- I watched "The DaVinci Code"
last Friday afternoon.
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- Yeah, baby.
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- What a good movie.
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- I thought the Catholic Church was supposed
to be all about loving your brother, peace, acceptance and tolerance? It
seems that, instead of embracing the philosophies of "live and let
live" and "turn the other cheek," the Catholic Church has
declared a "jihad" against "The DaVinci Code."
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- After watching it, I now see why they
are throwing such a huge hissy fit.
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- Imagine that the Holy Grail is not a
chalice, but rather a living female descendant of Jesus Christ.
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- Imagine that "The DaVinci Code"
leads to discoveries that Christianity is based on manmade myths that favor
little groups of power hungry men who want to control the world.
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- Blasphemous.
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- Imagine that the main character, Robert
Langdon, has written a book illustrating religious symbology that celebrates
the divine feminine -- the idea that women hold equal spiritual power to
men.
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- Whoa.
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- How sacrilegious!
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- Finally, imagine that the silver screen
flickers with the bloody images and the speakers shake with the sounds
of genocide committed during the Inquisition?
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- No wonder they're upset.
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- Oh, but wait. According to the best selling
book's author, Dan Brown, this is a fictional work.
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- I forgot.
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- Sorry.
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- I've watched some recent newscasts with
the "talking heads" telling us how the movie challenges the Catholic
Church's "facts."
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- And these "facts" are not challenged
by the huge networks; rather they are parroted over and over by lazy reporters.
This might be ok for Catholic TV broadcasts, but not for anyone calling
themselves journalists in our media.
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- Who let the Dogma out? Or is it more
like "Dogma Bites Newsboy"?
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- It's not bad enough that recent headlines
have been portraying some Catholic priests as pedophiles and the resulting
lawsuits are being settled as the Church pays the victims millions of dollars.
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- At least Michael Jackson surrendered.
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- The Catholic Church seems to be fighting
back by accusing author Dan Brown of using "falsehoods" in his
story.
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- Really? Imagination (Catholic code word
for falsehoods) found in a fiction book? Say it's not so.
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- Conversely, does this mean that the "The
DaVinci Code" contains truths they want to keep muzzled?
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- The controversy rages and even government
officials are up in arms about the movie and the censorship thereof.
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- There is a petition at Petition.org addressed
to President Thabo Mbeki and Bishop Desmond Tutu that calls for "Christians
and believers of the Gospel" to ban the movie from South Africa.
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- Lebanon has banned it.
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- The Executive Secretary for the Philippines,
Eduardo Ermita, said he stands by his statement that:
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- "'The DaVinci Code,' a film adaptation
of a novel of the same title, is blasphemous despite the decision of the
Movie Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to allow the film
to be shown to limited audiences after giving it an R-18 rating."
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- The article "Another Thing"
by Filipino journalist Syke Garcia (1) provides some interesting allegations
as to why the Catholic Church is so hopping mad. It states that:
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- "So what if Jesus Christ had an
affair with or married Mary Magdalene. We know of a parish priest in Metro
Manila who sired two children with a lovable parishioner. To play down
the scandal, the Vatican reassigned him to the USA, where he presumably
goes on merrily preaching on plaisir d'amour." This translates to
the "pleasures of love."
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- If the Catholic priests got the idea
from the movie that they could have lovers and even children, would this
remove choirboys from the "endangered species" list?
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- Oh my gosh! When I googled "plaisir
d'amour" I found a version of "Plaisir D'Amour" for a string
orchestra, arranged by Robert Longfield. The main character in "The
DaVinci Code" is named Robert Langdon! If we take their same first
names and the fact that their last names start with the same letters...
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- Back to Syke Garcia. He continues:
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- "What the Church leaders actually
fear is the effect of the Code on young priests who might begin thinking
that if Jesus could fall in love with Mary Magdalene, make love with her
and still go up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, then, what's
wrong with entering into intimate relationships with the willing females
of their flock. Actually, this is not even prohibited by the church. What
is prohibited is marrying these girls. Because if they marry, the need
to provide for their family shelter, clothes, furniture and appliances."
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- "The DaVinci Code" describes
modern-day battles that have been fought throughout history by seekers
and protectors of the "Holy Grail." It depicts the lengths to
which these murderous fictional characters will go to prevent that which
"The DaVinci Code" reveals.
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- The Catholic Church is hollering that
this fictional movie will destroy their very foundation. And, by association,
the estimated $100 billion that goes with it.
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- Garcia describes how local lobbying efforts
by local priests reveal their true motivation. He writes:
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- "The Catholic bishops are going
to town with the profound spiritual warnings about the danger of mining.
If they expect the mining companies to raise hush money to keep them quiet,
they better think again. Mining is here to stay. Since they have apparently
abandoned their spiritual mission in favor of economic policy formation,
why don't they shed their religious masks and run for public office? Since
they're experts in financial matters because of their tax-exempt privileges,
they should finally expose themselves for what they really are: businessmen."
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- He goes on:
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- "If there will be children, these
have to be schooled. All of these will take a lot of money from the Sunday
collection and other fees received by the Church for sacraments. Then what
will be left for the remittance to support the Vatican? So please, stop
all this drama about shaking the foundations of faith. As Jimmy Tang likes
to put it, 'Everything boils down to money.'"
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- Does the Papacy have a lot to lose if
"The DaVinci Code" and "Priest as Pedophile" headlines
stimulate people to discuss the Church's shameful patterns of Inquisitional
genocide, child abuse and gender-based disparity in a world where people
are seeking pathways of Peace, compassion and enlightenment?
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- Hell, yes.
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- The Catholic Church has everything to
lose; but today's parishioners have everything to gain as they evolve from
blindly obeying guilt-based, obsolete and oppressive religious dogma to
embracing spiritual truths, based on acceptance, compassion and inclusion,
that can truly unite us all.
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- And to that I say, "Amen."
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- (1) http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=39039
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- Cassandra "Sandy" Frost is
an award winning e-journalist and the author of upcoming "The Cassandra
Frost Collection" which will be published by Dandelion Books. Her
articles can be found at: http://blogs.salon.com/0003531/
and http://blogs.salon.com/0004117/.
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- Read my blog at: http://thecassandrafrostcollection.blogspot.com/
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