Vatican plots against 'Da Vinci Code'

[davidinalameda]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C11069-1525702%2C00.html

THE Vatican has appointed a top cardinal to rebut what it says are the lies, distortions and errors in Dan Brown’s bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa and a possible successor to the Pope, immediately took up the fight yesterday by claiming that the novel was a deliberate attempt to discredit the Roman Catholic Church through absurd and vulgar falsifications.



At the heart of the book is the notion that the Church has for centuries concealed the fact that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, a former prostitute, and that she bore him a child.


...and in other news, sales of the Da Vinci Code triple

[TlalocW]

1. Meanwhile

They continue to shuffle child-abusing priests from parish to parish and attempt to hide their assets so that if they do lose court cases brought on by the abused children, they won't have to pay as much.

Methinks the church is worrying about the wrong thing.

TlalocW

[papau]

2. When will the church admit Mary Magdalene was not a former prostitute

Granted the Da Vinci code lies (rooms in France are not as described - at least the ones I have been to) - but it would be nice if the Church dropped a few of its political spins from 1000 AD.

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. I had heard they already had dropped that characterization.

Here is one on-line article I found.

http://www.danbrown.com/media/morenews/time.html

(7th paragraph) Three decades ago, the Roman Catholic Church quietly admitted what critics had been saying for centuries: Magdalene's standard image as a reformed prostitute is not supported by the text of the Bible.

As far as Brown's book goes, it is hard to believe that a work of fiction could still be causing so much uproar! Granted the author of the book claims he believe the theory personally, but it is just a work of fiction, not a scholarly study.

[papau]

7. Thanks :-)

:-)

[BrklynLiberal]

3. THIS is what the Roman Catholic church chooses to spend its time and

million$ on????????????? How about feeding the poor? Helping to cure the sick? Buy some .50 mosquito nets for malaria ridden villages? Clothe the naked? Fund the turning of swords into plows? This is an insult to the meaning of charity and the other "principles" of the church which were espoused by the person whose teachings it is supposed to represent.

EDIT: I read somewhere recently that Mary Magdalene was not declared a prostitute until sometime in the 4th or 5th Century AD, at the same time when women were no longer allowed to participate in Church services; to administer the rites, as they had been up until that time. At that point is when it became a male only dominated religion. There had been some rumors that there had been some female popes.

[justsomegirl]

11. Mary Magdalene

From here - note I didn't read the whole article, just found the info I was looking for.

For 1,500 years, Mary Magdalene was portrayed, in art and theology, as a prostitute whose life was transformed by Jesus’ forgiveness. This notion, based on Luke 7:38, was the result of an erroneous sermon preached in 591 by Pope Gregory the Great. Noted French author Jean-Yves Leloup states that “only in 1969 did the Catholic Church officially repeal Gregory’s labeling of Mary Magdalene as a whore, thereby admitting their error.”

[RoBear]

4. Never ceases to amaze me.

They condemn things, sales triple. Remember "The Last Temptation of Christ"? If they hadn't been up in arms about the thing, it wouldn't have drawn much of a crowd at all. (I thought it was a crashing bore, but watched it because of the flap.)

Odd thing is, I was taught in a Catholic college that one of the things that made the church flourish in the early years was persecution. So apparently they're too dull to make the connection.

[StuckinBFE]

5. Its a fictional book

I think there is more to worry about in the world then a fictional book, unless... Some of it is true then well the church is screwed.

[applegrove]

8. Please!! Learn something. There is obviously a vast audience for

'the female' inside our hearts. A need that the monotheistic churches ignore. Take is as a little bit of advice. Perhaps a unmet need...

[Kat45]

9. Geez, it's just fiction! But then again, so are the "Left Behind" books.

and look what kind of trouble they cause! :shrug:

[RiDuvessa]

10. And not very good fiction at that.

I was not very impressed with his writing.