Posted on 05/02/2006 7:44:25 AM PDT by concernedAmerican1
Hanover, Pennsylvania – As the controversy around the upcoming Da Vinci Code movie grows, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign announced plans to hold 1,000 peaceful prayer vigils outside theaters nationwide beginning May 19.
“These public acts of reparation will literally blanket the country. From Alaska to Alabama, from California to Connecticut, dedicated volunteers are banding together for protest prayer vigils in front of movie theaters showing the blasphemous Da Vinci Code movie,” said America Needs Fatima director Robert Ritchie.
“Wrapped in Gnostic heresy, The Da Vinci Code is a broadside attack against the Divinity of Christ, the Papacy, and the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church,” continued Ritchie. “Together with the so-called gospel of Judas, The Da Vinci Code is outright blasphemy.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the highest ideal of moral perfection; any detraction from this moral perfection takes on a defamatory character, since it lowers and denies His unique and most excellent position as God-man.”
According to the TFP web site (www.tfp.org), protests are already scheduled in most major cities in the country. The group is also sending a protest instruction booklet to interested parties, which shows how to organize a protest.
Several Catholic bishops and priests have applauded a book published by the TFP, Rejecting The Da Vinci Code, including Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis.
“Interest is overwhelming. The phones haven’t stopped ringing. Catholics are joining in droves. We have protest leaders of all ages who are very devoted people: priests, college students, parents, and grandparents,” Ritchie explained. “They’re motivated because they realize that if our culture doesn’t respect the rights of God, it won’t respect its own leaders and fellow citizens.”
Referring to the woman who according to tradition wiped Jesus’ face on the way to Calvary, the TFP spokesman said: "Veronica is a good example for us to follow. She saw Our Lord wounded and bleeding, carrying the Cross. Her love for Jesus moved her to take her veil and wipe His face. God inspired her. What she did was heroic. Alone, she faced the guards to console Jesus. Today we have the chance to console Our Lord at hundreds of movie theaters, where He will be mocked again by blasphemy.”
Do you even care about blasphemy?
Are you even Catholic?
Fr. Andrew McCormick of Philadelphia, reminds us of St. Catherine of Sienna’s quote: “We had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues! I see that the world is rotten because of silence.”
He also reminds us that Pope Felix III said that not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, not to confront evil men, when we are able, is no less a sin than to encourage them.
“Whosoever shall confess Me before men, I will also confess before My Father, Who is in Heaven.” Matthew 10:28.
St. Jerome said that even dogs come to the defense of their masters and that he would rather die than remain silent as God is blasphemed. If brute animals defend their masters, how can we fail to stand up for our Creator and Redeemer?
Just as the Rosary is a battering ram for Catholics in fighting evil, the devil has one too…blasphemy. He uses it to break down men’s faith by constantly attacking the sacred persons of Jesus and Mary, whom we love. When the sacred is mocked time and time again, many grow tired of defending it and the sacred then diminishes in their minds. So, besides defending the honor of Jesus, Mary, and our Catholic faith, we have the obligation to fight blasphemy to boost people’s faith.
To rally protests against blasphemy shows other Catholics, who are tempted to think they are alone, that they are not alone.
Some say that protesting draws more people to see the blasphemy. This is not true. For example, the blasphemous sculpture of Our Lady of Guadalupe that was exhibited in Santa Fe, NM has not been heard from since the public protest that took place there.
Did Veronica worry about the publicity issue when she wiped Our Lord’s face during the Passion? She was concerned about the offense being made against Him and did everything in her power to alleviate His suffering. She wasn’t concerned about what people thought. She saw the object of her love, Our Lord, offended, attacked and suffering. She didn’t ask herself if she would be giving more publicity to the outrage being committed against Jesus Christ.
If to keep silent is the correct procedure, how Our Lord Jesus Christ must have erred in denouncing and chastising the blasphemers and scandalizers! How Holy Mother Church must have erred in following His divine steps during twenty centuries of glorious fight against all kind of errors and evils.
There is evidence suggesting film critics are swayed by the public’s perception of a play or film. When blasphemous films or plays are not met with a cry of public outrage, critics tend to write favorable or neutral reviews. On the other hand, when people speak out against blasphemous plays and films, critics follow suit.
St. Bernard teaches that all other sins are caused by human frailty or ignorance, but that sins of blasphemy come from the malice of the human heart.
You have people mediating between you and the virgin Mary?
( Lucia).
How many layers are there?
Ah, that is an assumption. What do you think anyway?
Guilt by association? I still can't see Marian Horvat "founding" the American TFP, since the TFP's all over the world only have male members.
See the link in post #6.
In the early 1800s a large portion of the Portuguese aristocracy fled Portugal in the face of the conquering Napoleonic armies.
The heir to the Portuguese throne officially moved the seat of the Portuguese monarchy to the colonial capital of Rio de Janeiro and proclaimed himself Emperor of Brazil.
He and his associates and relatives recreated an Old World style court and aristocracy in the New World and it had a profound cultural impact on Brazilian society - add to the royalty and aristocracy the fact that 75% of the Brazilian population lived according to the manorial system of tenant farmers and actual serfs and you have the society of medieval Europe replicated in miniature in 1820s Brazil.
It's also unusual to see a far right wing organization that blatantly supports the rich against the poor.
It's more complex than that - a TFPer will have greater respect for a cultured layabout who scrounges off friends and associates as long as he goes to Mass and can document his family connection to the Habsburgs than they will for a wealthy Catholic who built a multimillion dollar fortune in plumbing supply.
I don't recall saying anything about property or its confiscation, though there are a school of rightwing Catholics called "distributivists" who might disagree with you.
When I was in the JBS I was told the super-rich were secretly behind Communism. It's very unusual to find a far right group that condemns the poor instead.
It's more complex than that - a TFPer will have greater respect for a cultured layabout who scrounges off friends and associates as long as he goes to Mass and can document his family connection to the Habsburgs than they will for a wealthy Catholic who built a multimillion dollar fortune in plumbing supply.
They must be among those awaiting a temporal messiah (for which they condemn the Jews) among the Habsburgs.
I neglected one important point. To these particular kind of rightwing Catholics Catholicism seems inseparable from the European establishment. What do they make of the church of the martyrs before Constantine? Fundamentalist Protestants (and surprisingly, Malachi Martin) tend to look on that church as the purest while these TFP types barely seem to acknowledge its existence.
I'm sure the producers of the DaVinci code appreciate all the free publicity. I don't know about the rest of you, but when someone tells me I shouldn't see something, it makes me want to see it even more to find out why...
You are being afflatic. It was a simple declarative sentence with not a hint of assumption
Our Lady does use the Faithful for private revelations, revelations which are not binding upon any Christian
The book has sold 40 million copies, so I think that is kind of moot.
That's a very good point.
Ever heard of The Satanic Verses by Salmon Rushdie? You certainly wouldn't have it no Moslem had ever protested it...
Either way, we just have to accept that there are a whole lot of people in this country that consider the book good entertainment. I don't have a problem with that.
I still believe that all these protests and publicity are only going to help the movie's bottom line. As I mentioned before, I wouldn't have even considered seeing the movie before, but now I'm kind of curious as to what all the fuss is about...
There are not a few on the right who are monarchists. One would think reading Kings would disabusem them of that political "wisdom"
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