St. Blog's is abuzz about the DaVinci Code film and sundry attacks on Christianity from mainstream media during this blessed season of peace and hope.
I'd have to say that unyielding whimsy is the best response for Catholics. Anytime anyone mentions The DuhVinci Code with lurid excitement, just say firmly and pointedly, "You know it's fiction, right?" And let it go. If anti-catholic ideology hasn't yet turned their brains to mush, that one-sentence argument is plenty. Cuz, really, the only ones who are getting screwed by this whole craze are the idiots who actually believe Dan Brown to be the David McCullough of church history. Let's not take the bait and script ourselves into the victim role.
The movie may be great visual entertainment, and that's all it would ever be - yet another gripping conspiracy tale to tickle our X-Files bone. Protests, boycotts against the movie and demonizing people who love it just plays into their script, balloons publicity for the flic and multiplies their ticket receipts. DVC doesn't even amount to persecution, not even close. It's problem is not blasphemy or heresy so much as the deceit of fiction-posing-as-truth. If it openly presented itself as doctrine or historical truth, then I'd break out the iron maidens.
The test is the "saint's reaction" test - if you told Mother Teresa about yet another Hollywood production that distorted Christ and the Church, would she pop a gasket and organize a protest or boycott? Or would she just shake her head and go back to tending to her sisters, the poor, and the Blessed Sacrament?
