic young man who became the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. For Hollywood, it seems, a murderous, anti-American Marxist guerrilla counts as less controversial than Jesus Christ.

Most of the public debate about this batch of Oscar nominations will naturally center on the complete shutout of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 -- with the entertainment elite declining an obvious opportunity to assert their identification with the left side of the political spectrum.

And this reluctance to celebrate the most unapologetically liberal film of the year may help the Academy avoid offending the majority who voted for President Bush, even while other Oscar nominations risk alienating that even larger segment of the public committed to faith-based values that have been needlessly ignored or assaulted by the most praised products of show business.