I guess I'm going to have to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. According to Fox News, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a high ranking official in the Catholic Church, claims that the wide spread success of this novel proves that there is a large anti-Catholic sentiment out there. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150591,00.html
I gather that the main heresy in this book is the proposition that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had children. This topic has always caught my attention. Did Jesus marry? Is it completely out of the realm of possibility? And if he did...what does that change? Does it mean he can't be the only begotten of his father anymore?
I guess I just don't understand how buying and reading this book would make you anti-catholic. I haven't read the book, so I can't say a whole lot on it. But to me the whole stance this Cardinal is making on, " Don't buy it...Don't read it ", just kind of smacks of the old Church where nobody was allowed to even read the scriptures unless they were a priest. (or whatever the restrictions were) Is this yet another attempt by the Catholic Church to keep it's members in the dark? I am sure the Church has moved beyond that by now. Or have they? Not to be anti-catholic or anything.
14 years ago
4 comments:
You make a great point about the old church keeping parishioners in the dark. Luther also believed this (and so, eventually founded the Lutheran denomination).
Back then, only the priests could read Latin and all of the Bibles were written thus. The masses just had to take everything as gospel according to the priests' interpretations, and let's just say that absolute power corrupts absolutely - cue Luther and his common tongue translation (German) of the New Testament and eventually the entire Bible.
I'm amazed at the stir this book has created, especially since its author never claimed that it was anything other than fiction.
Good topic! Your blog is very interesting.
Raven,
Well, I would thank you for your comment, but I think your obvious hostility is out of line.
I will try to respond to your statement as best I can, point by point.
YOU SAID - Your knowledge of the Holy Catholic Church is obviously limited at best, and by your own admission, you have not even read the book.
First of all I'd like you to take notice that my post is mostly a question. I never presented myself as an expert on the Catholic Church, or the "book". I was hoping to get feed back from someone who might be enlightened on the topic. Can YOU tell me why this book is so "Dangerous" to the Church? Or haven't you read it either? In your haste to lambast me, and quote me scripture, you failed to address any of the questions I posed.
YOU SAID - The Church will not be refuted by a nonsensicle piece of fiction, that seems to be held up as holy writ by ignorant people such as yourself.
In my own opinion The Church has refuted itself plenty in its past without any help from a fictional novel. But, I'll refrain from commenting further on that, since the intention of my post wasn't to insult the Church.
And, who holds this book up as holy writ? Certainly not myself. Did I once make any such claim? Even the author makes the statement in plain english, that his novel is strictly fiction. Feel free to browse his home page, and read for yourself. http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html
I again have to ask: What is so dangerous about this FICTIONAL book that would cause such reaction from the Church? Don't they trust their membership to be able to read a book and form their own opinion and judgement in faith? One has to wonder if perhaps the book exposes something, or touches a secret nerve somewhere.
Finally, I have to point out that the ironic thing is; had the good Cardinal never made his fuss, I probably would have never read the book. Now I for sure will read it.
I think my favorite part of this post was reading your refutation back to Raven after your blog post!
...I forgot to mention, I loved the title of the blog AND I happen to believe that Jesus, a man whom we are taught contemplated everything he did to show us by example, did marry...I love the idea of it!
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