I haven’t had time to comment on the latest film from the oeuvre of Dan Brown, Angels and Demons, due to hit theaters this Friday, May 15. In fact, it hasn’t created nearly as much controversy as The Da Vinci Code. I haven’t had time to read it either (I had a hard enough time making it through the other book), but Angels, based on a Da Vinci Code prequel, has the reputation of being less anti-Catholic than his more notorious work.
That judgment is probably a somewhat relative one, since, from the Wikipedia summary, the book apparently has not only the same type of breathless, nonsensical thriller plot, but the same abundant basic errors in historical fact, literature, art, science, geography and just about everything else you can name. And the same distorted view of the Church as an institution relentlessly opposed to science and progress. A major part of the DVC was its description of the Priory of Sion, a secret organization of which Leonardo and Sir Isaac Newton were supposed to have been Grand Masters, and much was made of them as scientific freethinkers opposed to Church doctrines (no matter that this was far from the truth).
The trailer for Angels and Demons mentions the “brutal massacre” the Church carried out against another secret society, the Illuminati. The who? you might ask. According to Brown, the Illuminati were a society of scientists, founded in the 1500’s, of which Copernicus and Galileo were members. Copernicus was supposedly killed by the Church for spreading scientific truths. In 1668, the Church carried out the supposed “massacre” on the Illuminati leaders, leading the sect to vow revenge . . . As you might expect with Dan Brown, not one word of this is true. Just more distortions and lies passing themselves off as history.
What is true is that there was a society similar to the Freemasons, the Illuminati, found in Bavaria in 1776, which lasted just a few years before it was suppressed by the Carl Theodor, the ruler of Bavaria (not a heresy-hunting Churchman, by the way, but an “Enlightened despot” himself). As for Copernicus, he died of a stroke in 1543 at the age of 70.
Nevertheless, L”Osservatore Romano (what is it with this paper recently?) is praising the film as “harmless entertainment”. No real mention of the above lies, however, or the fact that historical lies do harm the Church — and history itself as well — as I’ve pointed out here.
Another troubling aspect — and there is a major SPOILER ahead, so beware — the book’ plot climaxes with the unveiling of the fact that it was the cardinal Camerlengo who murdered the recently deceased Pope. Worse yet, a secret society is involved. . . This plot point, of course, has been quite overworked in the last three decades in regard to John Paul I’s death, and his Camerlengo and Secretary of state, Jean Cardinal Villot, who has been unfairly maligned for decades by being accused of his supposed murder. Without having read the book, only a summary of the plot, I can’t say how great the similarities between the plots and characters are. I certainly hate to see it brought up again, though, even in another context. Let’s hope the film doesn’t lead to another rash of conspiracy theories in John Paul I’s case. (although, according to Steven Greydanus’ just-out review, the film’s Camerlengo plot and the climax differ significantly from the book’s).
And word is that Brown’s next book, The Lost Symbol, due out this fall, has something to do with Freemasons, and what do you want to bet, the Catholic Church as well? . . .
Update (evening of May 14): I’ve just read and can highly recommend Mark Shea’s e-pamphlet Answering Angels and Demons, from Ascension Press. Go here to get a free downloaded copy for yourself. It will answer everything you want to know about Dan Brown’s errors, the Church’s relation to science, and a number of other subjects.
Answering Angels and Demons
Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally), I also received in the mail today the 3-volume set of Shea’s Mary, Mother of the Son (San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2009). This trilogy, written by a Catholic who is a former Evangelical, is intended to reach not just Catholics, but Evangelicals and other non-Catholics. Mark Shea discusses with verve, insight and humor what what the Church really teaches about Mary. Volume 1, Modern Myth and Ancient Truth, manages to answer both Evangelical critics, who claim the Church’s worship of Mary is merely pagan goddess-worship, and Brown’s claim that the Church suppressed paganism and the Sacred Feminine (For all his blather about the Sacred Feminine, Mary is strangely, the one New Testament figure Brown utterly ignores). Instead, Shea shows the real relationship of Mary, the Church and paganism, and how the Gospel and grace actually crowned and transformed pagan beliefs. I’m nearly finished with the volume, and it’s a great treat.
To me, the most fascinating part of the Pope’s trip to the Holy land so far, has not been the various controversies covered in the news, but his visit to the site of the Baptism of Jesus, in Bethany beyond the Jordan. He made this stop just before leaving Jordan for Israel. He was accompanied by the King and Queen of Jordan. Pope Benedict blessed the cornerstone of two new churches for the Latin and Melkite (Eastern Catholic) rites to be built on the spot where there is now a small open-air chapel. Here’s a snippet:
Since the Vatican YouTube Channel has only snippets, I’ve been trying several places online to watch these events the last few days, among them CatholicTV, which has embeddable video, but one that starts up immediately as soon as you open the page, which find annoying; and I’ve had experience with this type in putting up the videos of Archbishop Dolan’s installation.
I found that I enjoy EWTN’s coverage the most, especially since they have the Franciscans commenting. This is a wonderful moment to recall that the Franciscans have had custody of the Holy Places associated with the life of Jesus for 800 years since the time of St. Francis. Host Raymond Arroyo is joined by Aloysisius Florio OFM, now of Washington D.C., who spent 30 years in the Holy Land.
This link is to the main page for archived video of the papal trip, but it also includes a live feed link, which will come up directly in Windows Media Player on your computer (the embedded player that comes up when you click on the top of the page menu gives me some trouble).
More to come, including the Pope’s Mass in the Valley of Josaphat near the Garden of Gethsemane (repeat of live broadcast on EWTN at 7 p.m. ET tonight), and Mass in Manger Square in Bethlehem.
For those wondering in the last few days whehter American Catholics may actually be more Catholic than, I won’t say the Pope, but at least the Pope’s newspaper, can take heart from an actual Curial Cardinal, and an American one at that, who knows what’s going on, though he’s now in Rome.
That would be Archbishop Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis, expert in canon law, now Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apolostolic Signatura (often described as the Vatican’s Supreme Court). He came to the U.S. and gave the keynote address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast the other day, and it’s superb. He makes it clear that American Catholics cannot sit still for what is happening in this administration in regard to Christian values on life, marriage and the family.
He said:
5. I come to you, this morning, with the deepest concern for our nation. I come to you, not as someone who stands outside of our nation but as a citizen who, with you as fellow citizens, takes responsibility for the state of our nation and, therefore, cannot remain indifferent and inactive about what most concerns the good of us all, especially those among us who are small, weak and defenseless.
6. Over the past several months, our nation has chosen a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn. Our nation, which had its beginning in the commitment to safeguard and promote the inalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” for all, without boundary, is more and more setting arbitrary limits to her commitment (cf. The Declaration of Independence: Action of Second Continental Congress, 4 July 1776, in The Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2002, p. 81). Those in power now determine who will or will not be accorded the legal protection of the most fundamental right to life. First the legal protection of the right to life is denied to the unborn and, then, to those whose lives have become burdened by advanced years, special needs or serious illness, or whose lives are somehow judged to be unprofitable or unworthy.
7. What is more, those in power propose to force physicians and other healthcare professionals, in other words, those with a particular responsibility to protect and foster human life, to participate, contrary to what their conscience requires, in the destruction of unborn human lives, from the first or embryonic stage of development to the moment of birth. Our laws may soon force those who have dedicated themselves to the care of the sick and the promotion of good health to give up their noble life work, in order to be true to the most sacred dictate of their consciences. What is more, if our nation continues down the path it has taken, healthcare institutions operating in accord with the natural moral law, which teaches us that innocent human life is to be protected and fostered at all times and that it is always and everywhere evil to destroy an innocent human life, will be forced to close their doors.
8. At the same time, the fundamental society, that is, the family, upon which the life of our nation is founded and depends, is under attack by legislation which redefines marriage to include a relationship between two persons of the same sex and permits them to adopt children. In the same line, it is proposed to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. At the root of the confusion and error about marriage is the contraceptive mentality - which would have us believe that the inherently procreative nature of the conjugal union can, in practice, be mechanically or chemically eliminated, while the marital act remains unitive. It cannot be so. With unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful, indissoluble, and inherently procreative love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society.
9. The path of violation of the most fundamental human rights and of the integrity of marriage and the family, which our nation is traveling, is not accidental. It is part of the program set forth by those whom we have freely chosen to lead our nation. The part of the program in question was not unknown to us; it was announced to us beforehand and a majority of our fellow citizens, including a majority of our fellow Catholics, chose the leadership which is now implementing it with determination. For example, I refer to our President’s declared support of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would make illegal any legislation restricting procured abortion; his repeal of the Mexico City Policy, permitting U.S. funding of procured abortion in other nations, together with the grant of fifty million dollars to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities which, for example, supported the Republic of China’s policy of one child per family by means of government-dictated sterilization and abortion; his proposal to rescind the regulations appended to the federal Conscience Clause, which assure that, not only physicians, but also all health-care workers may refuse to provide services, information or counsel to patients regarding medications and procedures which are contrary to their conscience; his removal of limitations on federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research, involving the wholesale destruction of human life at the embryonic stage of development; and his choice of the members of his administration, who are remarkable for the number of major officials, including several Catholics, who favor the denial of the right to life to the unborn and the violation of the integrity of marriage and the family. These are only some examples of a consistent pattern of decisions by the leadership of our nation which is taking our nation down a path which denies the fundamental right to life to the innocent and defenseless unborn and violates the fundamental integrity of the marital union and the family.
10. As Catholics, we cannot fail to note, with the greatest sadness, the number of our fellow Catholics, elected or appointed by our President to public office, who cooperate fully in the advancement of a national agenda was is anti-life and anti-family. Most recently, the appointment of a Catholic as Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has openly and persistently cooperated with the industry of procured abortion in our nation, is necessarily a source of the deepest embarrassment to Catholics and a painful reminder of the most serious responsibility of Catholics to uphold the natural moral law, which is the irreplaceable foundation of just relationships among the citizens of our nation. It grieves me to say that the support of anti-life legislation by Catholics in public office is so common that those who are not Catholic have justifiably questioned whether the Church’s teaching regarding the inviolable dignity of innocent human life is firm and unchanging. It gives the impression that the Church herself can change the law which God has written on every human heart from the beginning of time and has declared in the Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue: Thou shalt not kill.
Benedict XVI is off on another trip, this time to Jordan and the Holy Land. Here’s an opening video.
I must apologize to readers for some of the strange happenings in regard to YouTube in the past few days. Not only my site, but many others (I believe it may have been YouTube itself), were invaded by a prankster who set all embedded URL’s to play Eminem’s latest nauseating music video. I tried to remedy the situation by recopying and re-embedding the links, but without luck. Unfortunately, because of a major computer failure, I wasn’t able to do anything more. However, I now have a new computer(!) and the whole YouTube thing seems to have fixed itself.
Yes, I actually sent this — by e-mail this afternoon. Rocco’s got the whole text of the editorial in the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper that has touched off a mini-firestorm, called “The 100 days that didn’t shake the world,” by Giuseppe Fiorentino. I wrote:
Dear Signore Fiorentino:
I write this as an American Catholic who had the pleasure of having an article of my own accepted and printed in the Italian edition of L’Osservatore Romano in 2006, for the celebration of the 8th centenary of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of my order, The Secular Franciscans. I have always had a great admiration for your newspaper.
At the same time, I am also dismayed at the very inadequate and even erroneous commentary in your recent editorial on President Obama’s first 100 days in office. I share the dismay of many other American Catholics at President Obama’s record on policies and legislation in the area of medical ethics and the protection of human life in the first 100 days of his administration. Your editorial scarcely gives an adequate description of these policies and the distress they are creating in American Catholics.
You seem to think Obama’s record so far on life issues is not as alarming as it originally promised to be. This may be because you rely too much on news reports in the American media which are almost always extremely biased and inaccurate.
In reality, both U.S. Catholics and their bishops are very alarmed at the ferocity with which President Obama is fulfilling the desires of the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood.
In fact, just a few days ago, a pro-life feminist organization in the U.S. the Susan B. Anthony list, compiled a statement showing that Present Obama, in just the first 100 days of his administration, has fulfilled or is on his way toward fulfilling 10 of the 15 agenda items outlined in a December report from over 50 abortions rights organizations submitted to his incoming administration. These items include:
* Reverse the pro-life Mexico City Policy - Accomplished by Executive Order on January 23, 2009.
* Restore funding to the UNFPA - Accomplished in the FY 2009 Appropriations Omnibus bill;
* Increased funding 25% to $50 million. More funding requested For FY 2010.
* Increase Title X Funding (Planned Parenthood Funding Stream) to $700M - Title X Domestic Family Planning received an increase of about $7.5 million for a total of $307M. (2.5% increase) More requested for FY 2010.
* Rescind Conscience Protections for Medical Providers - Rule reversal published in the Federal Register on March 9, 2009.
* Strike Abortion Budgetary Restrictions – Kemp-Kasten language limiting funds for organizations connected to coercive abortion practices weakened in FY 2009 budget.
* Provide $1B for International Family Planning - International Family Planning received an increase of $88 million for a total of $545 million. (19% percent increase over $457 million in FY08).
* Select Pro-Abortion Judicial Nominees – David Hamilton nominated for U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
* Choose Pro-Abortion Federal Appointees – Achieved with nominations of Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napolitano, David Ogden, Elena Kagan, Ellen Moran, Dawn Johnsen, and more.
* Review Policies that Restrict Access to Emergency Contraception – FDA approved access to Plan B for 17 year olds.
* Reduce the Cost of Birth Control at College Health Centers – Nominal drug pricing for university and community clinics included in the FY 2009 Budget.
Since this list was published on April 29, word has come of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, paving the way for Obama to appoint yet another pro-abortion justice, allowing the court to continue to uphold Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision authorizing abortion on demand in the U.S.
Your editorial also made no mention of FOCA, or the Freedom of Choice Act, which all denials from the media to the contrary, is actually being prepared for introduction in Congress. It is very unlikely to pass as it is, but the rabid pro-abortion Democrats are prepared to put the main points of the act through in other legislation, piece by piece if necessary. Not to mention that FOCA-like legislation is being introduced in a number of U.S. states, including my own state of New York, where the legislature is encouraged by President Obama’s support for the bill. It is true that the President has backed down slightly from the high priority he has given the act in the past few days, but this is largely to the negative outcry from Catholics and other pro-life groups in the U.S. who are accurately informed and vigilant in response to his pro-abortion views.
You mentioned Obama’s executive order on embryonic stem cell research, which you say is “less permissive” than feared. You also say that its guidelines “don’t permit the creation of new embryos for purposes of research or therapy, for cloning or reproductive ends, and federal funds may be used solely for experimentation with surplus embryos.” These statements are incorrect. The guidelines do permit creation of embryos for research and go far beyond the use of surplus embryos. They also leave the door open to cloning embryos for research.
This same executive order has been denounced by Justin Cardinal Rigali, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, and chair of the Pro-Life Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who finds it the broadest legislation ever proposed by a President or Congress on the subject. He says:
“Parents will be invited to consider donating their embryonic sons or daughters for research at the same time that they are considering whether to save them for their own later reproduction or donate them so another couple can have a baby. The new guidelines will encourage destruction of some embryonic human beings who could otherwise have lived and grown up to adulthood. In key respects, these guidelines are broader than any proposed in the past for destructive embryonic stem-cell research by any president or Congress.
Through his executive order of March 2009, President Barack Obama also authorized the NIH to broaden the policy later, to include, for example, the use of stem cells from cloned embryos specially created for research. Tragically there is significant support in Congress for such further expansion as well, and pro-life Americans will be called upon to defeat such legislation.”
The rest of the Cardinal’s remarks can be read here:
You were right to mention the Pregnant Women’s Support Act, but it was in no way created or introduced by the Democratic party, the leadership of which is unequivocally pro-abortion. It was created by a group called Democrats for Life, which includes pro-life Catholic and other members of the party; it was not created by Democrats in Congress. It was co-sponsored in Congress by members of both parties and very much needs our support. But the Obama administration certainly had nothing to do with it.
The whole world pays attention to what L’Osservatore Romano says on Catholic issues because rightly or wrongly, it is considered the voice of the Vatican in the media. I’m afraid your newspaper is not doing very good reporting and analyzing of events concerning the Church in the U.S. when it does not pay enough attention to details like these. This has caused a furor and even scandal among U.S. Catholics in the past few days.
As I said, the secular news media in the U.S. does not get the facts straight. I hope that in the future you will pay more attention to the online Catholic media and commentary to get the details.
I apologize for not writing in Italian, although I can read the language well; it took me and hour and a half to write the above; it probably would have taken me several more hours to write the above in Italian. I would welcome a reply, however, and would encourage you to do so in Italian.
Again, thank you for your paper’s dedication to serving the media needs of the Church and the world.
Sincerely,
Lori Pieper, SFO
Bronx, New York
If you’d like to respond as well, the e-mail address for the editorial offices of L’Osservatore Romano is ornet@ossrom.va.
Pausing to look at all the sights on our way to Jerusalem. . . Mainly about faith, the Church, film, writing, famous Christian authors, and anything else I'm interested in at the moment.
The photo above was taken at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in March 2007.
Quote of the Month
"The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history."
Pope Benedict XVI to the German Parliament, Sept 22, 2011.
