Fiction Trumps Fact
First a confession: I did not want to write this article. Working as an editor at a Catholic magazine, I have grown tired of reading articles about The Da Vinci Code. Every week brings another book or essay detailing the errors of Dan Brown’s bestseller, which now boasts 40 million copies sold
Saints or Assassins?
The real-life group with the biggest complaint about the movie The Da Vinci Code is surely Opus Dei, the Catholic organization founded to promote lay spirituality. One of the film’s main plot devices centers on Silas, the albino Opus Dei monk who moonlights as an assassin. That Opus includes n
The Schwenkfelder Code
The Perkiomen valley, some 40 miles north of Philadelphia, may initially appear to have little to connect it with The Da Vinci Code. But travel there to the small town of Pennsburg, Pa., and mention St. Sulpice or Opus Dei in the local diner and you are likely to receive a surprising response. Nothi
The Real Story of the Council of Nicea
The Da Vinci Code is a systematic attack on the divinity of Jesus Christ. The book’s author, Dan Brown, pursues his quarry with an obsessiveness that overrides good storytelling technique. And Brown’s characters (supposedly in mortal danger, always just one step ahead of being captured)
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old peace activist from Seattle, Wash. On March 13, 2003, she was crushed to death by an armored Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to block it from demolishing a Palestinian home in Gaza. Crane’s Chicago Business recently reported that Caterpillar, the company that
Letters
Letters
Take to Heart
In The Moment, the Message, the Messenger (4/24), Tom Fox has issued a timely and eloquent plea for our collective commitment to convey the treasure of Catholic social teaching to our country. I share his conviction that our teaching can effect profound social change. At Catholic Relief Services, our re-examination and reflection on…
Editorials
Truth From Surprising Places
The recent letter from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President George W. Bush raises an important question: Does an interlocutor have to have clean hands in order for his or her words to be worthy of consideration? The actions of Iran’s leader certainly give the world much caus
Books
The Shame of France
As an migr e born in Kiev 1903 one of the world epicenters of Jew-hatred Ir ne N mirovsky may have been a fatalist about the rising tide of Nazism in which she drowned A successful novelist in her adopted country and language N mirovsky seems not to have been surprised when the French po
Pass It On
I like this book And this troubles me Being Catholic How We Believe Practice and Think was originally a series of articles that Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk wrote for the Cincinnati archdiocesan paper The Catholic Telegraph Pilarczyk has revised the articles into a book for a wider market Let m
He Believes
A memoir written by someone not quite a public figure and still a rather young man may not seem compelling to the general population but Charles Scribner rsquo s spiritual-literary-artistic autobiography will at least claim the attention of those who gratefully remember the wonderful New York publi
Poetry
Covetous
After Eamon Grennan’s “Start of March, Connemara”
You ask how the gulls find the right angle in the gale,
The Word
Covenant Sacrifice
The Eucharist is a profound mystery with many different aspects As the sacrament of ongoing Christian life the Eucharist is a commemoration of Passover participation in the life of Jesus the memorial of his passion and death a meal with the risen Christ and a sign of hope for the coming kingdom
God With Us and for Us
According to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity there are three persons in one God Father Son and Holy Spirit The Scriptures are not much interested in the philosophy or metaphysics of God They are mainly concerned with God in relationship with Israel in the Old Testament and with the church
Columns
It’s Your Funeral
Back in the day, when everybody was 12 years oldwell, that’s how it seemed to mewe had a colorful expression designed to convey our undiluted skepticism of a peer’s ill-considered and overly ambitious plans. O.K., we’d say, it’s your funeral. It was a handy way to distance ou
Current Comment
Current Comment
The Commencement SeasonIn the final weeks of May, on campuses across the nation, tens of thousands of newly minted graduates gratefully clutched their diplomas and patiently listened to the exhortation of the commencement speaker. In future years, few of the graduates will remember the content of th
News
Signs of the Times
Pope: Peace Entails Religious FreedomPeace and justice in the world require respect for religious freedom, solidarity and policies that look beyond economic gain and show respect for the environment, Pope Benedict XVI told five new ambassadors to the Vatican. Peace is rooted in respect for religious
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