austraLasia 1568
Cook's Tour of The Da Vinci Code
ROME: 30th May 2006 -- This should have been May 19th, but it was impossible for technical reasons. austraLasia has received not a few comments, requests and general information regarding the newly released film The Da Vinci Code. There's little doubt that it has raised important issues for discussion the world over. Recently in Nairobi, with people from the Catholic University of East Africa, and members of the Don Bosco YES Outreach Team, together a formidable group of intelligent and deeply committed Africans, I was broaching some journalistic approaches to public messages and dealing with a 'press release' of a supposed visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Nairobi to announce an important message to humanity - despite an acknowledgement that issues like IVF (newly tried in Kenya) and married priests (also topical in Kenya!) were occupying local prelates' minds, The Da Vinci Code was consistently offered as suitable substance for a papal statement!
There will be no papal statement on this one, we can be sure. You will have to bear with austraLasia's version. But rather than hike the tried and possibly unfruitful path of fierce rebuttal, I have decided to tackle what Salesians have been saying in public forums, at least in the English-speaking world (which lets one off the hook a little, since in the Italian Press, the road of fierce rebuttal by such as the Cardinal archbishop of Genoa, and the second-in-charge to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is already well-trodden).
It is not enough to read the book. Dealing with The Da Vinci Code as if it is the novel ignores the fact that Dan Brown might have learned something from the debate - even if theologically and historically the film scores about the same as the book. No matter how positive one might want to be, TDVC is an historical and theological disaster, though reasonable entertainment. That does not stop one from being positive about the film for other reasons, including the minor shift in Dan Brown's (or was it Ron Howard's?) views. In Chapter 55 of the book, the aristocratic grail hunter Sir Leigh Teabing serves as the mouthpiece for Brown’s fanciful take on Jesus as he explains to cryptologist heroine Sophie Neveu the ‘secret’ origins of Christianity – Magdalene, Constantine, canon and all. In the novel, Teabing’s exposition enjoys the willing concurrence of Brown’s hero, the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. But in the corresponding scene of the film, Langdon is given new lines which present him as actively questioning Teabing’s theories. Indeed, he challenges those theories by counter-quoting the orthodox line – especially with regard to the deity of Christ, which he rightly points out was promulgated by the Church and its leading theologians well before the fourth century. Here, at least, Ron Howard and script writer Akiva Goldsman have sought to reflect both widespread scholarly criticism of Brown’s 'research', and mainline Christian understanding of Christ.
Not enough of course. The questions remain, and one of the pleasing things about a number of Salesian responses to the film/book (granting that these responses are mainly about the book, not the film) is that they have taken up the questions not as a dire threat to all that is holy but as a prompt to present the true Gospel and the authentic Jesus. Praised be the Lord! Of interest too, is the work of Fr Charles Velardo in Thailand - recall the item on his appointment as chaplain to an online group of Chefs? Charles pops a leading question to the group from time to time, and chose to make mention of The Da Vinci Code. One respondent has reflected thoughtfully on the matter and given us, I suppose you could say, a cook's tour of Christian belief! "The book is a novel, the film a hotchpotch (a meatloaf, literally) but the theme is compelling", he says, then reflects on why Marias and Magdalens are all the rage at the moment: "The role of woman and the feminine was relegated to the margins...so what happened to cause Mother Earth to end up with prophets and masculine divinities in the three great monotheistic religions?" The writer reflects on the 'minestrone' that was the Council of Nicaea and, indeed, a good part of Christian history, leaving enough unanswered questions. He concludes by saying that the novel/film will not destroy a believer's faith but if it opens up some Catholics' minds just a crack, it will not have been made in vain. There's more happening in the world's kitchens than watery soup, it seems!
So - you thought this would be a review in itself. Sorry. But a brief trip to Bosconet homepage 'What's new this week' will reveal all. Malta has done it well, I feel, but full marks too, to Sr. Louise from the USA. You can find them both by clicking here.
_________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please
contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm
Cook's Tour of The Da Vinci Code
ROME: 30th May 2006 -- This should have been May 19th, but it was impossible for technical reasons. austraLasia has received not a few comments, requests and general information regarding the newly released film The Da Vinci Code. There's little doubt that it has raised important issues for discussion the world over. Recently in Nairobi, with people from the Catholic University of East Africa, and members of the Don Bosco YES Outreach Team, together a formidable group of intelligent and deeply committed Africans, I was broaching some journalistic approaches to public messages and dealing with a 'press release' of a supposed visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Nairobi to announce an important message to humanity - despite an acknowledgement that issues like IVF (newly tried in Kenya) and married priests (also topical in Kenya!) were occupying local prelates' minds, The Da Vinci Code was consistently offered as suitable substance for a papal statement!
There will be no papal statement on this one, we can be sure. You will have to bear with austraLasia's version. But rather than hike the tried and possibly unfruitful path of fierce rebuttal, I have decided to tackle what Salesians have been saying in public forums, at least in the English-speaking world (which lets one off the hook a little, since in the Italian Press, the road of fierce rebuttal by such as the Cardinal archbishop of Genoa, and the second-in-charge to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is already well-trodden).
It is not enough to read the book. Dealing with The Da Vinci Code as if it is the novel ignores the fact that Dan Brown might have learned something from the debate - even if theologically and historically the film scores about the same as the book. No matter how positive one might want to be, TDVC is an historical and theological disaster, though reasonable entertainment. That does not stop one from being positive about the film for other reasons, including the minor shift in Dan Brown's (or was it Ron Howard's?) views. In Chapter 55 of the book, the aristocratic grail hunter Sir Leigh Teabing serves as the mouthpiece for Brown’s fanciful take on Jesus as he explains to cryptologist heroine Sophie Neveu the ‘secret’ origins of Christianity – Magdalene, Constantine, canon and all. In the novel, Teabing’s exposition enjoys the willing concurrence of Brown’s hero, the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. But in the corresponding scene of the film, Langdon is given new lines which present him as actively questioning Teabing’s theories. Indeed, he challenges those theories by counter-quoting the orthodox line – especially with regard to the deity of Christ, which he rightly points out was promulgated by the Church and its leading theologians well before the fourth century. Here, at least, Ron Howard and script writer Akiva Goldsman have sought to reflect both widespread scholarly criticism of Brown’s 'research', and mainline Christian understanding of Christ.
Not enough of course. The questions remain, and one of the pleasing things about a number of Salesian responses to the film/book (granting that these responses are mainly about the book, not the film) is that they have taken up the questions not as a dire threat to all that is holy but as a prompt to present the true Gospel and the authentic Jesus. Praised be the Lord! Of interest too, is the work of Fr Charles Velardo in Thailand - recall the item on his appointment as chaplain to an online group of Chefs? Charles pops a leading question to the group from time to time, and chose to make mention of The Da Vinci Code. One respondent has reflected thoughtfully on the matter and given us, I suppose you could say, a cook's tour of Christian belief! "The book is a novel, the film a hotchpotch (a meatloaf, literally) but the theme is compelling", he says, then reflects on why Marias and Magdalens are all the rage at the moment: "The role of woman and the feminine was relegated to the margins...so what happened to cause Mother Earth to end up with prophets and masculine divinities in the three great monotheistic religions?" The writer reflects on the 'minestrone' that was the Council of Nicaea and, indeed, a good part of Christian history, leaving enough unanswered questions. He concludes by saying that the novel/film will not destroy a believer's faith but if it opens up some Catholics' minds just a crack, it will not have been made in vain. There's more happening in the world's kitchens than watery soup, it seems!
So - you thought this would be a review in itself. Sorry. But a brief trip to Bosconet homepage 'What's new this week' will reveal all. Malta has done it well, I feel, but full marks too, to Sr. Louise from the USA. You can find them both by clicking here.
_________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please
contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm
