The ugly old geezer sure gets around, don't he?
Something fer Dan Brown to think about, anyway.
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 ...
Reminds me of St. John Bosco’s dream: “The two columns in the sea.”
In May of 1862 St. John Bosco related a dream in which he described the Catholic Church as a large ship, being attacked on all sides by smaller ships, some of them trying to sink the large ship with “cannons, rifles, incindiary materials, arms of all kinds, and also with books.”
Two columns rose from the sea, one, a statue of the Immaculate Virgin with a sign: “Auxilium Christianorum-Help of Christians” and the other a Host of great size which had a sign “Salus Credentium-Salvation of the faithful.”
The great ship anchored to the two columns and all her enemies were afterward destroyed.
St. John Bosco afterward said this after asking what people thought of the dream: “The enemy ships are persecutions. The most serious trials for the Church are near at hand. That which hs been so far is almost nothing in the face of that which must befall. Her enemies are represented by the ships that tried to sink the principal ship if they could. Only two means are left to save her amidst so much confusion: DEVOTION TO MARY MOST HOLY and FREQUENT COMMUNION, making use of every means and doing our best to practice them and having them practiced everywhere and by everybody.”
I don’t think we should fold our arms and say “it’s just a movie, big deal.” All these things need to be fought against. I think that if you love Jesus Christ this is another affront to His Divinity. And we all need to speak out and fight against all of these things.
No, I watched The West Wing and The American President.
So, I know that Democratic/liberal Presidents are good and convervatives are evil.
The ugly old geezer sure gets around, don't he?
Something fer Dan Brown to think about, anyway.
Uh, Indians are not Arabs.
mmmmmm....thirteen.
He is a terrible writer. Danielle Steele and J.K. Rowling are better writers than he is, by far. I'm shocked his publisher didn't get a ghost writer to bring it up to a professional level.
He stole the entire plot from an earlier book.
Of course people's views are often formed from fiction, especially the under-educated, of which there are millions. Why do you think the communists tried to infiltrate Hollywood? Because fictional themes change minds.
The number of anti-American movies from Hollywood is in large measure why so many young people voted Democrat. They have lost their respect for American values because popular culture (often based on fictional themes) does not reflect them.
You get more wholesome culture, you get more patriotic, Americans. And religious themes operate the same way.
Its a prequel and its far more clear from reading it that its fiction than was true for the Davinci Code. Its also far more outrageous and negative toward the church.
So its a different question for the Davinci Code: with that book people could believe it was true. This is a question of whether the church should respond to fictional books that criticize the church.
I don;t see the point in that - its different than clarifying facts -clarifying facts was appropriate after Davinci Code.
I believe Padmi is East Indian, but your point is still valid
There must have been a problem in post-production - usually the Spring antiChristian movie comes out in time for Holy Week.
We went to see "The Da Vinci Code" opening day at a local theater. We got there way early because we thought that it would be mobbed. Guess what? The theater was virtually empty! I mean I'd be surprised if there were 30 of us in a theater designed to hold three or four hundred. After I saw the film, I could understand why --it sucked!
I never read The Da Vinci Code. But I did read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" back in the mid 1990's. HBHG had me on the edge of my seat until they hit "the punchline" -- that "Mary Magdalene & Jesus Christ married & had kids" -- then it was a huge "Ahhhh No!!!!", because that's just too stupid for words.
And yet, I've heard people I know go on & on about The Da Vinci Code as though it's valid theology and I just keep thinking to myself, "Are you nuts -- or just stupid?"
I still have a tattered old paperback of that kicking around somewhere - there used to be someone on the old Time Pathfinder boards who believed it as Gospel, so when I saw a copy at a library booksale, I pounced on it and read it. The authors needed a LOT more tinfoil. You know they sued Dan Brown, right? I never heard how it turned out.
In my head, that film was exactly what I was comparing "Angles & Demons" to.
When "The Last Temptation of Christ" went to video, our priest rented it and actually used for one our adult religion classes. There was so much hoopla about it, he figured better we look at it and deal with it in class as a group. We all came to the same conclusion on our own: "The Last Temptation of Christ" was a really fine film on the experience of what a mortal Christian suffers through in life, yet it bore absolutely no resemblance to our knowledge and experience of our Lord Jesus Christ & His Life."
It was a publicity stunt to promote both books. They and Dan Brown had the same publisher.
When I read HBHG there was zero publicity on it. I'm not sure where or how I got it, but the Masonic story had me enthralled. It was only when they got to the stupid premise -- about two thirds of the way in -- that I got ticked off because the idea of "protecting the kids & the bloodline" was just too dumb for words.
DVC was totally ripped from HBHG. I think there was even a lawsuit about it. But the HBHG authors lost, if I remember correctly.
There are times when Wiki is useful. On The Da Vinci Code:
Direct inspiration
The novel is part of the exploration of alternative religious history. Its principal source book is listed as per the court case, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince’s The Templar Revelation, as well as the books by Margaret Starbird. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (which is explicitly named, among several others, at the beginning of chapter 60), was stated by Dan Brown not to be amongst his primary research material for the book. Having paid acknowledgement to the above books as sources of inspiration, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code contains the overriding salient point in its plot: that the Merovingian kings of France were descendants from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. In reference to Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent (two of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail), Brown named the principal Grail expert of his story “Leigh Teabing” (an anagram of “Baigent Leigh”). Brown confirmed this during the court case. In reply to the suggestion that Lincoln was also referenced, as he has medical problems resulting in a severe limp, like the character of Leigh Teabing, Brown stated he was unaware of Lincoln’s illness and the correspondence was a coincidence. After losing before the High Court in July 12, 2006, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Court of Appeal.[4][5] Following the trial, it was found that the publicity had actually significantly boosted UK sales of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail[6]
Brown has reworked themes and characters from his own earlier novel Angels and Demons, specifically the main character, Robert Langdon.
European readers and critics noted some striking similarities between the “Da Vinci Code” and a Norwegian novel, “Sirkelens ende” (”Circle’s End”) by Tom Egeland, published in 2001 (two years before the Da Vinci code). Like the “Da Vinci Code”, “Circle’s End” involves an ancient mystery and a worldwide conspiracy, the discovery that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and an albino as one of the central characters. In both novels, the main female character turns out to be a living descendant of Christ and Mary Magdalene, and the daughter/granddaughter of the last grand master of a secret order. Many European readers have speculated that Dan Brown had plagiarized Tom Egeland’s book. Since the Norwegian novel has not been translated into English, it is generally assumed[citation needed] today that the similarities between the two books, although striking, are coincidental. The author himself, Tom Egeland, has in numerous interviews in European media dismissed the claim of Brown’s novel plagiarizing his own novel[citation needed], stating that the similarities just show that he and Brown more or less have done the same research and found the same sources[citation needed].
I'm pretty sure Frank Baum never claimed that any of that was true or that his story was the product of extensive research into the the land of Oz. Have you heard something I haven't.
That's because our liberal society confuses a religion like Catholicism (to which followers are required to profess their faith ever week at Mass) with an ethnicity like Judiasm or a culture like Shia. No one is born Catholic, and while one might profess to believe in Catholic doctrine, one can not actually call himself a Catholic unless he is actually following all of the guidelines to the letter on the law. It cracks me up the way liberal journalists these days describe someone as a "practicing Catholic." The term is as redundant as "a caucasian white guy." If the Church banned this film, virtually all of the "Catholics" who went to see it would be people who had no intention of setting foot in a church on any day that wasn't Easter or Christmas.
Of course the book is FICTION from Dan Brown's point of view. All of the main characters are his creations. And the list he provides does not account for the context that he employs historical facts in the story. For example, the so-called "Priory of Sion."
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