Da Vinci Code message is faulty
By Chris Donahue
Staff Writer
PISCATAWAY — Taken as a mystery novel, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code may be a well-organized piece of fiction to read sitting by a poolside.
As a work of art, however, the book is amateurish at best because of the glaring theological, historical and artistic errors it contains.
But even more egregious is the book’s theme that for the first 300 years of the Catholic Church, the widespread practice of Christianity involved the belief in the “feminine divine” with Mary Magdalene worshiped as a goddess.
Those were some of the sentiments expressed by Stephen F. Miletic, professor of sacred scripture and catechetics, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio, at the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center May 4.
Miletic’s presentation before about 150 people was sponsored by the diocesan Office of Evangelization as part of a Catholic response in preparation for the May 19 release of The Da Vinci Code, a movie based on Brown’s book.
Artistic license
Miletic began his presentation by discussing art, which he said by its nature is not neutral and is participatory.
“Art should not taste like honey but have the effect of hemlock. That’s ultimately what Brown’s book does,” Miletic said. “It’s really poison wrapped in sugar because unless you are a scholar, unless you are knowledgeable about these things, it really leaves you wondering if the church conspired through Constantine.
“The benefit that I see from the novel is that a lot of people are studying their faith. People are pondering great questions,” he added.
One of the major distortions of the truth, Miletic said, is that the Roman Emperor Constantine wanted to “masculinize” the culture and the church. Brown wrote that Constantine, who forbade the persecution of Christians in the empire about 323, collaborated with the church’s leadership to wipe out the facts of early Christianity and replace them with the four canonical gospels we have now. One of the facts, the book claims, is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and she bore a daughter, Sarah, after she fled to France after his crucifixion.
The book also claims that Christianity before Constantine was a form of goddess worship, analogous to fertility cults, mystery religions or different gnostic movements. Constantine, Brown wrote, called the Council of Nicea in 325 so Jesus could get nominated and elected to be divine.
The possibility that the church could have suddenly done away with centuries of knowledge and replaced it almost overnight is absurd, Miletic said.
“There was an organic growth to the church. They shared letters of St. Paul . . . that’s how the New Testament was born. But before the New Testament was born, we had morality and a sacramental system. We had a hierarchy. In that growth of the faith . . . our religion is of Jesus Christ.”
Degrading women
One of the insidious aspects of so-called goddess-based religions, or fertility cults, is that they are based on the “sexual union and in this union . . . is where you are most vulnerable and supposedly closer to God. And through the sexual experience, contact God.”
But in fertility cults, women are reduced to “simple opportunities and objects of rampant male-dominated sexual gratification,” Miletic said.
“Women were not respected for their genuine innate feminine genius, their attributes of warmth, love, stamina, grace, agility, ingenuity and their ability to do these things while bearing children and then raising them and managing sometimes complex households. It never happens in mystery religions or fertility groups,” he said.
“So if you have any doubts or any kind of insecurity about all-male clergy or that some women feel like slaves and don’t have a place for them in the hierarchy of the church or in the mission of the church, if any of those are in the back of your mind, you start connecting the dots, ‘That’s why!’ The book resonates.”
Miletic said that an excellent way to counter Brown’s view of sexuality is to read Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
Final thoughts
Brown also erred in his depiction of Opus Dei, Miletec said. Opus Dei, according to Brown, is a secretive sect of monks which committed murders to help keep Constantine’s conspiracy secret. However, Opus Dei is not a sect but an institution which seeks spiritual growth for its members, he said. Almost all of its members are married laypersons and a small percentage are priests.
Regarding Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, Brown says the person at Jesus’ right hand is Mary Magdalene, not John. But Da Vinci’s own notes about the painting name each person, including John, Miletic said.
Seeking the truth
Among those who attended were Marge Gigliello and her husband, Robert, members of St. Patrick Parish, Belvidere. The couple said they had read the book but had no intention of seeing the movie because of its anti-Catholic nature.
“I read the book because I felt as a Catholic I had to know what everyone was talking about,” Marge Gigliello said. “In our country, people put Catholicism down even more so than Christianity.
“One of the things I found very fascinating was that the curator of Louvre issued a statement right after the book came out stating all the errors in it. The book could give people a bad impression or reinforce their belief that something is true.
Pat Brennan, librarian, St. Joseph High School, Metuchen, said one of the positive results of the novel has been the formation of a discussion group of about 15 students.
“The boys came and asked if they could have a discussion of the Catholic faith and what they thought,” said Brennan.
“We’ve met about three weeks and will meet once more before we see the movie. It’s fiction, but it’s easy to start thinking about things, ‘What is the symbolism of certain things?’ It‘s a great way to teach critical thinking.”
Presentations on The Da Vinci Code will continue at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Parish, Bridgewater, May 15 and May 22 at 7:30 p.m. Father Joseph G. Celano, pastor, will discuss the elements of the book that are fact as well as those that are fiction.
For more information:
The Da Vinci Code
www.DavinciOutreach.com
(800) 376-0520
U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops
www.jesusdecoded.com
Opus Dei
www.opusdei.org/
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law