From “Da Vinci Codes” to “catho.be”

Monday May 15, 2006, 13:39
A few days out of the film “Da Vinci Codes”, drawn from the best-seller of Dan Brown, the bishops of Belgium point out that it is about a fiction and denounce in an official statement the lack of religious culture of the current company. They hope in addition that this film “will give to much the desire more for informing itself on the history of Christianity”. “The Code Da Vinci is a fiction and must be regarded as such”, declare the bishops of Belgium Monday. “However, the fictions influence mentalities. It is thus useful to recall that this account does not rest on any serious historical base”, add they. “It is not the film which it is necessary to fear. The challenge is the lack of religious culture of so much of our contemporaries, including the catholics”, continue the bishops, while inviting people to get information. To this end, the site of the catholic church of Belgium proposes a file “Code Da Vinci” beginning again inter alia a list of works or emissions making it possible to inform itself on the subject. The spokesman of the bishops, Eric De Beukelaer also proposes a reflexion around the novel, taking again various questions resulting from this one about a possible sentimental relation between Jesus and Marie Madeleine from which a descent would result, or about the priory of Sion. “A my opinion, the best-seller of Dan Brown does not arrive at ankle of Harry Potter, but it would be dishonest person to claim that I would have been bored” by reading it, declares Eric De Beukelaer. “This thriller esoteric is distracting, in spite of its epilogue drawn by the hair. The book has especially a great merit: that to reveal at which point the religious formation of considerable adult catholics is defective”, explains it. If it does not disadvise the reading of the novel, nor even the film, it advises with those which “would be disturbed by its reading” of reading a book on the formation of the Gospels or the history of Christianity. Lastly, a conference-debate around the topic “Da Vinci Codes: question for Christianity, media surprise?” will be organized on May 18 by the Faculty of theology of the UCL and the service of press of the episcopal Conference, in the presence of Mgr Andre-Mutien Léonard, bishop of Namur. (According to Belga)

© Rossel and Co SA, the Evening on line, Brussels, 2006

A sentence of the Bishops of Belgium held my attention: “It is thus useful to recall that this account does not rest on any serious historical base”.

Indeed, this account of rests, perhaps, on any serious historical base, but which are the serious historical bases on which the New Will rests? No serious historical base makes it possible to say that Jesus Christ would have been married in Marie Madeleine.

But no serious historical base makes it possible to affirm that Jesus Christ existed and… has ressucited among Deaths !