But The Da Vinci Code may be the most systematic and sustained cinematic debunking of the institutions of Catholic Christianity and the Catholic Church that I’ve ever seen. I can think of religiously themed films more profoundly oppressive to Catholic sensibilities (e.g., The Last Temptation of Christ), and more searing indictments of corruption and abuse within the Church (e.g., The Magdalene Sisters).
Is The Da Vinci Code anti-Catholic? Well, if it isn’t, then we must simply conclude that no such thing as anti-Catholicism exists, or at least that no anti-Catholic movie has ever been made. Yet, perhaps strangely, while critical reception of The Da Vinci Code has so far not been kind, most reviews seem to be sticking to safe, uncontroversial charges that the film is “boring” and “talky,” while avoiding the more pressing question of anti-Catholicism. Would the claim that “It’s only a story” distract any thinking person from the inherent antisemitism of such a project?Ī few years ago, the release of The Passion of the Christ generated much discussion and concern regarding the question of possible antisemitism in the film.
Imagine, further, that the story suggested that for thousands of years ruthless Jewish conspirators had been systematically murdering the true heirs of Abraham (or Moses or David) in order to preserve the lie that Judaism is based on, covering up the “truth” (e.g., that Abraham had no special covenant with God and was actually an adherent to a Canaanite fertility cult, and the Hebrews are not God’s chosen people).įinally, suppose that the filmmakers tried to suggest that all this was just harmless fiction, despite the fact that for years the author of the book had been alluding to the underlying facticity of the story. Imagine a popular thriller based on the version of history set forth in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, with a secret cabal of Jewish leaders conspiring to destroy Christianity and establish a global government to rule the world. While these books have about as much credibility as the likes of Did Six Million Really Die? or The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, which is to say zero, many people who would find the raving antisemitism of the latter an insuperable obstacle in a thriller seem willing to overlook the raving anti-Catholicism of the former in The Da Vinci Code. Yet the meme that “it’s only a movie” or “it’s just fiction” has largely obscured the fact that the conspiracy-theory conceits of The Da Vinci Code are by and large not novelist Dan Brown’s own flights of fancy, but are based on a lunatic-fringe view of history set forth in “non-fiction” books like Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation. In terms of early Christian history, this is not incomparable to Holocaust denial, to claiming that it was really the Jews who were oppressing the Nazis (or, at least, “we can’t be sure” who was persecuting whom). Nero, Diocletian, Galerius, all those early martyrs - it’s all such a muddle, who’s to say who was really persecuting whom? Now, that’s fair and balanced: We can’t be sure who started it. “We can’t be sure who began the atrocities,” he cautions. Luckily, renowned Harvard “symbologist” Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is on hand to offer an opposing viewpoint. (Ironically, McKellen starred in X‑Men had he watched the deleted scenes from that film, he might have learned from Storm’s lecture that it was the early Christians being persecuted by the pagan Romans until Constantine converted and legalized Christianity.) That’s right: Constantine’s 313 edict of toleration was intended to defuse intolerance by Christians against pagan Romans - not to end three centuries of pagan persecution of Christians.