Posted on 04/08/2009 7:54:05 AM PDT by presidio9
It was described as a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions”, a “masonic plot” and a “pot pourri of lies”. Now a nervous Vatican is braced for the sequel to The Da Vinci Code and the return of its nemesis, Dan Brown.
Angels & Demonsis the latest Brown thriller to be turned into a film, and already the Catholic Church is agonising over how best to respond: to urge the faithful to boycott the film, or to ignore it? The Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church condemned The Da Vinci Codein its book and film version, but some church officials argued that the campaign against it merely boosted the public’s curiosity by giving it the “oxygen of publicity”.
The plot ofAngels & Demonshas all the ingredients to worry the cardinals: a sinister elite known as the Illuminati wants to destroy the Vatican using an antimatter bomb made with material stolen from the physics experiment at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.
The film is to be released in Italy on May 13 and in Britain a day later, as Pope Benedict XVI finishes his tour of the Holy Land. A strong reaction is more likely because the antiDa Vinci campaign was led by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Archbishop of Genoa and now the Vatican’s Secretary of State – and as such the Pope’s right-hand man. Gianni Gennari, a leading theologian and a columnist for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, called on Catholics to boycott Angels & Demons, accusing the film-makers of “exploiting the Church to swell takings at the box office”. He said the film was part of a plot to undermine the credibility of the Church.
Archbishop Velasio De Paolis,
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I can handle fantasy thrillers that take artistic license, but that's not what this is.
It's an all-out assault on religion, the Catholic Church being an easy target.
I joined a secret society that’s so secret it has only one member. And I can’t tell you who it is ... that’s a secret.
Exactly. I don’t believe in munchkins and the Wicked Witch of the West.
Unless this film “Angels & Demons” is a whole lot better than the film version of “The Da Vinci Code” was, don’t think that the Vatican has much to worry about!
Gone are the days when the Vatican could ban a film, and really get a majority of Catholics to stay home. These days that banning just makes a film more exciting viewing as “forbidden fruit”
As Rushdi found, write a book where Islam is the bad guy and all you get is a Nobel Prize, an price on your head, and a quick trip to the Barnes and Noble dollar bin. As Brown found, write a book where the Vatican is the bad guy and you get millions in royalties, a fat film contract, and millions more in advances for the sequel. Which would you choose?
“And not very good fiction at that. The first book was more readable”
I found it very readable and enormously entertaining. BTW it is the first book.
There is a disclaimer at the beginning of my copy. Brown lists everything that really does (or did) exist and then makes a point that this book is FICTION.
I thought DaVinci Code was first.
We have a very active branch of Opus Dei in my suburb and these are the straightest arrows I've EVER encountered. These are the menches who go to work EVERY SINGLE DAY, pray all night long after prayers and chores and get up the NEXT MORNING and repeat. There are some devotions I have been told of (no personal experience) that are extreme by my standards, but in no way violent or harmful.
There is a house for unmarried or widowed women in a beautiful neighborhood where they live as a community. There is a beautiful building on the corner of the main street where the men and male youth study and do their “work of God”. These are not sociopaths in training. These are people who have picked up on their vocational call after they have lived their lives and feel as though they missed it the first time. They live in celibacy, they share as a community and they act as the “salt” of the earth. Sad that someone has to explain what Opus Dei is to an uneducated world.
I thought Angels and Demons first, then The Da Vinci Code. I could be wrong.
“Except for the fact that the snakeoil salesman “author” claims that the garbage he produces is all true.”
Well, for anybody who believes that, I want to tell them the “truth” about 911.
Because evil must be opposed. It’s our Christian duty.
To some extent I agree with you, though I do think the Church needs to rebut some of these charges. The problem that the Church is faced with today is that the majority of the population gets its information from popular culture. We have seen the damage this can cause, when most young people get their news from John Stewart.
The problem with the Dan Brown novels is that they are clever enough that some people assume there must be some truth there. In fact there is none. There is no evidence to substantiate a single thing about Magdalene or book burnings, or Church consiracies. All of it is 100% made up. But some of it does sound plausible. The result is that at least 1/3 of the population thinks that at least some of this is true. This is unacceptable. I wouldn't insist that anyone become a Christian, but at the same time I have a problem with someone believing outright lies. Its no different from believing in a 9/11 conspiracy.
Is that a huge scar on her arm?
A&D in 2000 and DVC in 2003. I thought both were good reads and both completely unbelievable. But I can suspend disbelief for fiction.
I think Da Vinci Code grossed around $700 million at the worldwide box office. It may not have been a very good movie, but it sure was profitable!
I agree completely. I reread them this summer back to back and it was well worth it. But, like you, I know what is real and what is not.
Actually, most of the charges in these books are against Christianity in general (whith some made to Jesus specifically). A few are against the Chatholic Church in particular. Because there was only on Church for 1500 years, it might give you comfort to think that only the Vatican needs to be defending itself here, but all Christian faith is assulted by these charges.
Apparently ... The lady’s name is Padma Lakshmi ... she seems to hide that arm in most paparazzi pictures, but it occasionally shows up. I’ve no idea what the story is.
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