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Ron Howard Fights Back: Producer responds to Catholic League's William Donohue
Christianity Today ^ | April 20, 2009 | Mark Moring

Posted on 04/20/2009 9:03:27 PM PDT by Alex Murphy

Catholic League president William Donohue has been dissing the upcoming Angels & Demons--the prequel to The Da Vinci Code--for a couple of months now, claiming the film to be a "smear" on the Catholic Church. For the most part, the filmmakers have taken the high road and remained silent.

No longer. In a measured but strongly-worded op-ed today in The Huffington Post, A&D director Ron Howard responds by saying that Donohue should essentially zip it till he sees the movie.

Howard writes that Donohue "is on a mission . . . to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic . . .

"Let me be clear," Howard continues. "Neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome. After all, in Angels & Demons, Professor Robert Langdon teams up with the Catholic Church to thwart a vicious attack against the Vatican. What, exactly, is anti-Catholic about that?"

Donohue has written a booklet, Angels & Demons: More Demonic Than Angelic (available for a $5 donation to the Catholic League), which he said that A&D "details the myths, lies and smears that are made against the Catholic Church [in A&D]. It also provides evidence of the anti-Catholic animus harbored by those associated with the film.

“Author Dan Brown and director Ron Howard are . . . obsessed with Catholicism. It is not enough to criticize it—they are hell bent on demonizing it. It is not enough to drag out dirty laundry—they invent it. And the fact that they pay absolutely no price for their propaganda shows beyond dispute that anti-Catholicism is the one

(Excerpt) Read more at blog.christianitytoday.com ...


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Religion & Culture; Skeptics/Seekers
KEYWORDS: catholic; opiecunningham
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"Mr. Donohue's booklet accuses us of lying when our movie trailer says the Catholic Church ordered a brutal massacre to silence the Illuminati centuries ago," Howard writes. "It would be a lie if we had ever suggested our movie is anything other than a work of fiction (if it were a documentary, our talk of massacres would have referenced the Inquisition or the Crusades). And if fictional movies could never take liberties with reality, then there would have been no Ben-Hur, no Barabbas, The Robe, Gone With The Wind, or Titanic. Not to mention Splash!

"I guess Mr. Donohue and I do have one thing in common: we both like to create fictional tales, as he has done with his silly and mean-spirited work of propaganda. "

1 posted on 04/20/2009 9:03:27 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Alex Murphy

Little Opie is a creep and he loves Obama and $$$$$$.


2 posted on 04/20/2009 9:04:57 PM PDT by Frantzie (Boycott GE - they own NBC, MSNBC, CNBC & Universal. Boycott Disney - they own ABC)
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To: Alex Murphy

Catholic white males: it’s open season. The last free-fire target group.

Let me tell you all something: when this group is pushed too far, the results are often not pretty.


3 posted on 04/20/2009 9:06:29 PM PDT by Travis McGee ("Foreign Enemies And Traitors" will be ready the first week of May.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Mr. Howard has done a fine job of spoiling any desire I might ever have to watch any of his work.


4 posted on 04/20/2009 9:07:39 PM PDT by FourPeas (I am the pink flamingo on the great lawn of life.)
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To: Alex Murphy

So when is Opie going to produce “The Satanic Verses”?


5 posted on 04/20/2009 9:24:50 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (Somebody stole my tagline)
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To: Alex Murphy

I’ll never again watch ia movie involving Ron Howard or Tom Hanks after their screening of a sacreligous and anti-Catholic movie “Da Vinci Code” or those who starred, produced and directed “The Last Temptation”


6 posted on 04/20/2009 9:25:14 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: Alex Murphy
I have an idea: If Ron Howard and Dan Brown are so interested in religious thrillers. Why don't they take on a fictionalized story about the profit Mohamed and his pedophilia, or he can take on the conquest of the middle east by the sword of Islam.

They are like all liberals: GUTLESS: They are not exactly brave taking on the Catholic Church. They have a tendency to turn the other cheek.

7 posted on 04/20/2009 9:28:12 PM PDT by Jim from C-Town
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To: Alex Murphy
"if it were a documentary, our talk of massacres would have referenced the Inquisition or the Crusades"

While ignoring:

The Persian massacre of 90,000 Christians during the siege of Jerusalem in 614 AD
The Muslim conquest of Syria in 637
The Muslim conquest of Armenia in 639
The Muslim conquest of Egypt, 639
The Muslim conquest of North Africa, 652
The Muslim conquering of Visigothic Christian Hispania (Spain) in 711 AD.
The Muslim siege of Constantinople 717-718
The Muslim conquest of Tbilisi, 736
The Muslim conquest of Southern Italy and the looting of the Basilica of Saint Peter in 846 AD.
The continued Muslim attacks on the Byzantine Empire which FINALLY led to the first crusade.

Funny how all we ever learn is about those evil crusaders who attacked the harmless peaceful Muslims...

8 posted on 04/20/2009 9:36:07 PM PDT by icwhatudo
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To: Jim from C-Town
"I have an idea: If Ron Howard and Dan Brown are so interested in religious thrillers. Why don't they take on a fictionalized story about the profit Mohamed and his pedophilia, or he can take on the conquest of the middle east by the sword of Islam.

RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Catholics and Christians are everyone's whipping boy because people know that Catholics and Christians won't respond with violence.

Catholics and Christians feed, cloth, heal and educate THE WORLD. All Muslims do is spread fear, death, oppression and misery. Let someone make a movie about that for once.

9 posted on 04/20/2009 9:42:27 PM PDT by Big_Monkey
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To: Alex Murphy
Ron Howard responds by saying that Donohue should essentially zip it till he sees the movie.

It is unreasonable for Mr. Howard to ask William Donohue (or myself for that matter) to zip it until Hell freezes over.

10 posted on 04/20/2009 9:57:58 PM PDT by DCBurgess58
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To: Travis McGee

Really well tell William Donohue to create his own movie.He can do it.What does he have to say.


11 posted on 04/20/2009 10:04:32 PM PDT by fatima (Free Hugs Today :))
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To: Big_Monkey

On target:

Excerpt from BXVI’s Regensburg Address:

“In the seventh conversation (edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...”.[4]


12 posted on 04/20/2009 10:05:19 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: Salvation; NYer; narses; A.A. Cunningham

ping


13 posted on 04/20/2009 10:06:50 PM PDT by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: Alex Murphy

I’d give anything to be given 5 minutes (I’m a “senior” now so it takes a little longer these days) to kick Opie’s goatsmelling, little Hollyweird ass. What a punk. Both of these “movies” are bogus but the general public still continues to believe EVERYTHING Dopie passes off as “the truth” in them. Not one iota of this crap is true. Tell that to the dumbasses that voted for Dumbobama and it’s just too far over their heads.


14 posted on 04/20/2009 10:30:22 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (So Orwell was off by 25 years! So what!)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

How far Opie Cunningham has fallen since The Music Man.


15 posted on 04/20/2009 10:34:37 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: aruanan

He acts like he was involved in a horrible car accident and suffered severe brain damage. He sure has it in for Americans these days.


16 posted on 04/20/2009 10:37:40 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (So Orwell was off by 25 years! So what!)
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To: Alex Murphy

I just wanted to add both the film and book versions of The Da Vinci Code were complete and utter crap. Inaccurate research, blatant misrepresentations, and just plain bad writing.

Ritchie Cunningham can kiss my tucus, too. He made Max Baer out to be a monster in Cinderella Man, and Frost/Nixon was BS of the first order. IMHO, he’s basically useless outside of a handful of decent films (Apollo 13, etc).


17 posted on 04/20/2009 11:27:48 PM PDT by DemforBush (Somebody wake me when sanity has returned to the nation.)
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"It would be a lie if we had ever suggested our movie is anything other than a work of fiction

That's not what Brown says about his books.

18 posted on 04/20/2009 11:32:10 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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To: Steelfish
I’ll never again watch ia movie involving Ron Howard…

Not only that, I boycott "Happy Days" and even "Andy Griffith Show" reruns on cable TV. No sense in giving him residuals.

…or Tom Hanks

My DVDs of Forrest Gump and Apollo 13 went through the shredder years ago.

19 posted on 04/21/2009 2:12:49 AM PDT by markomalley (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus)
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To: theKid51
ping

I will never go see a Ron Howard movie again.

20 posted on 04/21/2009 2:15:48 AM PDT by bmwcyle (American voters can fix this world if they would just wake up.)
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