from canadian press/ cbc.ca

prominent cardinal debunks errors of da vinci code

ROME- the vatican has appointed a prominent cardinal to debunk what it calls the "shameful and unfounded errors" of dan browns best selling book, the dav vinci code.
Tarciso cardianl bertone, archbishop of geneva and a possible successor to the pope, plans a series of debates on issues raised by the novel.
The fictional work follows the adventures of a harvard professor who discovers the clues to a murder buried in the works of leonardo da vinci. he claims da vinci left coded messages that prove the jesus never claimed to be divine, that he married mary magdalene and had children and their bloodline survives.
the thriller also speculates about conspiracies within the church to suppress this knowledge.
cardinal bertone holds the first of his seminars to denounce the conspiracy theories and revision of jesus' life portrayed in the novel, on wednesday in genoa.
cardinal bertone said he was disturbed by the number of readers who had been taken in by browns blurring of fact and fiction. the trial, death, and resurection of christ are indisputable, he said.
he argued against the contention that the church has become male dominated and has buried it's feminine side.
"in fact, the female element is ever present in the gospels, not least in the person of the virgin mary"
observers say the vatican must be deeply troubled by the success of the da vinci code, especially its depiction of opus dei. the conservative movement which is portrayed as almost cult like has issued it's own 127 page denunciation of the novel.
but the greatest insult in the book appears to be the suggestion that jesus might have had sex, which the church sees as a contradiction of the gospel story.
cbc.ca



as i had mentioned in another thread, at least they haven't issued a death threat against mr brown and asked all christians to hunt him down.
i wonder how old mr rushdie is doing?

I know the bases of the book is a melding of a few idears but it must have really hit a nerve with the church for them to keep going on about it. To me it just shows there has to be truth in there some where. This story was on the Scifi website because of the movie coming out.

Cardinal Blasts Da Vinci Code

"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 best-seller off their shelves because it is full of "cheap lies," the Reuters news service reported.

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, Reuters reported.

"[It] aims to discredit the church and its history through gross and absurd manipulations," said Bertone, the archbishop of the northern Italian city of Genoa and a close friend of Pope John Paul. "This seems like a throwback to the old anti-clerical pamphlets of the 1800s."

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

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

What does everyone think.

I think DaVinci Code was a good story

what is really weird is, from the first time i read anything from the n.t., i thought it was pretty obvious that mary magdalene was his girlfriend.then again, the wedding at canaan could easily have been their wedding; not my original idea. i read somewhere an analysis of that, pointing out that j's mom pretty much ran the wedding like a groom's mom would.who knows?
i go with logic...

brown gets the year the dead sea scrolls were found and the number of glass panels in the pyramid at the lourve wrong and now a cardinal critisizing it somehow makes it more reliable?

Wow, he got two obscure facts wrong. The whole book must be incorrect.

[/sarcasm]

the date the dead sea scrolls were discovered isnt really that obscure. for claiming that all descriptions of documents in his book are reliable, he could have glanced into an encyclopedia.
thats not all he got wrong.

but... why should any of it have to be correct at all? it's his book... he can make up whatever facts he wants for his world... I thought it was a great read and liked his creativity...

the first page of the book starts with "FACT" in big letters and says all descriptions of documents, artwork, and secret rituals are accurate. i guess it is expected that descriptions of all that should be accurate.

interestingly, the book's publisher is being sued for plagiarism by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail see: here

Well as for him missing some of the facts is still better then a book that nothing can really be proven and you must just belive. I find it funny that religion is based on faith but when that faith is questioned the church gets all up in arms. If you being the church is so sure that you are right what do you care what people think.

WHAT? Cardinal is going against a made up story? Hehe, oxymoron since he believes in the bible. Such a good read that book was. I also like Angels and Demons.

whats even funnier is that a lot of the book stores are run by the catholic church.

Which part of 'Da Vinci's Code' is just a literally fiction, the Cardinal doesn't understand. Perhaps he thinks Harry Potter is true too. or the Wizard of Oz.

Unless of course it struck a nerve because there's part of it that's true. :shifty:

Lets not forget that this is the same catholic church that declared Galileo persona non grata and also the same church that banned monty pythons life of brian.

In the case of Galileo seeing as the catholic church is not a geological science institution i hardly see where they get the right to criticise

In the case of Monty python seeing as the catholic church is not a Comedian (at least officially) i hardly see where they get the right to criticise

Finally they're on their own territory, Da vinci was an employee.
Maybe they should fire him. That would be fair !

"Right, hands up all those who don't want to be crucified today"

there's no reason for them to complain, it's fiction. and besides, alot of these places of worship that are mentioned in the book have been tourist hot spots since the book became wildly popular.

maybe it's a plot to get more people to read that book and go see the movie with Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks and the Catholic Church must be in kahootz!

You know its really funny how humans are so narrow minded. Why is it that when someone believes in something , that belief is unjustifiably the truth. Now when that belief is spread amongst a large group of people, we humans have a tendancy to follow the leader or go with the flow. My point is that why is that people believe that Christianity is the one and only, unjustifiably, without a doubt, only real religion out there. Its funny when I hear people argue about how their religion is the truth. HELLO, is there any proof that what they believe and preach about is the exact truth about what happened. Its one thing to preach about your religion, but to preach that your realigion is right and good , and the others are wrong and bad. Now come on! Who knows we all may be wrong. I see religious belief like that game where you pass a phrase from one person to another and see what you get at the end. Usually you end up with something totally different, and that with, lets say a group of 20-30 people! Now imagine if you played that game for 2000 years. Anyways what I am saying is, believe in what you want to believe. Just because one person says its wrong, it doesnt mean that they are right. How can what the roman catholics think that every detail in the bible is errorless. Heck the whole thing can be wrong. I just think that without proof, its pretty narrowminded to think they are right.

This Holy Grail thing is a load of Holy Crap. If it really exists, wow how wonderful, but why is it such a big deal? It seems to me that it is Christians who are most interested in it, but why would they need reassurance from it? I actually think relics like The Holy Grail thing are very offensive to Christianity. Doesn't God tell us to worship no idols? People treat this thing like an idol. It seems so wrong.


The Cardinal guy, why does he even care? And Dan Brown, I haven't read his book, apparently he is telling the truth, and the story is based on historic facts. I think the book is just another to add to the Holy Grail collection, each one more fanciful than the last.


It would be great if it did exist, but I'm not goin to waste my time on it. I can't see why anybody else would want to, either.

the funny part is, after the cardinal stay something about this book saying it's wrong and false info, he didn't realize the mistake he's doing. He is drawing more unwanted attention! The cardinal should have left it alone, and not make a statement, because by sayign something, he made sure pople raise an eyebrow, thinking why did he do that.

actually, i think the cardnial did say something along the lines of that with his statement, book sales would probably go up.
hopefully it will make people critically examing what it says as well.

I guess the author is not forcing you to believe what he wrote. I only got entertained but my faith didn't change............