Posted on 02/07/2006 11:26:40 AM PST by JZelle
Opus Dei, which has protested its portrayal in "The Da Vinci Code," has embarked on an image-polishing campaign that includes its own book, a report said. New York-based Opus Dei is portrayed as a secretive Roman Catholic organization in the book by author Dan Brown and movie set for release in May, in which fictional assassin Silas is an Opus Dei monk.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I'd just love to see these 'credible sources'. There may be some possibility that in a backwards culture someplace in the world, (where culture is mixed in with relgion), that something like this could occur. But I think it's just more anti-Catholic b.s.
I see that, but I can't parse the logic of it all. I'm Jewish and it offends my sensibilities. If he wanted to give credence to the gnostic gospels, so be it, but he deliberately goes out of his way to describe a pretty hinky sex scene that the niece forgives him for. Huh? It's trash.
Self-flagellation originated in the ancient Jewish tradition, in fact they used to beat their chests with stones. There is a small trace of this practice still seen in the tratitional Catholic Latin Mass, where the congregation lightly tap their chests three times during the 'mea culpa', (through my fault, through my fault, through my grevious fault). But it's highly doubtful that any Catholic is engaging in an abusive form of self-flagellation, it's just another ridiculous story circulated for the benefit of the ignorant.
I think most people today would regard ANY self-flagellation as bizarre, even if it didn't cause physical harm. But some of the more extreme reports of Opus Dei members' activities include blood-spattered walls in rooms where they have been self-flagellating.
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