c. 2005 Religion News Service
Cardinal Urges Catholics to Boycott “The Da Vinci Code”
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Denouncing “The Da Vinci Code” as a “castle of lies” that play on anti-Catholic sentiment, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa has urged Catholics to boycott the best-selling thriller about the life of Jesus.
“Don’t read it and don’t buy it,” Bertone said in an interview with Vatican Radio on Tuesday (March 15).
The cardinal’s view carried additional weight because for seven years he held the No. 2 post of secretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s highest authority on matters of faith and morals.
“The Da Vinci Code,” by American Dan Brown, has sold 25 million copies in 42 languages. In a forthcoming film version, Tom Hanks has been cast in the leading role of a Harvard professor specializing in symbols.
The book contends that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants live in modern-day France. It says that Leonardo da Vinci knew of the secret and put clues to it in his paintings.
“You don’t write a novel distorting historical data or slandering or defaming an historical person who has his own prestige and fame in the history of the church, in the history of humanity,” Bertone said.
The cardinal attributed the success of the book to astute marketing.
“I believe that there is a strategy in the diffusion of this castle of lies,” Bertone said. He said its promotion is an attempt to negate the positive picture of the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole.
Bertone said that the marketing strategy is to imply “that one is not an adult Christian if one does not read this book.” He said the idea was circulating among high school students that “one must read this book to understand the dynamics of history and all the manipulations carried out by the church in the course of history.”
The book’s most “mystifying element” is its “denial of the death and resurrection of Jesus,” the cardinal said. He said it also seeks the “obliteration of the feminine aspect from the Gospel narratives and in the life of the church.”
“The truth is that there is a great anti-Catholic prejudice. I ask myself what the reaction would be to a similar book full of lies about Buddha or Muhammad or if a novel came out manipulating the whole story of the Holocaust, the Shoah,” Bertone said.
_ Peggy Polk
U.S. Muslims Have Mixed Reactions to Hughes’ Appointment
(RNS) U.S. Muslim leaders are hopeful, if somewhat skeptical, about the appointment of Karen Hughes to a post designed to improve the image of the United States in the Muslim world.
Hughes, a longtime Bush adviser who was instrumental in his presidential campaigns and was a close counselor during the first term, was appointed undersecretary of state for public diplomacy Monday (March 14).
She follows two other women, Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler, who each remained in the job for 18 months.
“We hope that her appointment will lead to the improvement of America’s image in the Muslim world,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, DC-based advocacy group.
“The only direction we have to go is up in our perception worldwide,” Hooper said, adding that CAIR plans to send Hughes a letter offering to help her in developing her campaign.
Others, however, are more skeptical, saying the Bush administration policies, chiefly the war in Iraq, remain sources of animosity and distrust in the Muslim world.
“We can reduce anti-Americanism, but it is difficult to salvage anti-Bushism,” said Muqtedar Khan, director of international studies at Adrian College in Adrian, Mich.
If Hughes takes it as her task to defend the Bush administration, Khan says, her appointment will prove to be “a waste of time and money.”
However, if Hughes’ public diplomacy campaign focuses on American values like interfaith dialogue, civil society and the high level of American charitable giving after the tsunami, which affected thousands of Muslims, then she may find success.
Those positive aspects of American society “are hidden” for the most part in the Muslim world, Khan said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in announcing Hughes’ appointment, stressed the need to advance positive dialogue in the Muslim world about America and American values.
“We must do much more to confront hateful propaganda, dispel dangerous myths and get out the truth. We must increase our exchanges with the rest of the world,” Rice said.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Sales of `Purpose Driven Life’ Spike After Hostage Drama
(RNS) An Atlanta woman’s decision to read “The Purpose Driven Life” aloud to an alleged courtroom killer who held her hostage has renewed interest in the former bestselling Christian book.
On Sunday (March 13), Ashley Smith told reporters she had piqued Brian Nichols interest by reading from Pastor Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” (Zondervan, 2002). By Monday (March 14), the book had jumped from No. 79 on the Amazon.com best-seller list to No. 2.
Other booksellers have seen a similar spike. At Barnes & Noble, the book went from 67 in Web site sales for the week of March 6-12 to No. 2 this week. According to Zondervan, sales nationwide seem to have surged from an average of 700,000 to 800,000 per month to that same number projected for this week alone. The book rose to No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List within 13 months of publication and also made USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists, among others.
“It’s always been in and out of the top 100 (at Barnes & Noble), but with this past weekend’s event, we saw a pop,” says B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown. She noted that to see such a surge for any author who’s in the news is not uncommon: “the media drives it.”
During her hostage ordeal last week, Smith says she asked Nichols’ permission to read and then read aloud from chapter 33 of the book, which begins: “We serve God by serving others.” She says Nichols stopped her after the first paragraph and asked to hear it again.
Warren has been traveling this week in Africa and was unavailable for comment. But in response to the fresh wave of attention, he issued a statement.
“Jesus sometimes calls us in some of the most difficult situations to be an advocate for Him and the message He represented while on this earth,” Warren said. “We are thankful that Ms. Smith was able to draw from the Scriptures and her reading from `The Purpose Driven Life’ to bring some hope to her captor’s life that was unraveling so tragically and dramatically.”
Since its launch in October 2002, “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold more than 21 million copies. Zondervan says it retails for $19.99. Ancillary products, such as a devotional and journal, have sold to the tune of 4 million.
At both amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, the only book selling more quickly this week has been pre-ordered copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” to be released in July by Scholastic Inc.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Catholic, Evangelical Leaders Issue `Call to Holiness’
(RNS) A group of Catholic and evangelical leaders has issued its latest joint statement, urging fellow Christians to live holier lives.
“The Call to Holiness” was released in early March in Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine, and First Things, a Catholic journal addressing religion, culture and public life.
“It is a great scandal that so many Christians of our day, while continuing to be identified as members of the church, fail to respond to the call to holiness,” the statement reads. “Too many, misunderstanding the nature of faith and presuming upon the grace of God, disregard the commandments of God.”
The statement speaks with sadness that “there are many who are members in name only” and urges “marginal Christians” to become more active in the church.
It also encourages Christians to be involved in missionary activity and not leave it solely to “a few specialists.”
“All, and especially parents, are called to impart Christian truth within their own families,” the statement reads. “Those in business and politics are called to bear witness in the marketplace and the public square.”
The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things, said the statement marks the fifth time evangelical and Catholic leaders have issued a joint statement. Their first one, in 1994, was titled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium.”
“There are too many Christians who are indeed marginal to the life of the community of the faith of the church and I think that the statement wants to underscore that being a Christian is not a Lone Ranger project,” Neuhaus said in an interview. “It’s being supported by and guided by the spiritual tradition as it is embodied in a living community.”
Evangelical Protestant signatories include Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship in Lansdowne, Va.; Timothy George, dean of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.; and James I. Packer, professor emeritus of Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. Roman Catholic signatories include Neuhaus, Cardinal Avery Dulles, a visiting professor at Fordham University in New York; and George Weigel, senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Church of the Nazarene to Move From Kansas City to the Suburbs
(RNS) The Church of the Nazarene intends to move its national headquarters after more than five decades in Kansas City, Mo.
At meetings ending in early March, delegates to the denomination’s General Board voted that it was best to build new buildings in the Kansas City suburb of Lenexa, Kan., rather than remodel existing facilities.
“This decision clearly ranks as one of the top five historic happenings in the history of the Church of the Nazarene,” General Superintendent Jesse C. Middendorf told Nazarene Communications Network News.
The move will occur because the three buildings used for the headquarters are aging and have led to rising maintenance costs. They will be replaced by a new three-story administrative office building that will house about 300 employees.
The Nazarene Publishing House will remain at a separate location in Kansas City, NCN News reported.
The denomination, an historic holiness church, has a total worldwide membership of about 1.5 million members.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Quote of the Day: The Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
(RNS) “This is a difficulty for all involved, the accuser and the accused. … He will survive this.”
_ The Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, speaking about how he talks and prays over the phone with pop star Michael Jackson before the singer heads to the trial in which he has been accused of child molestation. Jesse Jackson was quoted by the Associated Press.
MO/JL RNS END
