All right - I'm horrified.
Hide the women and children.
The continuing popularity of the Da Vinci Code says all sorts of disturbing things about western society today.
I had to read that piece of dreck for book club.
Among them, that we seem to have troubles distinguishing fact from fiction. And that's from the author, down to the reader an dthe critics.
To connect to a question I asked in another thread, how can we discuss these issues if this distinction is not allowed?
I was referring to Richard's entry
So what was that said about blessed are you when they jump ugly about you and cuss you out and say all manner of mess against you because of Me?
And we should be upset? It's On.
Well, if Elaine Pagels and Richard McBrien think it might be true, then there must be something to it. 
LOL
Where the heck does Fr. McBrian get off making the implacation that Mary is not a revered Saint in the Church? I mean, excuse me, but at what time in Church history has this woman ever been looked down on?
Pax
I read Brown's earlier book Angels and Demons and while it too is loaded with a lot of nonsense disguised and history, it does sadden me a bit that he chooses to write his novels based on such flimsy scholarship. He does have the writing talent to be a good thriller writer. Too bad he's wasting it with such crap.
I noticed two email addresses at the bottom of the piece. Why not give them a little taste of the St. Blog Treatment? Er, I mean bless them with truth and light.
You're right, Jim. And yet the book is selling & major networds see it as a ratings draw. Plus, the concepts in his book are quickly becomming as accepted as such nonsense as *Pope Joan* has been. And Brown's practices of using flimsy scholarship extend to the writers of such *non-fiction* as Hitler's Pope, Constantine's Sword, & the like. Irresponsible? Sure. Obviously. Accepted as journalistic practice by those who wish to do real harm to the Catholic Church? Oh, heck yeah!
The New Anti-Catholicism, indeed, Mr Philip Jenkins.
A few weeks ago Chris Matthews asked presidential candidate John Edwards to name his favorite novel. Edwards paused for a moment -- one suspects his inventory of books read is slight -- and muttered, "well, I've been reading The da Vinci Code and I like that...." The crowd applauded enthusiastically and Edwards grined from ear to ear like he got that tricky "literary" question right.
Favorite novel? What I would have given to ask what came in second? Left Behind? Protocols of Zion?
And this guy is being pushed as the next Bill Clinton! Okay, I can see that now.
Belive me, if I had the opportunity to set my horses heels on their faces, I most assuredly would. I've done more research to rebutt Brown than I think he duid to write his accursed novel. He not only used dubious sources, he introduced errors they didn't make, as in his account of the fall of the Templars. A guy who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and THE LAST SUPPER is a fresco needs a good verbal thrashing. Him and his "art historian" wife.
The Lie and the hour have found each other I suppose.
Hey Sandra -- The folks in book club who know this thing is dreck are arming ourselves with your Crisis magazine article.
BTW I have NO idea how the book was picked -- I missed that month. Anyway, we meet next Wednesday.
Have you written anything else we might use to correct the many folks we expect to show up at book club, eager to talk about all these new "truths" in the book?
Thanks.
Line Of The Week: "The Lie and the hour have found each other I suppose." Serious serious serious props to Sandra.......
Ditto, Gerard. Sandra, that *is* the Line of the Week.
"...her importance may have been grossly understated -- or, as some charge, purposely suppressed by the Church."
Wow, talk about paranoia. You can practically hear the Jesuits sneaking out of secret passages.
Perhaps next week, ABC will take on other "serious controversies": Did Catherine the Great copulate with a horse? Was Henry VIII secretly in love with Thomas More? Is it true that Stratavarius got its start when Nero played it to distract Roman peasants from his senseless domestic policies?
I think Opus Dei has replaced the Jesuits in popular imaginiation as the secret and evil arm of the Church -- as witnessed by its appearance in tDVC.
A much longer rebuttal is in the works from Carl Oslson which you can find at the Envoy site in Mark's links.
Even if Jesus and Mary Magdalen had been maried, even if, you still have the problem of preserving the bloodline. No Merovingian married a Jew and King Dagobert II left no heirs to continue the line in secret.(Brown doesn't even bother to tell you it's Dagobert II he's talking about). TRy THE FRANKS by Edward James.
The Cathars rejected the OT and their Christ had no real body so they wouldn't have cared about preserved the "holy blood" of David and Jesus. The Cathars practiced no sex rites inasmuch as their leaders were absolutely celibate. (Try THE CATHARS AND THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE by Michael Costen.)
The Pope did not destroy the Templars. It came at the intigation of Philip the Fair of France. Their ashes were not dumped into the Tiber inasmuch as the Pope then lived in Avignon. The Templars were unlearned and didn't invent Gothic architecture. (Good book on the myth of the Templars is THE MURDERED MAGICIANS by Peter Partner.)
Ancient paganism was very heterogeneous. It was not all Sun worhsip or goddess worship nor were sex rites that common. In the days when goddesses were part of the scene men waged war quite vigorously--how did Rome get an Empire, eh? (Try THE CULTS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Robert Turcan.)
There are no codes in Old Master Painters. Nobody but modern occultists seek the Grail in real life. (THE ARTHURIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA ed. Norris Lacy)
For the witch-hunt, see WITCHES AND NEIGHBORS by Robin Briggs. There were 30,00-50,000 executed at most and not all were women.
I speak in bibliographies in everyday life, too.
Thanks, Sandra (and funny last sentence).
Um, my knowledge of church history doesn't kick in until the 16th century or thereabouts, so forgive my ignorance.
Aside from any other criticisms I might have of this book and its influence, I simply do NOT recognise the form of gnosticism it is built upon - although I'm aware that gnosticism was never codified and so cannot be regarded as a set of fixed doctrines.
My question: I thought that gnosticism was largely built around a theory that the Christian God, known as the Demiurge, was thought to be a false god, BECAUSE he created the material world. The true God, a pure spirit, would have no truck with the material world.
Jesus, in some gnostic writings, represents the true God; in others, he is a damnable representative of the Demiurge.
But I have seen none of this in excerpts of the Da Vince Code; what's more, Sandra Miesel does not refer to it in either of the pieces (one written with someone else whose name I don't have handy) I have seen.
So what gives? Have I been misinformed?
I would appreciate comments from Sandra or anyone else.
You know its sad, the author's first book was very enjoyable until the last 50 or so pages. I had never heard of the guy before and bought the book because it sounded interesting from the description on the back. It was like a suspense thriller and a tour-guide through Christian Rome. The ending was very disappointing and I will skip this latest from him.
Just sent an e-mail to the two addresses at bottom of article and the response by both was that they are out of the office until Monday and to contact:
Alison Bridgman at (212) 456-3742.
(no e-mail address)
Not much time (Monday) to make much of an impression as in the Reagan hatchet job by CBS.
Oh jeez Sandra! Everything looks differently if you involve facts!
Maybe it was just a ploy to get Vargas to travel to Scotland, France and the Holy Land? I've always wanted to go to those places! Maybe I could write about called "The Blogosphere Code" about how Jesus's bloodline is secretly hidden in a series of Neo Rosicrucean blog-sites?
Sandra's such a killjoy 
Brown invokes Gnosticism a lot and his sources do more of that but never the Gnosticism known to scholars. For Brown and his sources, the Cathars are "The Church of Love", egalitarian, devoted to joyous rituals of fertility in honor of the divine feminine. (Yes, Cathars. Fertility?)
I found a neat quote from a Cathar perfectus burnt at the stake in 1310 who denounced the idea of the Incarnation because Christ (with his illusionary body) would never subject himself to being born of that disgusting thing, a woman.
Alias Clio, my historical knowledge gets spotty after 1500 but together we could rule the Sevagram!
Richard McBrien should have his tenure revoked for impersonating an intellectual. How terribly embarrassing to his "fellow" scholars.
I was outraged, but then I realized it will be on ABC, so no one will see it.
I am surprised not to see the Jesus seminar people listed as contributors to this nonsense.
There is reason to believe the Cathars practiced fornication, promiscuity, etc. It lies in this: if any form of sexual intercourse is wicked, it doesn't matter what you do if you can't manage perfect celibacy.
Not exactly what these people want.
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