Posted on 03/09/2006 3:56:22 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
ENCINITAS, Calif., Mar. 9 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Da Vinci Outreach, a national initiative to expose the anti-Catholic lies in the upcoming movie The Da Vinci Code, is joining the request made by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights for director Ron Howard to clearly state that his film is a work of fiction.
This week, the Catholic League ran an ad in the New York Times (http://www.catholicleague.org/linked%20docs/Da_Vinci_ad.htm) calling on Ron Howard to have the decency to do what Dan Brown, author of the novel, did not do: declare up front and in no uncertain terms that the movie is fiction. The letter written by William A. Donohue, President of the Catholic League states: "As the director, you have a moral obligation not to mislead the public the way the book's author, Dan Brown, has. Putting a disclaimer at the beginning of the film noting that this is a fictional account would resolve the issue."
Da Vinci Outreach, a coalition of Catholic organizations, is also requesting that Ron Howard include what many books and movies contain—a simple disclaimer that his film is a work of fiction.
"When there are references that could be confusing for moviegoers the customary way to deal with the confusion and eliminate offense is to clearly state that the people and events depicted are fictional," said Matthew Pinto coalition member and president of Ascension Press. "Disclaimers are commonly used in books and movies."
Da Vinci Outreach (www.DaVinciOutreach.com) was established to help readers and moviegoers do what the movie’s trailer hypocritically urges viewers to do: "Seek the Truth." It offers resources to help viewers navigate between fact and fiction, including the book The Da Vinci Deception: 100 Questions and Answers about the Facts and Fiction of The Da Vinci Code.
"Dan Brown weaves a story around so-called ‘facts’ most of which can easily be disproved with a quick Google search. He does all of this under the umbrella of free speech and completely disregards the fact that with this right comes responsibility as well. But he had to rely on a lot of untruths because, in his case, they make more money than the truth," said Da Vinci Outreach spokesperson Dr. Pia de Solenni, formerly director of Life and Women’s Issues at the Family Research Council.
The numerous factual errors in The Da Vinci Code include:
• That a secret society, the Priory of Sion, kept the "untold truth" about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The fact is, this tale has been exposed as a hoax concocted in the 1950s by an anti-Semitic Frenchman who was sent to prison for fraud.
• That Opus Dei is an evil "religious sect." In actuality, it is an official Catholic organization founded to help laypeople (it has no monks) seek holiness in their daily lives.
• References to "the Vatican" eleven centuries before it even existed.
• That the book (and hence the movie) is based on documents that are factual. The truth is there is not a hint of historical evidence for its claims.
What Davinci Outreach and the Catholic League are requesting of Ron Howard is merely a customary statement such as this: "This is a work of fiction. All information is the creation of the author's imagination. All persons, alive or dead, or events portrayed or depicted in this story are fictional and any resemblance to real people, organizations or incidents is purely coincidental."
Now, that would be the truth.
The more the Catholics whine, the more people are going to be interested.
There are very few people in America who believe the book is a historical narrative or that the upcoming film is a documentary.
Ron Howard always seemed like a nice guy, he should do what is asked ogf him, although I dont know why he made this crap into a movie to begin with ,except it probably will make money.
Does ANYBODY think this isn't fiction? If so, they're so dumb and so few, it's not worth worrying about.
Do you suppose the Catholics will blow up the theaters? Try to chop off the heads of the people who made the movie? Slit the throats of anybody who watches it? Call for the murder of the author?
You know the old story, tell a lie often enough...
Are the new age circles going to influenced by this press release or even by a disclaimer at the start of the film?
Gimme a break. The article posted here doesn't even address that premise.
It addresses things that it considers "factual errors".
Don't confuse the premise with the particular "facts" offered up in support of it.
You can take any premise widely regarded to be true and make up a bunch of false facts in support of it. That doesn't make the premise any less true or false.
Likewise, you can take a false premise and selectively offer true facts in support of it.
It doesn't change a thing.
That's what gets me. Why Ron Howard would make this?
Tom Hanks seems like a nice guy too? Why on earth would he choose to do this film, except maybe that it's a Ron Howard film?
Maybe because the book is one of the biggest best sellers in history and Howard thinks the movie might be a hit? He could use one.
You must be kidding.
I don't know anyone who thinks the book is a history book. Everyone I know who read it thinks it's a fast-paced novel.
It may or may not have played fast and loose with the facts, according to them, but none of them believed the narrative was anything but fiction.
Maybe we hang out in different crowds.
I know even some Catholics who think it's true. Not "newspaper" true, but "he switched it around a bit to protect himself but we all know it's true" true.
I don't remember seeing anything in the book that hasn't been researched and written about before - some of it - the possible marriage of Jesus and MM - that has been postulated for centuries. And there are many books and much research done and published LONG before Brown's book.
I have read and researched much of what is in the book for decades - and much that there wasn't room for in one book - that supports much of what is.
the Catholic Church DID, fact, vilify MM as the harlot of the Bible, slandering her so some hundreds of years AFTER Jesus...the better to submerge and discredit her. (ever ask Why?)But there is not one reference in the Bible that points her out as the harlot. The Church finally admitted it, after hundreds of years - in the 1950's.
It seems much of the vilification of Brown's book is part of the ageless dance of the churches trying to protect their power, money and glory - hundreds of thousands have died for that - and science was held back for hundreds of years. 500 years ago, to dabble in science or mathematics was to court fire at the stake.
and before someone wants also to judge me and start flaming - I Count God as my Father and Jesus as my Brother - and don't know how anyone can get from one day to the other in this violent, judgmental world without a firm faith in them and their protection. I just happen to rely more on what Jesus, Himself, said and taught than the churches and their potentates...
It's no surprise some churches, particularly the Catholic Church, objects to this book and movie. If people do further reading and research, they'll find out that Brown didn't get his story out of thin air. There are dozens and dozens of books and scholarly treatises written over hundreds of years. Much has, in centuries past, been systematically burned and destroyed. That wont work now.
Do the research yourselves - (Google the main postulations and personages -) make up your own mind, either way. Don't be religious sheeple...
People should do some independent research and study - there's a plethora of material on the subject(s) covering material for the past 2000 years.
Do "A GOOGLE" on the characters and postulations in the book - Brown didn't get his 'ideas' out of thin air.
An aside: The churches, down thru' the ages, has payed 'fast and loose' with the facts - consider the deep differences between the Christian churches - all from the same book. Maybe before they castigate Brown and Howard, they should get their own houses in order. Still, it IS a novel - Brown never said it was anything else.
If we are so insecure, unintelligent and easily led that we need writers, producers, etc to bow and scrape and explain and apologize, then we are, indeed, in deep doo doo as a people. Might as well be the Dark Ages again.
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