One of my friends wrote to me on the Da Vinci Code saying,
“The book is just fiction. Just because it questions the authenticity of certain facts doesn’t falsify the facts. It is about our faith which should be strong enough to laugh it off rather than having to go to great lengths to justify ourselves.
Repeated attempts to do so would just make the general public wonder as to why is it that the Christian community is so worried about the book. Or is there something true in what brown's written.
I read the book 3 years ago. And that is all I did. I just read it. Once the book was done I put it down and went on with my life instead of questioning my faith and beliefs”
First, I have some questions that bother me. If you know it isn't true, why would one bother reading filth and dirt? Does one even get down reading some good books that fortifies one’s faith that one has time to dispense with falsity that endangers one’s faith?
What we don't realize is that punks like 'Dan Brown' make a buck because people like us read them and still stupidly claim that it is false and a lie. I know many people had to read it because they had to defend our faith. If you read it genuinely to take up such a task, well, I apologize. I get many questions on Da Vinci Code and although I haven't read it, I know what the book is about and can answer them to an extent.
The next question is that, I wonder if a film was screening on your father and mother scandalizing their marriage or a movie of say how your brother is a big gangster and a womanizer or runs a brothel. Imagine if the whole thing is false and your set of friends and cousins know it and are extremely enraged. Imagine if you see your cousin sister going for the movie. Wouldn't you wonder as to how she could go for the movie when she knows it is all false? Why did she not think of her cousin brother and how you would feel when you learn of it? Would you go for the movie to just 'laugh it off’? That is my problem with going for the movie.
If you wouldn’t do it when your family is slandered, I wonder why catholic’s do it when Jesus Christ is slandered. There is a disorder of the will. There is a lack of love. If I read the book or watch the movie, I am either ignorant or too blessed. I am ignorant because I haven’t met the thousands of people who gave up their faith after reading the book and blessed because I did not give up my own.
Dan Brown has struck at the heart of the Catholic Church. He has not written against, say, a doctrine such as The Communion of Saints. He has not maligned a priest, a pope, a saint, or a religious order. He has maligned Jesus Christ. For every person, who thinks less of Jesus Christ after DVC (Da Vinci Code), who thinks of Him as just a man, or a prophet, or a good moral teacher, Dan Brown will pay the price for it.
I am reminded of the parable of the Sower. The Sower sowed good seeds and the birds came and ate it away. Today, this bird is a millionaire because of people like us. I am amused anyone can call it a trivial thing. It is when we ‘protest’ do people think that we take our faith seriously. Do you know how the Muslims reacted when Mohammed was portrayed as a bomber? How the Hindus protest even when someone converts by their free will?
What about us? We are expected to sit back and say nothing because by saying something, we show others we are scared? Where did we get that idea? When we are silent about something, it implies ‘giving consent’ and that anyone can say anything about our religion because our religion is a matter of opinion. There is no ‘the faith once given’ being handed down from centuries from the Apostles right down to the Church as she is today.
When we are silent, we may give people the impression that some can believe Jesus Christ can be married and could be a moral teacher and could be God and could be prophet or could be political leader. We don’t exactly seem to others as men and women testifying to ‘truth’ that is handed down from centuries as the doctrines of the Church, unchanged and undiluted. By our silence, People of the world see us practicing a speculation not Truth.
The devil is called the father of lies. He tricks people into believing anything because he despises our loyalty the Church as the only divine thing in the world. He will be ready to spread any misgiving about her. We assist the devil when we don’t talk about it in our capacity. But then again, how much strongly we feel about the DVC also reflect on our faith in Jesus. If we wouldn’t accept any slander about our sisters and brothers, why would a good catholic accept it of Jesus who is Lord?
I think the problem with Catholics today is not that they can bear humiliation by carrying the cross of DVC but they are not bothered to take a stand when questioned or cornered on their patronage of the book or movie. They say, 'my faith is very strong, it is not going to affect me'. Do you and I ever think if we skipped the movie and the book, other Catholics or non Christians would feel guilty that they indulged in watching it? They would get the hint that 'well, I guess Dan Brown has written something really vile and preposterous for Marie and Jenny to skip the movie'.
By patronizing the movie, they get the hint 'well, Marie and Jenny went for the movie too, so I guess the whole book is arguable and worth a discussion' People like us who go 'I am very strong in my faith and beliefs and a book will not have me strayed' actually commit the sin of foolhardiness and pride. We give ourselves too much importance thinking we are too strong and need not worry about a fall. I have learned of catholic philosophers who have lost their faith reading the philosophies of Nietzche and Jean Paul Sartre.
I know men who have told a priest, “Father, nothing is going to happen when I read God Delusion’ and have consequently questioned their faith immensely and thought of it as folklore. It shows great prudence and great humility for a person to skip the movie or the book. The former (prudence) is a cardinal virtue and the latter a virtue Jesus himself said is required for Salvation (Until you learn to be like little children, you cannot enter my kingdom).
I say it is best to show prudence in these matters than indulge even when we know it is rubbish because this is how the devil acts. He is an angel after all, an intelligent spiritual being endowed with the gifts of wisdom. He lies to you, ‘this is nonsense, your faith is stronger than this’. And when you watch it, a doubt has been sowed into your mind however little, however trivial. All he has to do is stand back and relax while he sees you tormenting yourself gradually.
But Jesus said, “If your hand makes you stumble, it is better to cut it off and enter the kingdom than to go to hell with it. If your eye makes you stumble, it is better to pluck it out and enter the kingdom with one eye than to not enter at all” Even if you believe the faith as I do, don’t think it is you who do. If God were to withdraw His grace, you and I would be nowhere. To call DVC, a fallacy is a ‘grace’ in itself.
Coming back to ‘I have lot of faith and this movie cannot alter my beliefs’ this is such hypocrisy. When I have complete faith in my wife and someone wishes to meet me about my wife’s apparently illicit liaison, I would tell the man, “I don’t wish to hear anything. I have complete faith in my wife and even if my wife were to fall, I trust her to tell me than to know it from a third party” This is called a strong faith. Setting an appointment with the man to know what he has to say doesn’t inspire much ‘faith’ in the goodness of your wife.
I am still trying to figure out how some of us who say ‘I have complete faith and a movie is not going to affect me’ still read the book or watch the movie. I told you, it is a different case when a priest reads it because a lot of people are going to ask him about the book and it would be quite foolish if he says, “I have not read the book” But we are all bound by our conscience. If we don’t study by the virtue of its nobility but because exams are nearing, I wonder how many of us took up the book and the movie because we only wished the good of other souls in peril.
The truth is, we have a weak faith or simply lack of love which allows us to run our curiosity wild. A strong faith would make us skip the movie as we believe we cannot make a single buck for a novelist (Dan Brown is a novelist. It is an insult to Historians to call him one) who shows the Catholic Church in bad light.
If we patronize the movie, we support their cause. Our loyalty to the bride of Christ, the Church shows when we make a sacrifice if the movie is supposed to be enjoyable and laughable as you say. For many of my friends, they pray for Dan Brown’s soul, so skipping the movie is not a sacrifice for them but an act of ‘reason’ just like not smoking a cigarette is not a sacrifice but an act of ‘reason’.
If we go to watch the movie, there is nothing catholic about us. You are just a viewer like any other who has come to watch a movie. But if you avoid the movie people sense it is not because the movie timings are inconvenient or the movie genre is not preferable but because you are a Catholic. A chance for you to show the people in your circle that you believe it is fiction and you have no time for people who sell nonsense at our expense. A chance for us to bear witness to the faith, to stand by Jesus and His Church unlike the apostles who fell many times but always had a ‘strong faith’ and no love lacking.
On a lighter note, I understand you were gave your opinion about how sometimes protests can lead to overkill. That is why you didn't see The Church protesting about the screening of Angels and Demons, did you? Do you know why? Because Dan Brown himself accepts it is fiction. But it is not enough calling it fiction. It is how he plays his grand plan. He shows the priests, the bishops and the pope as some clandestine, power hungry and an immoral organization shielding the Truth. Again, it shows the Church in bad light. Now you may not believe the bishops are evil and secretive because they aren't. But let us not be naive about its impacts.
Tomorrow when you try to correct your non Christian friend on some Church Teaching and you say the bishop or Church says this, he would quickly remember what the bishop and Pope did to shield the truth in Angels and Demons and would find it difficult to yield to your counsel. The point is he doesn't think The Church has authority so much to be believed because of movies like Angels and Demons.
So the article was not asking us to protest but simply warning people that Dan Brown does it again. He comes out with another book (the lost symbol) like his previous nonsense. It is to belittle him so that people are dissuaded from buying his new book not to create publicity for it. The article was appealing for people to be prudent with their money and time
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