Dan Brown: redux

Here's a nice series of quotations from an interview with Father John Wauck on the subject of Dan Brown's books.

Sometimes I wonder: Where would Dan Brown be without the Catholic Church? Almost all the interesting things in his novels come from their Catholic setting. Obviously, people aren't being attracted by the cardboard characters and bad dialogue. That's why the main effect of "The Da Vinci Code" wasn't a decrease in religious belief or practice, but rather a sharp increase in tourism to Rome ... and the Louvre.

Dan Brown's trying to sell books by offering a "cocktail" of history, art, religion and mystery, and, in today's world, there seems to be only one place where he's able to find all those things together: in the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, he's cashing in on the culture of the Church.

If you're fascinated by history, beauty, and sacred mysteries, it's hard not to be fascinated by the Church. Standing in St. Peter's Square, you've got, within a few hundred yards, a Roman necroplis, an ancient Egyptian obelisk brought to Rome by Caligula, the tomb of St. Peter, the site of the assassination attempt on his successor Pope John Paul II, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the Pieta by Michelangelo, the Raphael Rooms, Bernini's colonnade, the world's greatest basilica, and pilgrims from around the globe. And this isn't a museum. It's a living reality that puts us in direct contact with 20 centuries of history -- from ancient times to today. What more could a novelist like Dan Brown ask for? It's certainly hard to find anything like it in suburban America, where most of his readers live.

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As a general rule, no commercial films -- no matter how pious -- are filmed in the churches of Rome. You couldn't film "The Ten Commandments" in a Roman church! Naturally enough, no exception was made for "Angels and Demons." They were treated just like everyone else. End of story. Anything beyond that is hype from the movie's publicity department.

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On science "versus" religion: It's relatively easy for people to see that a lot of the great art of the Western World -- music, painting, sculpture, literature, architecture -- is the product of a Christian culture, often inspired by the faith or even funded by the Church. That seems obvious. But what people don't realize is that something similar is true of the sciences.

Think about it. Universities are an invention of the Church. Copernicus was a Roman Catholic cleric, and he dedicated his book on the heliocentric universe to the Pope. The calendar we use today is the Gregorian Calendar, because it was promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII, who was working with the best astronomers and mathematicians of his time. Galileo himself always remained a Catholic, and his two daughters were nuns. One of the greatest Italian astronomers of the 19th century was a Jesuit priest, Angelo Secchi. The father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a Catholic monk. The creator of the "Big Bang" theory was a Belgian priest, Georges Lemaitre.

In short, the idea that there is some natural tension between science and the Church, between reason and faith, is utter nonsense. Nowadays, when people hear the words "science" and "the Church," they immediately think of Galileo's trial in the 1600s. But, in the larger scheme of things, that complex case -- which is frequently distorted by anti-Catholic propagandists -- was a glaring exception. There's a reason why critics of the Church are always bringing it up: It's the only example they've got. So, when we hear the words "science" and "the Church," we should think Copernicus, Secchi, Mendel and Lemaitre. They're representative. Galileo's trial is not.

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Q: Don't you think that by talking about the movie we are giving it free publicity?

Father Wauck: You mean: Who's publicizing whom here? Good question. It probably works both ways, but, considering the time, energy, and millions of dollars spent to make and publicize this movie, I'd say that we're getting the better part of the deal! Maybe God's getting a kick out of using Hollywood to draw some people's attention to the riches of Catholic faith and culture.

http://zenit.org/article-25933?l=english

I agree with that assesment. The critics of the Church have a 2,000 year history to cherry pick from. In terms of being an easy target, the Church is a barn.

One character in the movie, a Priest, says (I am paraphrasing), "The Church is not opposed to science, but once in awhile we say "Slow down".

By the end of the movie this is lost and, how the Church has benefitted science. You would think that Tom Hanks character, being such an expert, would have known the actual history of the Church.

It is interesting that modern moratliy (or lack their of) is predicated on what is technologicly possible, ie... since condoms can help prevent pregnancies, it is OK to screw like rabbits.

You decided to use the rabbit emoticon and were looking for a sentence that would get you there.

It was an inspiration, not pre-planned. Although, I would like to submit a requst for more emoticons. I am running out of ideas.

is the white elephant in the room?

I loved the point about Brown's readers being suburbanite Americans whose landscape is hardly that of Rome. It made me think of the haven of strip malls irectly east of me. Is he saying there's something different there? How elitist!

But there's something alien about suburban culture, which, while it glimmers like a cherry :cherry: , fails to intoxicate us with the same joie de vivre as cultures with more history . So while we are pigs at the trough of consumerism, I'm embarassed to say our culture doesn't flower in the same rich ways. Never forget that.

I suspect and am afraid that you are right. What's funny is that it doesn't tke long--a generation or so--for people to start building up the cultural memories around an area. My brother once started a site for people who had grown up in our little patch of suburbia--it was amazing to see the shared memories. But what was also sad was that so much of it was an exercise in loss, and at the same time the "lost" places were sp banal. Unlike pirates, which are never banal.

at the use of all those smilies

As for his books, I've only read one, The Da Vinci Code. I found it one of the most predictable and poorly written books I've read. I knew what was going to happen before I turned the page. Of course, I was accused of not liking it because it was anti-Catholic. And well, most of you know, I'm not Catholic. I just know a bad book when I read it

The DaVinci Code IS a poorly written book and one does not have to be Catholic to recognize that. Than again, Danielle Steele is monstrously popular too. It was agony getting through the one book of hes I ever read.