Catholics form Da Vinci film team
From the BBC.
Saturday, 6 May 2006
Leading UK Catholics and members of Opus Dei have formed a group to respond to the negative impact the Da Vinci Code film is expected to bring. The Da Vinci Code Response Group, which also includes a Benedictine abbot and two priests, has condemned Dan Brown's book as "fiction trading as fact". The group criticised its "damaging and grotesque" account of their faith. The comments come just weeks before the film version of the novel, starring Tom Hanks, is due to be released.
The book, which has sold 40 millions copies worldwide, has been attacked for portraying the Catholic Church as a shadowy organisation that has spent 2,000 years covering up Christ's bloodline. The response group is being co-ordinated by Austen Ivereigh, the director for public affairs of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. In a statement the group said: "We believe the Da Vinci Code is fun and harmless in so far as it is treated as fiction. We do not believe in condemnations, boycotts or protests. Prickliness on the part of Christians leads us into the trap laid by Dan Brown - that the church is on the defensive because it is engaged in a cover-up. But we are also exasperated that many people without a good understanding of the Catholic Church and its history have been understandably deceived by Dan Brown's claim that the Da Vinci Code is based on facts and respectable theories. That deception is likely to be reinforced by the film because images are much more powerful than words."
Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic group with 86,000 members worldwide, are particularly angry about their order being portrayed as murderous and power-crazed. The organisation has arranged special information evenings in London for the public and has asked Sony Pictures, which produced the new film, to include a caption explaining the film is fiction. Sony has previously declined to reveal whether the film would carry such a disclaimer. Opus Dei's communications director Jack Valero said he believed it was important to make it clear. "The book is obviously trying to present fictional things as factual, and trying to deceive people in that way," he said. "That's why Opus Dei asked for a disclaimer at the beginning of the film just to say this is pure fiction, and then that's fine, you can say what you like. But if you're trying to get people to believe it's fact when in fact it's fiction, then that's cheating really."
The film will premiere on 17 May at the Cannes Film Festival before going on general release worldwide on 19 May.
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4 comments:
These people need to get a life. It's ... just ... a ... movie! For my part, I'm looking forward to seeing it. Great actors, great director. I liked the book. What more do you want?
Plus it pokes a stick at some Catholics that are just a little too uptight. That's just a bonus. :-)
damn - you know they're going to use this as an exscuse for a recruitment drive!
I can't help wondering if these people think/worry that the faith of their flock will be brought into question by the movie or whether they just think that they're too stupid to realise its a work of fiction & must be lectured on the facts.
Either the Church isn't doing its job properly or it has a *very* low opinion of its followers.
uberchap asked: Why can't the Church defend itself from such rubbish? What would you expect a body to do in the light of lies being told about it?
If the book is such rubbish I'd expect a rather terse reply from the Vatican to say so. End of story. But I think that they are protesting *far* too much, making a religious mountain out of a literary molehill. I'm sure that there have been many novels written about various aspects of the Church which has caused offence in one way or another - but they haven't set up committes & denounced them from the pulpit. Dan Brown couldn't have *bought* publicity like this and I predict its not exactly harming his sales figures.
If the Vatican hadn't got all upset & righteous about the whole thing I doubt if Brown would've sold half the copies he did. I picked up his previous book 'Angela and Demons' by accident (thinking it was written by someone else) and enjoyed it so would've picked up 'The Da Vinci Code' anyway - but without all the publicity would I have bought it without that accident? Probably not....
..and just think of all the 'Da Vinci Code' clones that have been produced.. to say nothing of the huge increase in religious conspiracy books..... In this case I think that the Catholic church in particular has been its own worst enemy.
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