Honoring the Sacred: A Reflection on "The Da Vinci Code"

 
“It’s just a novel.”  “It’s only a movie.” “Just remember that it is fiction and enjoy the mystery.” “It’s a good read, good entertainment.” I had heard statements like these for months about the book, and then about the movie, “The Da Vinci Code.” Given my other reading responsibilities, I had not taken the time to read the book. But after many people asked me about the movie, I decided that I should see it for myself. So I went to the movie with a friend this week.

There have been many articles written in newspapers, journals, and online that discuss the so-called “facts” of “The Da Vinci Code” and try to set the historical record straight. I even came across a couple of books in the local bookstore that address this history in some depth. Since these are readily available, I will not repeat this information in detail here. It is sufficient to say that there are serious historical and theological inaccuracies in the book and movie that create false impressions about Jesus, the Christian faith, and the Church. For example, the idea that the divinity of Christ was virtually created by the Council of Nicea (325) is a complete misunderstanding of the genesis of Christian faith in Christ as the Son of God, to which the New Testament itself (written for the most part in the first century) bears witness. The notion that this same council created the New Testament and capriciously rejected other gospels is also a blatantly false account of the development of the Christian Scriptures. The claim that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ secret wife would not be seen as credible by any responsible scholar of the New Testament or the early Church. Mary Magdalene was a very significant disciple of Jesus who, according to the gospels, experienced an appearance of the risen Jesus and announced the good news of the resurrection to the other apostles. Because of this, later Christian tradition called her “the apostle to the apostles.” But the claim that she was married to Jesus and that they bore children together is a complete fabrication.

Historians also point out that much of Dan Brown’s portrayal of the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar is unreliable. There is no doubt that the Church made many tragic mistakes in waging the Crusades and certainly in its persecution of witches and of many women who had nothing to do with witchcraft. No responsible Christian should deny or ignore the dark side of the history of the Church. There is plenty to lament. But the claim that Church leaders engaged in a millennium-long conspiracy to keep the “story” of Jesus and Mary Magdalene secret (and to do so at any cost) is simply false.

We can turn to scholars of history for additional information about claims made in the book and movie. My questions and concerns are more pastoral and theological. Is it problematic that a book and movie that have achieved such popularity present the founder of Christianity and the community of Christian believers in a way that is largely untrue and quite negative? Does it matter to anyone? Or should we simply read this book and/or see the movie as entertainment, as a mystery, like a James Bond episode?

Would anyone be concerned if a movie was made about Mohammed that made false claims about his life and about the origins of Islam? Would anyone care if a movie was made about Moses, Judas Maccabbeus, Moses Maimonides or one of the other important rabbis in the sacred history of Judaism that did the same? I suspect that in those cases people would care. If either of these was to happen many Christians would feel called to join their Muslim or Jewish brothers and sisters in protesting the misrepresentation of something that is very sacred to many people. Such Christians would be justified in expressing their solidarity with their Jewish or Muslim brothers and sisters.

In these reflections, I am not suggesting that Catholics or Christians should form protest lines around movie theaters showing “The Da Vinci Code.” Such protests usually succeed only in bringing more attention to a movie and they strike most Americans as a threat to free speech. What I am suggesting is that Catholics and other Christians should genuinely care about the ways in which Jesus and the Christian community are portrayed in modern media. We should care enough to re-commit ourselves to Christ, to strive to  make the Church a vital and credible witness to the living Christ, and to show by our lives what our faith means to us. Ultimately, we should care because we have a deep love for Christ.

I do not think that it is any accident that Brown’s book and movie appeared not long after the Church sexual abuse scandal. The Church is still reeling from the news of the horrendous behavior of some priests and other pastoral ministers that has had tragic effects in the lives of many young people. And we are still trying to come to terms with the fact that in many cases Church leadership dealt with this abuse in ways that covered it up. It has seemed to many observers that there was a kind of conspiracy of silence about this abuse. This has truly been a crisis in the life of the Church, one that has impacted the faith of many Catholics. It seems, however, that Brown has built on this tragic reality by creating a scenario about Jesus and the origins of Christianity that plays into conspiracy theories with regard to the Church. The whole notion of conspiracy is inherently intriguing to us. Brown has produced a fictional conspiracy that touches the heart of the Christian faith, particularly with regard to the divinity of Christ and the canonicity of the Scriptures. This seductive fiction has and will produce much confusion in the minds and hearts of Christians whose religious education is minimal.

At the end of the movie, the Robert Langdon character (Tom Hanks) converses with the woman detective who is the fictional descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In a dialogue that is less than riveting, he assures her that what is really important is what she believes or thinks is true. It does not really matter if what she believes has any connection to reality. For Christians, however, something more significant and fundamental is at stake. We believe that Christ is the Word made flesh, the incarnate Son of God. We believe that in Jesus we have seen the human face of God. We believe that in Jesus God became one of us, like us in his humanity in all things but sin, in order to offer and to effect salvation from within our human experience. It does really matter to us that Jesus is truly divine and truly human.

I write these words on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On this feast, Catholic Christians reflect on the passage from the Gospel of John about the piercing of the side of Christ on the cross. We see in the pierced heart of Christ the very heart of God, source of compassion and new life for us and for all people. It really matters to us that the heart of Christ, moved with compassion for a wounded humanity, discloses to us the very heart of God. No one in recent memory has written about this mystery of the Sacred Heart more eloquently than the German theologian Karl Rahner. I close this reflection with his words:

“So when we say ‘heart of Jesus’ we evoke the innermost core of Jesus Christ, and we say that it is filled with the mystery of God. We say in a way that frightens us to death while yet making us utterly happy, in a way that contradicts all our experiences of emptiness, futility and death, that there reigns in this heart the infinite love of God’s self-giving. … We look at the heart of the Lord and the question that is decisive for eternity fills our innermost being, our innermost heart and life: Do you love me? Do you love me in such a way that this love generates a blessed eternity, that it truly, powerfully and invincibly generates my everlasting life? This question is not answered because the answer would no longer be a secret; we could give it ourselves. The question enters into the mystery that has come near to us in the heart of the Lord. But when it enters this heart, because it is asked with faith, hope and love, that question is not answered but overpowered by the mystery that is love, by the unquestionable reality of the mystery of God. … We must eventually, in the luminous and in the dark hours of life, try to pray: ‘Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me.’ We should perhaps try to practice a prayer like the Jesus prayer of the Russian pilgrim. We might venture to use this word like a mantra in Eastern style meditation. But over and above all that, we must experience in life that it is most improbable, most impossible, and so most evident that God, the incomprehensible, truly loves us and that in the heart of Jesus Christ this love has become irrevocable.” (Theological Investigations, volume 23, pp. 127-9).

Robin Ryan, CP