Top cardinal blasts Da Vinci Code

[KiwiCoromandel]

Top cardinal blasts Da Vinci Code

Mar 16, 2005

A top Catholic cardinal has blasted The Da Vinci Code as a "gross and absurd" distortion of history and said Catholic bookstores should take the bestseller off their shelves because it is full of "cheap lies."

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview with the Milan newspaper Il Giornale, became the highest ranking Italian Churchman to speak out against the book, an international blockbuster that has sold millions of copies.

"(It) aims to discredit the Church and its history through gross and absurd manipulations," Bertone, the archbishop of the northern Italian city of Genoa and a close friend of Pope John Paul told the paper.

"This seems like a throwback to the old anti-clerical pamphlets of the 1800s," he said.

The central claim of the book, written by US author Dan Brown, is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children. The Bible says Jesus never married, was crucified and rose from the dead.

Bertone's comments were significant because until the Pope named him archbishop of Genoa in 2003 he was for years the number two man at the Vatican's most powerful department - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"You can find that book everywhere and the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real," he said. "I think I have the responsibility to clear things up to unmask the cheap lies contained in books like that."

Holy grail

A central storyline of the book is that the Holy Grail is not the cup which Christ is said to have used at the Last Supper but really the bloodline descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Bertone calls this idea "a perversion".

Read more..........

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_entertainment_...9%3fformat=html

[slum_goddess]

A top Catholic cardinal has blasted The Da Vinci Code as a "gross and absurd" distortion of history and said Catholic bookstores should take the bestseller off their shelves because it is full of "cheap lies."

the 'damage' is already done, fuckwit; the damn thing's been a heavy bestseller for ages and ages.

i read it after others here recommended it and then found out there was a real religious organisation called 'opus dei' or whatever in which there's a lot of physical self-abasement shit going on.

the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real," he said. "I think I have the responsibility to clear things up to unmask the cheap lies contained in books like that.

it's that or believe the bible's fairytales (no offence to anyone who believes the bible is the literal truth; this is my opinion only; i have friends on both sides of this)

[DudeAsInCool]

Anyone else read Holy Blood, Holy Grail - it was written long before the Da Vince Code...

[KiwiCoromandel]

Da Vinci Code debate played down

Top cardinal blasts Da Vinci Code

Mar 22, 2005

A top Roman Catholic cardinal has played down a Vatican drive to shun The Da Vinci Code and argued the controversy would only further fuel sales of the bestselling novel.

"It isn't a big problem," Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a leading candidate to succeed Pope John Paul, told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. "We know it's a big farce and that it did well commercially. The more people talk about the book, the happier the author will be."

The international blockbuster by US author Dan Brown was condemned last week by a high-ranking member of the Catholic church who urged Catholic bookstores to take thethriller off their shelves and Catholics to spurn the novel.

The murder mystery follows a Harvard professor as he uncovers a secret about the life of Christ and the clandestine society that has tried to protect it over the ages.

The story alleges that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, an assertion in sharp conflict with Catholic teachings that Christ never married, was crucified and rose from the dead.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, speaking as one of the Church's top theologians, called the novel a "sack full of lies against the Church."

Read more......

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_entertainment_...4%3fformat=html

[Shawn]

Is the new testament not the same thing to Jewish people as this book is to Christians?

yep yep

[Wolfie]

The Christians also pulled the same crap with the Harry Potter books. It gave them more publicity and popularity.

Also the Cardinal should check out the term "fiction" in the dictionary. I don't think Dan Brown ever wrote the Da Vinci Code as an alternative historical theory on the life of Christ. he wrote a historical thriller novel with Catholic Church as background. The fact is that the Chruch is taking it so seriously indicates how weak the historical doctrine of Church is on this topic. Considering that most of Church doctrine comes from some version of the Bible it not a big surprise. The Bible itself is not technically historical text either. It has more in common with a work of fiction than a historical text.

[method77]

I don't really give a fuck what priests say. Any religion.