Da Vinci Code Countdown
There are two types of Catholic bloggers. Those with dignity. And those who discuss the Da Vinci Code.
This post places me in the latter group. But as someone who has written about both anti-Catholicism and the things Catholics do that prompt legitimate suspicion and questions, it’s worth noting that this week the most popular novel in history — that’s right, in history, with over forty million copies in print — receives the full Hollywood treatment. I recommend this thoughtful piece by the new San Francisco archbishop, George Niederauer, as well as the more acerbic commentary in the New Yorker by David Denby on the broader problem of Catholics in contemporary film. The quality of The Da Vinci Code The Movie is anyone’s guess, although Audrey Tatou’s presence has already made me reconsider my once giddy enthusiasm for her oeuvre. Isn’t the cultural history question this: how did the most popular novel in history, which posits a ludicrous (yet epic) conspiracy protected by the Church, take off in the most “Christian” of industrialized nations?
Harry Attridge, distinguished New Testament scholar and Dean of the Yale Divinity School spoke at Boston College and deconstructed the Da Vinci Code.
After the talk two undergrads were quoted as saying: well, he poked some holes in it, but there still must be something to the cover-up.
Wait until they actually SEE Mary Magdalene fleeing to France.
We may be living in a time of the great Johannine inversion: “Blessed are they who have seen and yet believe!”
There is really very little to be done about “The Da Vinci Code,”and so I am having a hard time understanding why Christians, and especially Catholics, are getting all twisted over it.
Blasphemy — if in fact there is blasphemy in it — is not ours to worry about. That sort of thing is in the hands of God. Thank God we are not Muslims! Thank God the bizarre animus felt over those silly Danish cartoons is quite foreign to us.
Offense is something that we Christians, truly so called, ought to be used to dealing with all the time. And the response that Our Lord taught us is, not to demonstrate and boycott and get our lawyers to bring suits, let alone burn down embassies, but to turn the other cheek.
Falsification, mischievously done, whether deliberately or in ignorance, always deserves to be confronted. Fortunately, over against that, the Church has always proclaimed the Gospel, and usually proclaims it truly. Still, this should be a wake-up call, that we can always do lots more to improve our understanding of the Scriptures, early Christian literature, Church history, and the history of Christian doctrine.
Archbishop Niederauer does a pretty good job of dealing with some major falsehoods in the DVC. On one of these at least, though, I am afraid he wobbles: on whether Jesus, or any of his disciples, were married, or engaged in any kind of sexual relationship.
The DVC is right to say that it was assumed of all Jewish men that they would marry, and that it would have been very unusual if a Jew did not marry. (It probably overstates this, though, to insist that it would have been impossible for a Jew to remain unmarried.)
The Archbishop is wrong to say, simply, that Jesus did not marry. In fact, the NT sources are not conclusive at all here. Jesus, by the time of his ministry, could have been a widower. Or he could have been still married, but left his wife at home in Galilee. Or one of the women who followed along after the disciples was his wife, only she is never identified as his wife. He could have been a father. But then, yes, he could always have been single, and even a virgin.
(And then there is a possibility that few are willing to contemplate: that Jesus was open to homoerotic relationships, and that his relationship with the Beloved Disciple, of the Fourth Gospel, may have been of that nature. But in fact that is irrelevant to the question of whether Jesus was married to a woman. Many men in antiquity had both wives and male lovers.)
In fact this may be one of the benefits the DVC is bestowing, hopefully along with making us look closely at certain masterpieces of Western European art: encouraging us to think about the sexuality of Jesus. It is fascinating, why it seemed totally unnecessary to the Evangelists to say anything about it. But then, certain of our very learned teachers nowadays are insisting that we must pay attention to “the historical Jesus,” if we really want to know Jesus; and in that case, we shall have to get some idea, one way or another, about his sexuality.
Cradle Catholics truly will never understand the fascination that Protestants have with Catholicism and its mysteries, a fascination that has fuel gothic novels many times in the past.
Didn’t anybody else have to read Mrs. Radcliffe or Matthew Lews’ “The Monk” in college?
The 18th century was full of bad novels in which good C of E writers enjoyed scaring the hell out of themselves by imagining the dark doings in a monastery..
I’m sick of hearing about it, and I truly don’t know why Catholics feel the need to even comment on it.
Attridge has an excellent one-page piece on the Da Vinci Code in the latest Yale alumni magazine.
I still don’t understand why so much energy is being expended by Catholics, including the Bishops Confernece, over this movie. It seems to me the more they talk of boycott and banning the more successful the movie will be. Is Catholicism that fragile that it needs all of these self appointed defenders?
Meanwhile, don’t miss the cheesy self promotion happening over at Amy Wellborn’s blog site (http://amywelborn.typepad.com/). For some reason the self-important Wellborn is anticipating a flood of new visitors to her site just as the movie is about to premier, and so she is hawking her books like a cheap Bible salesman. She has even threatened to post chapters of a novel she is writing with the hope that a publisher will notice her. I think the Da Vinci Code delusion has finally caught up with the poor soul.
She and others who are raking in the bucks with books that prove the fictional Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction are, of course, highly critical of all the money Dan Brown has made off the Catholic Church. Curious, isn’t it?
IProf:
Cheesy Welborn here.
Thanks for the kind words.
I am anticipating new readers. Yeah, it happens.
Let me alert you to some basic facts, IProf:
I am a writer of books published by the Catholic publishing world. The Catholic publishing world does not, as a rule, promote books. They send out a few postcards when a book is published, and then basically forget about it as soon as they earn their expenses back. So most Catholic authors have the burden of getting the word out about their books and keeping it there. My blog is basically my only means of doing that – it is, I freely admit – one of the purposes it serves. I never ask people for money to “support” my blog. I have no paypal donation button. So, yes, I use that space into which I put several hours of work a day to help me sell my books – which are books about matters like saints, prayer, helping teens understand faith, helping young adults connect with Christ.
And the truth is, with a piece in USAToday today, I am anticipating new readers, so again, no apologies for saying hello to those readers and introducing myself.
Those of us who are out here doing pastoral ministry of one sort or another are very aware of the questions and opportunities DVC has raised. The questions I get at talks I give are heartfelt, confused, and serious. Read the article I quote on my blog today from the priest in Pittsburgh. People are asking questions. Their questions often reveal a real gap in their understanding.
You all can sneer at people like me if you like, but if I can use my blog to help people who’ve perhaps never thought about it, for example, contemplate the imagery of the *real* Bride of Christ, and its implications for everyone of us…I am not ashamed of that.
My work on DVC, which I pray hard will be coming to an end soon, is a response to those questions. I’m a teacher. When people ask me questions, I answer them. It’s called the charitable thing to do.
And if it bothers you, don’t read it.
The most interesting piece of news I have come across about reactions to the DVC was a story carried, I think, by the AP or a like service that some Christians in Mumbai (Bombay) were planning to “fast to death” to protest the insult to their beliefs and also planned to burn an effigy of Dan Brown but were prevented by the police. They had to be content to burn some pages from the book. There was also a hint that they wanted to make the point that unlike a certain other excitable group they were not rioting or destroying property. I found this story charming and the comparison telling. I do hope they do not overdo the fasting bit.
There is something that makes me uneasy generally about fiction that hints at being history and the DVC seems to be major offender in this respect. I do not understand why any one who recognized the DVC for what it is would want to read it, unless perhaps out of professional or clinical interest. But I am appalled by the thought that so many are so ignorant as to take the DVC to be anything other than what it is, a work of fiction designed to delude the gullible and beguile the foolish in the hope of making money by selling as many copies as possible. Another case of good old American marketing technique at work.
Unfortunately ignorance fortified by suspicion is not easily overcome, and some of the clergy have a credibility problem and are gapingly uninformed themselves. I gather that certain of the clergy in my diocese are of the opinion that Raymond E. Brown S.S. was a dangerous modernist. I shudder to think at how they came to this “thought”.
We are told that Simon Peter had a wife and it is a fair assumption that most of the other disciples were married as well. There is no evidence that Jesus was married, and in fact there is no evidence that would serve as basis for drawing conclusions about his sexuality, except of course that he was a man and we are told that he was human in all respects except for sin. Anyone who wants to know more may well have to wait to meet him face to face. The evangelists were not biographers and did not write to satisfy our curiosity about many things which we would like to know. The painters of the Renaissance are not useful for answering these questions, although in their work they may reveal a good deal about their own sexuality.
It is probably true that most Jewish men of Jesue time married, but that does not count as evidence. The same applies to John the Baptist. Most Athenian men of Plato’s time also married. Nevertheless we have no evidence that Plato every had a wife and given that there is a considerable biographical tradition about his life it seems unlikely that, if he had a wife, there no indication of it has survived. When there is no evidence, it is best to put fancy aside.
Actually, iProf didn’t say Amy Welborn was cheesy, he said there was “cheesy self-promotion” going on over at her site.
Welborn herself, said iProf, was “self-important.”
He also spelled her name incorrectly, with two L’s.
In any case, I think his point was that any number of people making a cottage industry out of refuting “The DaVinci Code,” all of which helps promote the book, more questions, on and on vicious circle.
I’m sick of it. So why am I even posting on this thread? Probably just to egg on the argument. How low-rent. I’ll shut up now.
So, Jean, what do you suggest?
If a pastor has, for three years, been dealing with the issue among his parishioners – if it’s been a question that comes up regularly, and if he senses that here might be an opportunity to do some catechesis, what should he do?
Tell everyone to get over it?
Or should he seek out resources that might help his parishioners? Where will those resources come from? Thin air? MIght there be a need for people to, you know, write them?
I fail to see what the problem is, and why you have such contempt for people who are working with this moment to help adult Catholics learn more about Scripture and Christian history.
“If it bothers you don’t read it.”
Dan Brown’s response to people like Amy Welborn who criticize his book.
And
Amy Welborn’s response to people like Iprof who criticize her blog’s response to the book.
Oh Well.
I think John McGreevy’s question is the right one to ask: how did the most popular novel in history, which posits a ludicrous (yet epic) conspiracy protected by the Church, take off in the most “Christian” of industrialized nations?
It’s actually kind of funny, when you step back and look at the whole thing.
By the way, for any one who wants an accessible and free debunking of the Da vinci Code, Fordham’s Center for Ethics and Culture has posted their transcript of the session they did on it.
http://www.fordham.edu/Academics/Programs_at_Fordham_/Center_on_Religion_a/Fordham_Center_on_Re/index.asp
Harry Attridge, who is, as Bob Imbelli said above, the Dean of Yale Divinity School and an extremely distinguished scripture scholar has one of the pieces. It’s not only erudite, it’s short, clear and readable –and polemic free.
Wow, Cathy…implying that my book isn’t polemic free? Have you read it?
In addition, you seem to be implying that I’m engaging in doublespeak, since I say people who don’t dig my blog to not read it, and am currently engaged in work related to DVC.
I’ll explain the difference:
Actually, there’s no difference. People have the right to write and read what they want. My work is for (wait for it) people who have *read* DVC and have *questions about it*.
What is the problem with answering those questions? I would certainly (and have, in almost everything I write about DVC) advise people to not bother with the thing, and if they’re really interested in the nexis of faith and literature to try O’Connor, Greene, Waugh, Dostoevsky, Spark, Moore, Dubus, Lodge, Percy, Updike, instead. If you want a film that grapples with it, try The MIssion or The Apostle or The Decalogue or some Bergman.
But if people have read it, and are asking questions about it – why not answer those questions? I fail to see why that effort to, say, encourage adult Catholics to let the Gospels to be the starting point for their understanding of Jesus rather than a novel, is the object of scorn here.
Well, Amy, you paint quite a picture of how dumb Catholics are, which suggests that you’ve got quite as much contempt as I do.
Do you really mean to argue that 2,000 years of church teaching can go down the tubes because a pulp fiction mystery writer says Jesus Christ had kids?
That three years the “DVC” has been in print and the priests still can’t persuade people it’s JUST A STORY?
That our catechism has been developed with the help of Scripture and scholarship over centuries and we still need to, you know, write some “resources” to explain that Jesus and Mary Magdalene weren’t involved?
Take your “resources” on the road by all means! It’s a free country, and I have no right or interest in muzzling you up.
But I refuse to believe that Catholics are so stupid that they need to have this stuff refuted. And I further refuse to believe that all the “resources” refuing “DVC” aren’t keeping the doubts and speculation alive.
“If it bothers you don’t read it.”
Dan Brown’s response to people like Amy Welborn who criticize his book. and
Amy Welborn’s response to people like Iprof who criticize her blog’s response to the book.
The two situations don’t seem parallel to me.
1. Dan Brown’s book presents ludicrous theories as if they are true. Amy Welborn’s factual disagreement with Brown is therefore justified. But Iprof’s response to Welborn’s blog in no way represents a factual disagreement; it merely expresses a somewhat catty viewpoint as to matters of taste (i.e., how often an author is allowed to mention her book on her own blog).
2. Dan Brown’s book has already sold something like 40 million copies (right?), and is causing a great many people to ask a lot of provocative questions about the history of the faith. It’s not at all satisfactory to be told that if you object to wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing about the Church, you just shouldn’t read it yourself. Instead, it might be useful for some people to have a ready answer for the questions that Dan Brown has already caused millions of people to raise.
Amy Welborn’s blog does not have millions of readers, and is not the subject of an expensive and star-studded movie. It is not a general topic of conversation in newspapers and on major networks. I doubt that there is any need for iProf to feel that he has to have be able to discuss the Welborn blog when his co-workers or neighbors start talking about it.
I haven’t read your book.
But from your comments on this thread, I would infer that it was quite polemical in tone. And I am sure your book isn’t free. And that you’re not Harry Attridge.
Friends,
Could it be possible the popularity of Brown’s book is a symptom of theological failure, rather than just an indication of people’s interest in “ludicrous theories”? I suggest that two theological failures are revealed by the popularity of the book. First, even if the story of Jesus that Brown gives is “ludicrous,” the willingness of millions of people to buy the book knowing what they will find in it suggests that many of them are not content to limit their explorations about Jesus to the New Testament. This then forces churches to raise an issue that they perhaps considered settled; namely, in what ways should the accounts about Jesus and his followers found in the NT be considered authoritative (what makes one fiction better than another)?
The second failure concerns the soteriological significance of the incarnation. If millions of people are willing to read about Jesus that is said to be “only” human, perhaps there is not clear reason to believe that he was “more” than human. Of course, this is what Christians believe, right? But the popularity of the DVC reveals that the churches may have rested too comfortably on the history of orthodoxy. People are not content to believe things just because the churches have affirmed them for a long time. Fresh reasons must be given for the importance of such central theological doctrines.
Lot’s of people are saying the Brown’s book is providing a teaching moment. I hope that the teaching moment does not focus on the implausibility of Brown’s narrative, and instead addresses the longing for good theology that the popularity of the book suggests is going unmet.
This is so sad what I read here… I am a convert from 1999. Yes, to any of you that think all Catholics know their faith, I actually had to explain doctrine to many cradle Catholics before I even converted. Now see all this discourse…. who do any of you think is behind this? Well, you may make fun of me also, but Satan is real and up to his old tricks, again. Thank you Amy Wellborn, I read your column today in the USA Today this morning at breakfast, nicely written and easy to understand. Before any of you criticize someone trying to save your soul PLease, Please take the time to know your faith, not what “you” think it should be.
Stuart is absolutely right. I made a snide comment about Ms. Welborn’s blog that lies outside of the scope of the topic here. I should have exercised more self-control.
What actually interests me in all this desire to “minister” and “answer questions” which the troubled faithful may have about the Da Vinci Code is the underlying presupposition that Catholicism is always under attack and needs defending. Some Catholic bloggers actually refer to themselves as apologists. This goes to the question Jean raised. So it is not just a matter of presenting information for those who do not know better.
I believe bloggers like Ms. Welborn really do see themselves at some level as “defenders of the faith.” To that extent she is not unlike the Cardinal Newman Society and the Catholic League which both plead endlessly for a particular view of Roman Catholicism that they wish to promote. If that view is challenged or if anything is written that may call it into question, then these individuals feel obligated to set the record straight.
Why they should be the ones to do it raises yet another series of interesting questions about their credentials for such a role. Do they have some kind of ecclesial mandate to defend the faith as they do? Are they always accuarate in the defense they offer? Are such blogs, societes, and sites becoming their own alternate magesteria? Is there a need for something like by Ex Corde Ecclesiae for Catholic bloggers? Should there be some kind of episcopal oversight of these blogs, which are multiplying daily? After all, these bloggers claim to be representing the truth of the Catholic Church, and they frequently target individuals, such as theologians, whom they feel are not in union with the Church. As they want theologians and otehr Catholic authors, etc. to be regulated shouldn’t they also submit to such regulation themselves?
And so I believe there are larger issues here, and that the whole Da Vinci craze is not just about providing answers to questions among the unwashed.
A few thoughts.
1. Iprof. I know Amy Welborn. Amy Welborn is a friend of mine…and you are no Amy Welborn.
2. I’ll second Stuart Buck’s response. Thank you for one of the few thoughtful, charitable posts in this thread.
3. At the risk of incurring one of Grant’s admonishments for indulging in one of my “left-right tropes” it’s nice to see that Catholics on both the left and right have at least one thing in common; namely, an irresistible tendency to eat their own. Keep up the good work guys. This is just the kind of intellectually bracing conversation I have come to expect from “Commonweal Catholics.”
There is only one Roman Catholic Church teaching that of the Magisterium, Tradition and the Catechism of the Catholic Church no more no less. We do not pick and choose we then become Protestant. I know I came from Protestantism, the Truth is the Roman Catholic Church. To be deep in history you cease to be Protestant. If any one has a problem with any of the teachings please pray to the Holy Spirit he will lead you to Truth!
Actually, Greg, I had been delighted to see you avoid the Left/Right trope for points one and two, but confusing Commonweal Catholics with either of those constitutes a category mistake.
And Robin: the truth is not the Roman Catholic Church. That’s actually not something the magisterium teaches. If you’re going to lecture cradle Catholics on doctrine, that’s an error worth avoiding.
“Time is out of joint….”
IProf,
I see you’ve backed off a bit while I was posting my last response, but not by much.
The idea that Amy’s work (or any of the work of other Catholics that you fail to have either read or bothered to attempt to understand) is part of a drive to set up some kind of alternate magisterium is laughable.
Amy’s book, or for that matter, Carl Olson and Sandra Meisel’s, or Mark Shea’s work on the same, is not about setting up an alternate magisterium. It is about fulfilling VII’s called for an empowered, educated laity. The very people Commonweal Catholics ought to be celebrating–informed, dedicated lay Catholics doing real work of preaching and teaching real people in the pews–are the very people you are trying to deface with your paranoid brush.
Alternate magisterium my eye. That’s just code for “I fear what I don’t care to understand.”
And one last thing, in another thread, several folks beat into submission one poster who had the audacity to post with an nomme de guerre instead of posting under his actual name. What gives? How do you rate special immunity Iprof?
Consider yourself called out.
As Robin, my fellow convert, suggests, I’m going to go have a time out with the Holy Spirit and stay off the posts until my radiator cools off.
However, as far as I can see, nobody on this thread thinks is defending anything Dan Brown has said. Neither is anyone criticizing church teaching (just the way Amy Welborn defends it, which is a whole different thing).
So I will continue to wonder (offline) why some Catholics feel it is so necessary to Dan Brown’s stupid book.
Greg:
Well, even you have to admit that your description of these bloggers fdoes nto account for the more vitriolic elements of their blogs, which I do read regularly. Do I need to go chapter and verse through them for you or can you recall the things they write about Cardinal Mahoney, Joan Chttister, Richard McBrien, to name a few. Is this just an educated laity teaching according to the norm of VII. Have you ever participated in Ms. Welborn’s “Tell me what you heard” sarcastic review of Sunday presiders and homilists? What part of the charitable tradition you champion does that come under. Please spare me the empty lectures and defenses of the indefensible.
Grant,
I am pleased to be a source of joy for you. It’s what I do best, you know. But you need to check you meds if you honestly think that Commonweal doesn’t lean left. I love you guys. Believe it or not, I really do. And I am not suggesting you are, say, Call to Action left (well, not exactly) but you aint exactly First Things (which you would have no problem admitted leans right, I would imagine.)
But sure, I’ll play along. Let’s return to a previous question Maggie asked. What exactly is a Commonweal Catholic? Well, from this side of the screen, it sure like a Commonweal Catholic is a Catholic who values social justice, is sympathetic to homosexual marriage and adoption (seen as a social justice issue), is pro-life (in their own way), pro soft-core euthanasia (e.g your agitation against Terri Schiavo and silence on Andrea Clarke) and is opposed to Church teaching on contraception and most issues regarding sexual morality. I’m not exactly describing the Wanderer, now, am I?
Someone like me on the other hand, or Amy, or Mark, who values social justice, is opposed to the death penalty, actively questioned (and questions) the justness of the war, promotes a consistent ethic of life from conception to natural death, and unequivocably promotes the Church’s teaching on sexual morality and is equally critical of dems (the party of death) and repubs (the stupid party) could be said–legitmately–to be niether left nor right.
But Commonweal?!? Not left-leaning? What kind of crack are you smoking? And where can I get some?
Happy to talk about this offline, as we have before, but I don’t want to hijack John’s thread any more than I already have.
Cathy:
I’m very disappointed in you. I have been following your writing through Commonweal and MOJ for a while and thought that you were more fairminded than that. Apparently not. My respect for you has plummeted. I can’t imagine saying what you have said to me to anyone. Period.
There are many free resources for debunking DVC on the web. I point people to them all the time. But sometimes people just want a book to hand to someone else.
IProf:
The “What Did you Hear” thread is not snide. I have no idea why you would think that. It is a rather interesting exercise in getting a sense of what Catholics nationwide (and sometimes globally, if we’re lucky) are experiencing in their Sunday liturgies. In fact, one of the ground rules is no discussion, and as little critique as possible. If you can’t help yourself, well, that’s one thing. But it’s reallly just about compare and contrast. It’s quite interesting to hear how various preachers have dealt with the readings and what music various parishes use.
3) There is a fundamental point here that is being willfully ignored. I can speak for no one else but myself. This DVC thing that I’ve done off and on for the past two years is an extension of teaching. In my book I do the basics, with which all of you are very familiar . The book won a CPA award last year – the CPA not known for being rabidly conservative – 2nd place in “Best Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith.” I was sort of startled and pleased by that.
And I would seriously like any of you who are accusing me of polemics in my DVC book or of establishing myself as an alternative Magisterium to back up your claims with citations and quotations from my books. I would expect no less.
Amy,
In my post I gave a simple recommendation about a source that I found helpful that was: 1) free; 2) very short and clear ; 3) non-polemical 4) written by a former colleague at Notre Dame who happens to be one of the best biblical scholars in the world. These struck me as reasonable criteria upon to base a recommendation of an article for people who want a quick take on a movie that’s opening this week.
I didn’t mention your book in that recommendation. I didn’t criticize your book. Your book wasn’t mentioned in the thread. I haven’t read the Da Vinci Code. I haven’t read your book. I haven’t even seen your book. I don’t intend to read either book. Not my bag.
And yet you immediately (and to my ear, aggressively) suggested my positive suggestion about something I found helpful to read to deal with the brouhaha was iimplicitly critical of your book as being too polemical.
It’s not all about you. It’s just not.
And now you tell me that you’re very disappointed in me because I pointedly repeated my criteria for my choice of an article rather than reassure you about the merits of your book. You know what? I think I’ll live.
Cathy
I read the book.
I only hope the movie is half as good.
Why does everyone get so excited over a fictional plot?
Everybody knows Mary Magdalene did not marry Jesus. Or is it other historical facts in the book that is really bothering the clergy?
Rev. Andre R Boulanger
Honorably Retired
Roman Catholic
OK Amy, since you invited it.
Here is one “What you heard post” intitiated by you:
In search of roses
The Holy Father wore rose-colored vestments yesterday. Did the priest who celebrated the Mass you attended? Not ours.
And did your parish do the Scrutinies this weekend? Were they done correctly? (Ours must have occurred at a different Mass from the one we attended).
And…what did you hear?
And here is another:
What did you hear?
I have no idea what common hymn we all could have heard this week. Perhaps the question of the day will be – how did your parish mark the beginning of Catholic Schools Week, if it did so?
I doubt any of you can top Rich Leonardi
I can’t. Our music was, as usual, unmemorable, made all the more so because it was the 8AM Mass, we are all at some stage of illness, and I was exhausted. The homily was odd. It was about what we can learn from the Cross – learning, as in Catholic Schools Week, okay, and the Cross – well, there was this big old pilgrimage cross plunked right in front of the altar, so that was the reference point. But no reference to any of today’s Scripture readings at all, and very oddly, a quite pointed reference to the beginning of 1 John, and then – ba-bum. Nothing. Not a mention of Deus Caritas Est, which I thought for sure was the purpose of the build-up.
By the way, Fr. Philip Powell, OP, offers suggestions on “how to listen to a homily.” Discussion ensues!
Here is another:
What you heard
Okay, one more post, then two solid hours of writing, at the end of which I will emerge with an intro. I will. I will. I will.
Go down and read, and contribute to “What did you hear.” Don’t discuss though – it’s really not a discussion post. This one will be though. I was struck, in general, by the number of strong pro-life homilies people heard. I was also struck, not so positively, by the scene from a comment by Ian (whom I met in Philly, incidentally):
The priest spoke on prayer – distinguishing between “praying” and “saying prayers” in the spirit of St. Francis’ attempt to live Jesus’ command to “pray constantly.” He exhorted us to “talk to God” in an everyday way throughout the day, even speaking aloud when we’re driving. Nice, except he also said that prayers from prayer books were not genuine since the words were not our own. To be fair though, he did say that such prayers were still pleasing to God. I think he should have left that part (“…not genuine…”) out. All and all a pretty good Mass, but not a hint of explicit “Pro Life” message.
I could pick that apart on countless different levels, but what struck me was….what did this homily have to do with the Scripture readings? Nada.
I avoided the long December one for the obvious reasons. It is amazing how you see everything you do as benign. Now tell me about the “What you heard posts” and how they were not meant to incite since you always conveniently have the disclaimer about not dicussing. What is the function of “picking apart”? Is this really only a collection of reports on what happens on Sundays across the country or is is this post intended to anger “faithful Catholcis” over how they are deprived of what is their right in your eyes. You definitely have a view of what should happen in Catholic churches across the country on Sundays and God help the celebrant who does not conform. The instruction on the liturgy recommends homilies on the readings but does not absolutely require it.
The only other person who was better at dividing Catholics from their priests was Mother Angelica. As long as you invite people to rat on their celebrants you will follow in her tradition no matter how much you pale in her wake. Do you relly want this to be your legacy?
I do not pretend to know what is bothering the clergy, but as a lay high school religion teacher, I get bothered by having to cover the same ground day in and day out with high school students about all the “historical facts”, er, lies told in DVC. Almost everyday I get innane questions from students and fellow faculty regarding DVC (the English teachers all think the DVC is a great book — usually these are very bright people). Most students are ready to believe anyone who tells them that the Church is wrong. It is very frustrating.
The attitude of sticking one’s head in the sand and hoping the DVC storm will pass one by unscathed is to ignore the damage that it is causing the Body of Christ and individual souls. It’s as negligent as me ignore signs of drug use by my children.
Anthony:
There is a venerable tradition of Catholic high school students pushing the envelope and asking all the inane questions they can think of to stump their teachers. It is part of the dance. What you are experiencing is nothing more than this. I am more concerned for you as a teacher than for them if you can’t see this. You need a sense of humor to deal with it. They are not going to end up athiests, trust me.
I want to inform iProf, yes teens ask these questions but so do many adults. As I said before many do not know their faith. The DVC has led many from their faith and many to question it. People like conspiracy theories, they tend to believe any thing but the truth at times because then they think they don’t have live the faith. I believe if this had happened to any other religion it would never had been published or a movie made.
What I find interesting here is that the post started off with a good point — why do people in a Christian nation find the DVC attractive — but the conversation almost immediately started degenerating into attacks on Amy Welborn’s blogging (as if authors are not allowed to mention their own books), and on her book (by someone who admittedly hadn’t read it but was nonetheless sure that it was “quite polemical,” and who implied that Welborn’s book was of less usefulness than a 15-page lecture that wasn’t even directed at most of DVC’s points).
What’s the point here? Do we, or do we not, all agree that DVC is highly misleading (esp. given that Dan Brown claims that everything except the plot is historical)? Why the internecine attacks?
There are many positive aspects about Amy Wellborn. Unfortunately, she shows her hand in her favoritism for Opus Dei, First Things and other rightist causes. The links she gives is to all right leaning publications which gives her a busy lecture circuit for the establishment. She has to address that.
Cathy,
I am disappointed that you did not read the DVC. In no way is this a feather in your cap.
Right, Guglielmino Mazzella, we all ought to read this curious story. Shame on me for not having got to it yet.
But as I suggested earlier, Catholics have nothing to be afraid of. I adore Cathy Kaveny, and allow she can do what she wants in her free time, when she is not pondering who said what on the status of embryos, including something other than reading the DVC.
Our correspondent Robin wrote:
“There is only one Roman Catholic Church teaching that of the Magisterium, Tradition and the Catechism of the Catholic Church no more no less. We do not pick and choose we then become Protestant. I know I came from Protestantism, the Truth is the Roman Catholic Church.”
I say in response, if we do not, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, question everything in the so-called Magisterium, in the so-called Tradition, and in that frightfully pernicious anti-Catholic text called the Catechism of the Catholic Church, then we are not true Catholics.
God bless us one and all.
I’ve been reading this blogsite since it started. Up until now most postings have drawn a tepid, at best, response.
What one gets the most adrenaline pumping: snarky sniping about the Da Vinci code.
So, then folks, what differentiates dotCommonweal from the rest of the “St. Blog’s” places?
I hope that this one can rise above what I read elsewhere!
Marcus Stephanus how sad it is that you think of the Catholic Church as you do. I wanted to find the True Church of Jesus Christ and that brought me to the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I converted in 1999, I now lector and teach a confirmation class, I love to pass on the faith. I will pray for you so the Holy Spirit can show you the Truth of the Roman Catholic Church….The Magisterium, the Tradition and yes the wonderful Catechism of the Catholic Church!
Jimmy Mac, if you do not see how Dot Commonweal is quite distinquished from other blogs you are not reading all of it. The initiates of the story are a bunch of talented individuals who do not fail to stimulate whether one agrees or not. They actually give reasons why they think a certain way. Given the possibilities where things can go very badly this blog is very good. DVC should not be eliminated. No reason to be counter cultural on that one. I am very pleased to know how such outstanding individuals see this phenomenon.
Bill:
My point was this: if the key to popularity with individual postings to this site will hinge on polemics rather than reasoned discussion, then this site will be no better than the “usual suspects” in St. Blog’s gotterdamerung.
I truly hope that does not happen.
I am not questioning the talents nor purpose of the discussion initiates. What I fear, however, is that reasoned discussion will be sidetracked by quick raids from the snarky types.