Good advertising for the Catholic Church — How did this happen?
**”Peter is the rock. Peter’s faith in God was so steadfast that Jesus called Peter ‘the rock’ — the unwavering disciple on whose shoulders Jesus would build his Church. On this very location, Langdon realized — Vatican Hill — Peter had been crucified and buried. The early Christians built a small shrine over his tomb. As Christianity spread, the shrine got bigger, layer upon layer, culminating in this colossal basilica. The entire Catholic faith had been built, quite literally, upon St. Peter. The rock.” (Angels and Demons, Chapter 118)
As advertising goes, it’s not a gigantic billboard in Times Square. But still, it’s not too bad.**
Absolutely. I read Code just to see what the buzz was all about and was astounded at badly written it was. I guessed the identity of the real bad guy by about page 3 or so, it was so patently obvious. It sold well, of course, but not because of the quality of writing that's for sure.
I had a discussion with a dear friend yesterday. She had just come back from seeing “Angels and Demons.” I told her I hated Dan Brown (yes, strong I know) because of the way he’s insulted our Lord. I don’t care what he wants to write about the Vatican or if he wants to write a bunch of nonsense about the Illuminati and catholic secrecy but I draw the line when he insults our precious Lord by saying that He sinned by fornicating with Mary Magdalene and that they had a child together and that THE child IS the Holy Grail and so on and so on. It is clear blasphemy. I told my friend it is no different from a movie such as “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which she would NOT see.
I know the Magdalene thing was in the DaVinci Code movie but it’s the same guy and his crummy books. Why do people read pap and drivel when there are truly GREAT books to be read. And, I have a novel idea for those interested in the Catholic Church, maybe they could read, the, er, “Bible.” Wow. What do you think Salvation? They might learn something there and it’d be the truth, not some poorly spun tale.
Well, kind of. The problem here is that the Catholic Church is not a fictitious organization. The circumstances portrayed in Brown's novels are fictitious but when you associate these fictitious stories with a real organization, it muddies the waters.
For Brown's work to be truly fictitious, he would need to invent a fictitious church. Call it the church of Holy Hope or something. However, Brown knows that wouldn't work. Nobody wants to read some third rate drivel about a nonexistent church. No, in order for Brown's method to work, he needs to use the Catholic Church as a selling point. So you take a famous real church and spin a story around that.
It's a little like taking the name of a famous real person, call him........ohh.....let's say Dan Brown and spinning a story around him that portrays him as a liar, thief and child molester and then saying "hey......but it's fiction folks!!"
Fundamentally dishonest.