Archive for Dan Brown
Looking back over the posts I’ve done this year, I think I made some hits and misses in reporting on the biggest stories of the 2009 in regard to events in the Catholic Church. But I think I got the top six. In order:
1. Benedict XV’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus welcomes Anglican dioceses and communities home by establishing a special Ordinariate for them as they move into full communion with the Church. This move to help end a almost 500-year old division is the event in the Church in 2009 that will probably have the greatest historical impact.
2. The honorary doctorate given to President Obama at Notre Dame creates controversy — and galvanizes the pro-life movement in the United States. L’Osservatore Romano becomes strangely pro-Obama at precisely the wrong moment.
3. U. S. Catholic bishops take up arms in the health-care debate. Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, as head of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-life Concerns, writes passionate appeals to Congress on abortion and stem cell research.
4. Pope Benedict XVI declares both John Paul II and Pope Pius XII Venerable. Controversy ensues.
5. Pope Benedict’s new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate creates discussion about world events to secure social justice — and more ludicrous misunderstanding than you can imagine.
Other stories I covered: Pope Benedict’s trip to the Holy Land and the controversy over the film of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. And this may be “hometown” news for me, but it does have a great impact on the Church in the U.S. as a whole: New York got a New Archbishop, Timothy Dolan.
Others - controversy over the death of Ted Kennedy and this pro-abortion Catholic’s highly public funeral Mass, the new priestly sex abuse crisis in Ireland — I sort of missed. I certainly followed them while they were happening, but didn’t have time to blog about them.
I only sort-of blogged on one truly unexpected and welcome development. A Catholic Democrat in Congress, Bart Stupak of Michigan, becomes a hero the the pro-life movement by galvanizing his colleagues from both parties to vote against federal funding of abortion. Who would have thought tha a Catholic Democrat would lead the fight against abortion? His countepart in the Senate, Ben Nelson, could have made history on this blog too, but caved in to the pro-death forces.
Let’s have more of this same kind of story in the coming year.
Filed under: Abortion, Angels and Demons, Dan Brown, Life Issues, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Pope Pius XII, stem cell research | |No Comments
A lot of people think Dan Brown’s latest book, The Lost Symbol, is disappointing.
No, seriously. At least some of them (according to the reviews on Amazon) think it’s “anticlimactic” because after all the breathless chasing after secrets, mysteries and hidden coded symbols, it ends up with – the revelation that the true Word is the Bible! The Bible as interpreted by Dan Brown, of course.
This is what I found out so far, anyway. I don’t have time to read the whole thing at this point (if ever). But what I’ve managed to find out is certainly revealing enough. The novel deals with a plot against the Freemasons which Robert Langdon (as always, a kind of stand-in for Brown himself) must thwart, along with the requisite mysteries to solve and secret symbols to decode. But it’s the ending that’s really interesting.
SPOILERS STRAIGHT AHEAD (for anyone who actually cares about the plot)
With the night’s events over, Peter [a Freemason] decides to show Langdon the true Word. He shows Langdon that it is hidden in the cornerstone of the Washington Monument, and that the Word is actually the Bible. Peter reveals that the true Ancient Mystery is in fact the realization that people are not God’s subjects, but in fact possess the capability to be gods themselves. Once they realize this fact, they will open the gateway to a magnificent future. (From the Wikipedia summary)
Wait a minute. Isn’t this the same Bible (at least the New Testament part of it) that Brown described in The Da Vinci Code as a paste-up job by the mean old Emperor Constantine, intended to suppress the truth that Jesus was just a human being and not divine? The Bible that was part of a plot to suppress the sacred feminine?The Bible that was supposed to be so inferior to the ancient Gnostic texts? The same Bible? Really?
Brown doesn’t show any understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, since nothing in the actual Bible would ever lead anyone to think that “people are not God’s subjects.” Jesus does indeed tell us we are to become perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect, but makes it absolutely clear that the only way to achieve this is through obedience to Him.
It’s not clear whether Dan Brown himself actually knows which piece of idiocy he really believes, or if he really believes anything at all. Of course, an author isn’t required to actually believe any theory he has his characters put forth in his books, but this waffling certainly puts the lie to his repeated statements that everything he wrote in The Da Vinci Code is factual, things that he has been actually propagating as a kind of religion.
And many of his acolytes who have been pulled up short in their breathless search of secrets and mysteries that must be so much more interesting than the Christian religion, in their eagerness for more esoteric revelations about the sacred feminine, are annoyed at finding themselves back with – the Bible. What a let-down!
If only they had some understanding of the truth actually revealed there, which is much more exciting than anything Dan Brown has ever put forth.
Par for the course. I’m sure the book is filled with tons of mistakes in geography, history, the nature of the Freemasons and just about anything else you can name.
Now I may be totally unfair to Brown, because I haven’t read the book, only the plot summary and a couple of excerpts, so there may be more to his thoughts than this – but I seriously doubt it. Maybe some of my readers can enlighten me.
I can’t resist just one actual quote:
“I hate to embarrass you, Professor,” the woman said, sounding sheepish, “but you are the Robert Langdon who writes books about symbols and religion, aren’t you?”
Langdon hesitated and then nodded.
“I thought so!” she said, beaming. “My book group read your book about the sacred feminine and the church! What a delicious scandal that one caused! You do enjoy putting the fox in the henhouse!”
Don’t think much of yourself, do you, Dan?
Update: September 18.
In case you’re interested, the secret anagram for The Lost Symbol is MOLEST BY SLOTH. Sounds a lot like Brown’s working method to me.
Filed under: Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol | |2 Comments
I haven’t done any blogging for quite a while, due to working overtime on editing video, but this is too good not to share. A great little time waster called “Find Your Name’s best Anagram.” You go to the web site, enter a name or word and click on the button. The letters are re-arranged: instant anagram!
When you get tired of trying permutations of your own name, you can go on to the real fun: finding out the truth behind the names of famous people. Here’s some the gang on Mark Shea’s blog (me included) came up with:
Albert Einstein: TEN ELITE BRAINS
Sherlock Holmes: HEH! SMELLS CROOK
Arthur Conan Doyle: CARRY ON, HOUND TALE
Ralph Waldo Emerson: PERSON WHOM ALL READ
Dwight D. Eisenhower: NOW WRITE: HIGH DEEDS
George Washington: WAR ON: HE GETS GOING
Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll’s real name): SCHOLAR GODSEND
G. K. Chesterton: THE GENT ROCKS
William Jefferson Clinton: HE JILTS NICE WOMEN. IN FOR FALL
George W Bush: HE GREW BOGUS
Lyndon Baines Johnson: NO NINNY, SO HANDLES JOB
Lee Harvey Oswald: REVEALED: WHO SLAY (I came up with this one)
Osama bin Laden: A DAMN ALIEN S.O.B. (I came up with this one too)
Saddam Hussein: UN’S SAID HE’S MAD (also mine)
Saint Peter: NEAT PRIEST
Mark Twain: AM RANK WIT
Pope John Paul the Second: HAPPEN-SO: THE JOCUND POLE
Richard Dawkins: DISHRACK DARWIN
Harry Potter: TRY HERO PART (I came up with this one)
United States of America”: DINE OUT, TASTE A MAC, FRIES
“Great Britain”: BATTERING IRA
“Los Angeles, California”: SO IF ALL CLEAN AIR’S GONE
And of course:
Dan Brown: NOW BRAND!
I’m laughing so hard I can barely type this. You can join the fun here:
Update: around 11 p. m.
This one is priceless:
United States Supreme Court: SMUTTIER, UP-TO-DATE CENSURES
A couple more that I tried came up with great results:
George Walker Bush: BLUSH, WAR GEEK OGRE! That says it all, I guess.
President Obama: ENTOMB PARADISE
Pope John Paul the First: JESTFUL, HAPPIER PHOTON (a photon is the basic ‘unit’ of light).
Sigh. How true.
You can read more here at Mark’s place.
Filed under: Dan Brown, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II | |No Comments
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.
Here are two excellent takedowns of the errors in the book and film by Steven Greydaus of Decent Films, and sci-fi author John C. Wright.
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.
Mary, Mother of the Son
You can get the book here.
Filed under: Angels and Demons, Dan Brown, Film, Myths and Mythology, Pope John Paul I, The Da Vinci Code | |No Comments
Though I’ve blogged about The Da Vinci Code, I haven’t yet described the strange experience of actually reading it. It’s so hard to give the 2 or 3 people left in the world who haven’t experienced this wonder of a book a proper idea of the superior cheesiness of its dumb thriller plot, the sublime wackiness of its bug-eyed “secrets” and “revelations,” the . . . well you get the idea.
Above all, they have missed the fever of its author’s enthusiasm for the “sacred feminine” — though this is certainly very widespread in culture today. But nowhere will you find it as you do in DVC. We not only learn, as everyone knows by now, that Jesus was really just the hanger-on, that Mary Magdalen is the real divine figure, the religious link to the goddess in every woman - the feminine principle the male-dominated church has been oppressing for centuries. We also learn that the hero, Robert Langdon, wears a Mickey Mouse wrist watch — in honor of the divine Disney figure of Sleeping Beauty, made so drowsy by patriarchial oppression — or maybe just by the droning nature of the prose. This particular revelation is where I finally lost it, and gave in to the giggles.
I don’t want to give the impression that I think that patriarchal oppression is a laughing matter. Particularly when it comes to the very real sins of the Church towards women in the past - part and parcel of what society has done to them, and the Church, holy though she may be in her essence, is always part of a sinful society (Hey, did the author even realize that the Church he sees as so oppressive of women is actually always described as feminine?).
But surely inquiring minds (at least 2 or 3 of them) want to know: what does the religion of the goddess and the “sacred feminine” offer that is so much better than what the Church has given women? What exactly does The Da Vinci Code’s goddess stand for? What does she do? Darned if I know, and, as I’ve said, I’ve read the book. The closest I can come to an actual answer is that she stands for the principles of tantric sex. Yep, that’s it. The divine earth mother sexuality in every woman is the means for the male partner, as the moment of greatest pleasure, to experience the divine - what women get out of it isn’t mentioned. Oh, I forgot, they’re already divine. Is this all the revelation we’re going to get? That’s what a goddess woman is for? To give men pleasure? Well, they certainly have for centuries, but what’s so liberating for women in it?
Now I believe, and the best writers in the Church, starting with St. Paul, have always believed that the physical love of man and wife should be a divine mystery of self-giving, like the relationship between Christ and the Church. But it’s not likely to come about through tantric techniques, or we women imagining that we’re already divine. It comes about through the effort to overcome the self, through mutual self-sacrificing love, which isn’t very popular with Da Vinci Code devotees searching for an easy fix religion. Nor will such a religion give any cure for the real source of oppression, one which Langdon and crew don’t seem too eager to search for — inside the human heart and its sinfulness.
Most of all, this feeble and impoverished conception of women conceals from them their real greatness. Some of the greatest women in history have a divine aura of a quite different kind about them — the saints, not imagined “goddesses” pasted over the image of saints like Mary Magdalen.
This brings me to the reason I haven’t blogged for almost a month. I’ve been given an assignment by Minister General and Vicar General of the Franciscan Third Order in Rome, to revise my doctoral dissertation on St. Elizabeth of Hungary and to translate some of the earliest sources on her life in time for the eighth centenary of her birth in 2007. This is going to keep me very busy for some months, but for me, it’s a glorious and longed-for opportunity to let people know more about one of the strongest and most compelling women in history.
Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, was brought up in Germany and married to Landgraf Ludwig IV of Thuringia. At one of the most glittering courts in Europe, with a husband and children she was devoted to, she became aware of the suffering and misery outside the walls of her castle. She founded a hospital, cared for the poor, and comforted lepers in person. When she became aware that much of the suffering was due to unjust taxation, she refused to eat any food taken from the poor peasants in this fashion — perhaps history’s first boycott. Though her husband supported her, she became a scandal among many at the court. When her Ludwig died, Elizabeth was cast out with her children. She gladly accepted suffering with the poor as one of them. Devoting herself to God, she donned the habit of the Franciscans and worked for the rest of her short life in a hospital for the destitute. She went from being her country’s Princess Diana to its Mother Teresa. She is still loved and remembered and celebrated 800 years after her death as an example of courage, love and selfless dedication.
.jpg "St. Elizaberth of Hungary by Hans Holbein the Elder")
If an “oppressive” Church can produce a woman like that, what kind of woman would a truly liberated society produce?
Forgive me, though, for thinking that real liberation is going to come from somewhere besides the teachings in the Da Vinci Code.
Filed under: Dan Brown, Myths and Mythology, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, The Da Vinci Code | |No Comments
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