Posted on 05/07/2006 8:05:47 AM PDT by dhuffman@awod.com
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - In the latest Vatican broadside against "The Da Vinci Code", a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the Church he founded.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was considered a candidate for pope last year, made his strong comments in a documentary called "The Da Vinci Code-A Masterful Deception."
Arinze's appeal came some 10 days after another Vatican cardinal called for a boycott of the film. Both cardinals asserted that other religions would never stand for offences against their beliefs and that Christians should get tough.
"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs.
"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Arinze said.
"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected," he said, without elaborating on what legal means he had in mind.
A transcript of the documentary, due to be screened in Rome later this month just before the release of the film version of the best-selling book at the Cannes Film Festival, was made available to Reuters.
The book, written by Dan Brown, has sold more than 40 million copies.
only a true portophile would post that kind of pic!
Really??? Show me where Brown has claimed the plot of his novel ACTUALLY happened. I'll wait.
now it all begins to make SENSE!!!!!
Of course, he doesn't claim that the plot (i.e., about Langdon, etc.) actually happened. However, he does claim that the underlying "history" is genuine (i.e., that there's been a massive cover-up of Jesus' and Mary Magdalene's relationship; traditional Christianity has basically been a hoax; and secret societies like The Priory of Sion have been guarding the truth and planting clues for centuries).
dittos
Not a lie. He's just using the Oliver Stone/Bill Clinton method of turning a phrase. All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in the novel may very well be accurate, but that says nothing about the accuracy of the story.
There's a difference.
Yeah. Sex is a gateway activity to smoking.
Or dancing.
Dear Looney, It's simply amazing how the slightest mention of Brown's illiterate work brings the vicious anti-Catholics like yourself skittering from the woodwork like a light being turned off in a filthy kitchen. Well, blither away, because the Church has survived 2000 years of persecution, heresy, schism and (oh, yes) internal corruption. I'm cosmically confident Catholicism will be able to recover with little effort fom the asinine theories of a hack writer, as well as from the ravings of pathetic bigots and apostates whom give him credence. By the way, I bet you sincerely believe the last white world heavyweight champion was Rocky Balboa.
> it is very unlikely he said "Et tu, Brute?" with his dying breath.
Actually, in the fashion of the times, he said in Greek, kai su teknon / Even you, son. It was rumored that JC and Brutus' mother had an affair. This is in Suetonius.
I'm astronomically amused that you think a "recovery" is even needed! LOL.
The Christian Church will survive until the end of time...notwithstanding the skeptics, the unbelievers, the agnostics, the Muslims, etc.
See, *I* don't believe in fictional books. Therefore, I see no need to "recover" from the "attack" of such writings. And it is hilarious that the Church finds itself needing to defend itself against a work of fiction. How insecure is that?
BTW... You are aware that there are TWO current white heavyweight champs, right?
"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs."
They're absolutely right and so refreshing to hear. I fail to see the "hypocrisy."
Unfortunately, tens of thousands of people didn't survive persecution BY the church
Tens of thousands? How 'bout tens of millions?
Let's see... FReepers made fun and ridiculed muslims over their claims of "blasphemy" by cartoon artists.
Here we have a fictional book, and the Church is basically doing the same thing. If this book came out 500 years ago, Brown would have been burned at the stake.
With that said, such laws are a very bad idea, and unless the Cardinal is making the point that hate crime laws can bit liberals too, he ought not to push it.
Yep
Which is why Leonardo and other artists/writers of his time used codes - in Leonardo's day, there were boxes into which people could anonymously drop someones name, accusing them of a crime that would bring them before the Inquisition. If you didn't want to become a human marshmallow, you were very careful
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