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A Catholic Response to the Da Vinci Desecration
As I am in the midst of writing a Licentiate Thesis I had promised myself that I would not waste precious time weighing in on the Da Vinci Desecration. This brief news item this morning changed my mind:
Philippine Daily Inquirer
SM cinemas around the country have as a matter of policy not shown movies rated R-18, or for adults only. But even before the Motion Picture and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) came out with an R-18 rating for the controversial “The Da Vinci Code,” the family of SM group patriarch Henry Sy reportedly had made up its mind not to show it in their theaters.
A little background for readers outside the Philippines: The SM Group owns and operates the largest chain of shopping malls and cinemas in the Philippines. Their formerly largest location (recently surpassed by the humongous new SM Mall of Asia) is the aforementioned MegaMall in Mandaluyong City, which is one of the many cities that make up Metro Manila. On the 5th Floor of MegaMall they host the “Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord” where exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament indeed occurs throughout Mall hours.
While the stance of Mr. Sy regarding the Da Vinci Desecration is remarkable in a day and age where most businessmen, Catholic or otherwise, make decisions solely according to anticipated earnings, what I find absolutely brilliant is the reasoning upon which his stance is based. And by the way, as far as I know, Henry Sy is not (yet?) Catholic, though I understand that Mrs. Sy is.
Mr. Sy’s reasoning is so lucid that even the most crass pseudo-intellectual Catholic-basher must concede the point, namely, that adoration of Jesus and desecration of Jesus stand in mutual opposition, one to another, as contradictories. Because material cooperation with an act of desecration obviously constitutes active participation therein, Mr. Sy wanted nothing to do with the Da Vinci Desecration. Reading about Mr. Sy’s stance confirmed my prior suspicion that the Da Vinci Desecration is in fact apocalyptic, with a little “a”, even if it is (perhaps?) not Apocalyptic with a big “A”. To wit, an apocalypse, properly speaking, is a revelation, and, specifically, a revelation of light and darkness as standing in mutual opposition, one to another, such that there is nothing whatsoever in common between them. This understanding is a clarion call for Christians everywhere to wake up and smell the coffee, as it were. Let me explain…
First, anyone who had any hand whatsoever in making or promoting the Da Vinci Desecration, whether they want to believe it or not, has spat directly in the Divine Face of Christ. Those who consider themselves Christian and yet have profited from the book or film, i.e., owners of cinemas and bookstores, have committed the sin of Judas. Faithful Catholics need to charitably correct these people where possible but, more importantly, we need to make reparation to the Heart of Christ for these outrages.
Second, many Christians apparently consider the film entertaining even while, presumably, not believing its deceptions. An article attributed to Mark Shea of Catholic Exchange gave the lie to this pseudo-position by asking whether one might conceivably find any entertainment value in a film the storyline of which revolves around the assertion that one’s own mother is a prostitute! The point is as compelling as it is clear: << If you can watch this film without being outraged, you simply do not love Jesus! Though you perhaps did not spit on His Face as did those who made, promoted and profited from the film, He will indeed spit you out of His Mouth for being pathetically lukewarm. >> Faithful Catholics need to charitably correct these people accordingly but, more importantly, we need to make reparation to the Heart of Christ for the lack of outrage that bears witness to their pathetic lukewarmness.
This, finally, brings me back to Mr. Sy who brilliantly and succinctly expressed how adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament stands in opposition to desecration as its contradiction. The clear message of this apocalypse, with a little “a”, as well as the Book of the Apocalypse, is that our love for Jesus must be stronger than the hatred and indifference of the world and, specifically, that adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament should be our primary response as faithful Catholics in combating the Da Vinci Desecration. “It was this that brought them before God’s throne: day and night they minister to Him in His Temple.” (Rev. 7:15)
Indeed, how can we forget that in the midst of His bitter Agony, only request fell from the Suffering Lips of Our Blessed Lord: “Could you not watch one hour with Me?” If you don’t already make a weekly holy hour, please make this commitment today. If you already make a weekly holy hour, please consider a daily holy hour, and / or an hour of reparation in the middle of the night. If your parish does not yet have perpetual adoration please ask your pastor and contact me if you need assistance.
http://www.perpetual-adoration.org P.S. Thank you Mr. Sy!
Who's Afraid of the Da Vinci Code Movie?
I am flabbergasted that some Christian groups in Malaysia and Singapore are calling for a ban on the screening of the Da Vinci Code movie (DVC movie). Why this hysteria? Is the DVC movie the Antichrist or what? (Hey, that's an idea for a book. The Antichrist is not a person. It is actually a movie starring Tom Hanks. Do you think it will sell?)
The church has experienced much more serious assaults and survived. Why this hoopla over a movie? When folks see Tom Hanks prancing around on the screen with a beautiful heroine accompanied by an exciting soundtrack, it should hit home that we are dealing with fiction here. The DVC movie may be the best thing that happens to this whole DVC phenomena where Christians are concerned.
The DVC book is just so-so. I think Dan Brown's Angels and Demons is a better written book. But the DVC phenomena took off because of the book's claim to be true and its tapping on our love for conspiracies. It also rode on feminist sentiments and the fact that the history of the church is by no means spotless.
The DVC book has already been pooh-poohed by any number of reliable authorities. The continuing controversy only serves to make Dan Brown a very, very rich man. It has also provided Christians an excellent platform to talk about the faith with folks who normally wouldn't give Christianity a second look.
But does the DVC movie warrant the high profile we are giving it? Should we ask the government to ban the movie?
First off it is virtually impossible to stop people seeing a movie if they really wanted to. They can download it online. Friends will bring back copies from their travels. And in Malaysia you can buy pirated DVDs of any movie you want. Banning it will only increase people's curiosity and may lead to even more interest in the show as people wonder what the church has to hide and why the church is so frightened.
Secondly censorship is always a double edged weapon in the fight for truth. Once you encourage the government authorities to wield this weapon, there is no telling where they will stop. It might be a movie that offends the church today. It might be a show deemed anti Islamic tomorrow or one deemed dangerous to the social order. If we encourage the powers that be to wield the sword of censorship, especially where ideas and concepts are concerned, it might be a weapon used against the church tomorrow. I'd rather take my chances with a society committed to an open market for ideas. The bible says that we shouldn't be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12 : 21). The best antidote to things like the DVC is to faithfully teach and model the truth in our churches. Healthy churches where the truth is both taught and experienced should be able to shrug off attacks like the DVC. And healthy churches should have enough credibility in society to be trusted when they clarify false claims about the faith.
Therein lies the problem. Many churches today are not paying the price of teaching our people biblical truth and teaching them how to think biblically. More concerned for rapid numerical growth, many churches focus on methods and programmes. Pragmatism rules. “What works” is the de facto battle cry taking precedence over “what is true.” The DVC phenomena has caught us with our pants down and now we are scrambling to help our people fight off these assaults on our faith. And in our panic some of us do things like calling upon government authorities to ban the movie. History has shown that depending on government authorities rather then getting our own act together has often been a poor bargain for the church.
Perhaps we can thank the DVC phenomena as a God allowed wake-up call to the church. In a post-modern connected world, there will be many more DVC types up the road. We can't be fighting fires all the time.
What is needed is to take seriously our task of teaching our people the Scriptures so that they are both able to detect error and to help explain to their non- Christian friends the fallacy du jour (2 Timothy 3: 16-17). We also need to help our people to be able to reflect biblically so that they are functioning with the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2: 16). And we need to do that in ways that show the relevance of the Word for daily life.
Too often theology has been taught as an intellectual scholastic exercise.We need to help our people see biblical truth as something that is part of the warp and woof of daily life. Not some spiritual dogma removed from life.
I am glad for all the effort going into refuting the false claims of the DVC. For example I am very proud of grass roots apologetics initiatives rising up, like my Agora friends in Malaysia and Singapore, who are working with more established church groups to counter the false claims in the DVC. Agora Malaysia is also trying to produce DVC countering materials in Chinese and Malay. All this needs to be done.But I can't see us putting the same kind of effort against every popular fallacy that erupts in the entertainment media. We will end up with a very reactive agenda. Some of this will have to be done. But I'd rather the church be more pro active and giving the appropriate attention to grounding our people in the truth.
And lest we forget what is involved, this is no high school debate.We fight to protect the veracity of God's Word because, as Peter said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6 : 68)
By Soo-Inn Tan
TSUNAMI DISASTER Where is God in this Tragedy?
The year 2004 ended with the joy of the Christmas season turning into horror, sadness and gloom as coastal regions of South and East Asia, and even Africa, were besieged with an unprecedented disaster of enormous proportions. On Dec 26, 2004, an earthquake in the bed of the Indian Ocean with a Richter scale of 8.9 (the highest in 40 years) spurred gigantic waves and a new word to most of us in Singapore - Tsunami (tsu harbor + nami wave) – otherwise restrained only in Geography textbooks, became part of our daily conversation. The towering waves with a force of the ocean jolted by the earthquake, travelling at 800km/hr, wrecked havoc to the coasts of 12 nations, from Indonesia to Somalia. Lives, property, infrastructure, entire livelihoods were destroyed in one sweep of the giant waves. More than 150,000 lives have perished, many still unaccounted for and missing. Thousands are wounded.
(*when I covered the prayer service at St. Ignatius Church for the Catholic News) By Sr. Wendy Ooi, fsp |