This month Lifeteen sent out an anti-DaVinci code book with their Liturgical planning aids, cds and beach balls. I put it in the bathroom at the Convent because that's where I know it will be read. I've gotten to about page 18 and have decided that it's pretty silly, overall. The bits and pieces which deal directly with the "facts" of the book are fairly vague, and try to steer the reader around the block without actually answering their own question (the book is written in a question and answer fashion). They say things like (and I don't have the book in front of me, as I don't blog from the bathroom, so you'll have to just go with me here) Q: what about that Opus Dei stuff about flogging yourself? Do they really do that? A: the flogging that Opus Dei members allegedly do is nothing compared to how hard we work out in the gym! See, suffering for the greater good isn't weird!
The rest of the Q/A's are even sillier, like Q:why did he write Sophie's character so wimpy? Which is about the authors writing style, or something else wayyyy beside the point. It's wasted time, reading this little pamphlet. I know there are lots of debunking books out there, I'm not sure who chose this particular one to send to Youth Ministers. I've read lots of blogs and websites about it, (Amy Welborne is obsessed..!) which worry and fret about the damage this fiction book is doing to the Church.
The problem, as I see it, isn't that Dan Brown wrote a bunch of crazy-but-almost-believable stuff in his book. The problem is that the Church has become an institution about which it's easy to believe... that is, it's not entirely unbelievable that... well, I mean, the Catholic Church has lied and hid really big deal things before! And we know how Big the Big lies were. So, if they'll hide and lie about such Big things as those, who's to say they wouldn't hide and lie about Jesus having kids with MM?
The problem, then, is not that people are trying to spread lies about he CC. It's that it's not hard to believe the lies. The Church, as I have heard the story, used to have an impeccable reputation. That's gone. It's not going to come back by criticizing a fiction mystery novel.
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1 comment:
Margo I am not normally a mystery tension type film fan. But all the hoopla had me curious. So after reading your blog I went to see DaVinci. I was sure I would see what all the fuss was about.
Still a mystery to me....not the plot that I figured out ten minutes into the film....but why the fuss? Its a little embarrassing.
Its no attack on Faith and no Oscar threat either! Jean Reno is as hunky as ever, stirring a bit of lust in my heart, perhaps the only sin of the whole movie.
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