Posted on 03/10/2006 8:55:37 AM PST by presidio9
US Catholic bishops launched a stinging Internet counter-attack on the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code," ahead of the release of Ron Howard's film version in May.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a new website refuting key claims made in Dan Brown's novel that are likely to be brought to the big screen in Howard's movie, starring Tom Hanks.
"'The Da Vinci Code' is a mess, a riot of laughable errors and serious misstatements. Almost every page has at least one of each," the bishops wrote on the website Jesusdecoded.com.
"What this novel does (is) ... asks people to consider equivalent to the mainstream Christian tradition quite a few odd claims. Some are merely distortions of hypotheses advanced by serious scholars who do serious research. Others, however, are inaccurate or false," the site claims.
The bishops said the site was aimed at providing "accurate information on the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity" prior to the release of the movie.
It offers articles written by theologians, media commentators, art experts and others that "provide background and also rebut speculation and inaccuracies about Christ and the origins of Christianity," the bishops said.
But Monsignor Francis Maniscalco of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York denied that the website was a knee-jerk defensive reaction.
"Reporters have asked whether even a bestselling novel can seriously damage a Church of one billion believers. No, in the long run, it cannot. But that is not the point. The pastoral concern of the Church is for each and every person.
"If only one person were to come away with a distorted impression of Jesus Christ or his Church, our concern is for that person as if he or she were the whole world," he wrote.
Brown's novel, which has sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide, hinges on the theory that Christ married Mary Magdalene and that they had children, a fact that the church allegedly hid for more than 2000 years.
The movie version of the film, heralded as one of the major cinematic events of 2006, will star Hanks, French actress Audrey Tautou, and British actors Sir Ian McKellen and Paul Bettany.
I hope this movie implodes...........
From what I understand, if you want to take the book out of the library in either Brooklyn or NYC, you'll have to put it on reserve and wait quite a while. before you get it.
I pray with them.
"Reporters have asked whether even a bestselling novel can seriously damage a Church of one billion believers."
Its one and a half billion.
sharper, not shaper... typing with my fist this morning.
I haven't read the book, but does the author of this book try to say that this is fact?
Isn't this book just a work of fiction?
Jeesh....It's a novel for Christ sake.
Everything that's in The Code was in Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the 80's. It was claptrap then, it's claptrap now..........
Half a billion are Holiday Catholics.........
I understand one of their biggest complaints about the book is that the author asserts certainly things about the Roman Catholic Church and claims they are true while the Church says they are not.
They should document every item and use them as their talking points to show how the author committed slander.
The author asserts in the preface that all the evidence used in the book is factual. This is unusual, and it is a lie. If it were "just a novel" why would he go out of his way to do this.
And yet reporters don't seem to ask whether a bunch of cartoons can seriously damage a faith of one billion believers.
sake means purpose; motive; interest... :-)
You know, that brings up an interesting point.
You can't "slander" a dead person.
There isn't a legal precedent for "slander" against someone who rose from the dead. Then again, he did ascend afterward, so I guess that would technically make him dead again in Earthly terms. So "slander" wouldn't apply.
TS
It's Friday, it's lunch time. I'm blowing off steam.
I have read the book. It is fiction but a good read. I sure wish the bishops would have had the moxie to start a website protesting the pedophiac priests...that was NOT fiction. Where are their priorities? They need to look within not without.
I don't believe the Roman Catholic Church qualifies as a "dead person."
Whatever you call it, if he misrepresented something and claims it to be true, they should be able to prove him a liar.
It's a movie - fiction - entertainment.
This is silliness in it's grandest form. I would think that given the news of the last few years that Catholic Bishops would have more important matters to deal with ... I would think.
Probably the best thing that anyone could have said in the circumstances.
Hey...you and I think alike. Where were theses outraged bishops when the catholic hierarchy was shuffling child molesters from one parrish full of kids to another?
Get real...the book was fiction, the characters were fiction...the pedophiliacs were REAL.
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