Facts, Fiction and Faith

The refutation by your reviewer Gerald O’Collins, S.J., (12/15) of the mass of misinformation in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is probably useful. But why do we need a distinguished scholar like Father O’Collins to refute a work of fiction? Fiction is just that, fiction. Why do we sense the need to refute Brown’s Code when we don’t take on the facts in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein or L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz or a thousand other imaginative pieces?

When Brown replies on his Web site to questions about how much of his novel is based on fact, he writes, The paintings, locations, historical documents, and organizations described in the novel all exist. Read his answer carefully. Places and articles are real. The book is a novel. Add only that a novel is fiction, which is literally not true.

Brown is an excellent writer despite his lack of basic character development. His Code is a page-turner thriller. For the development of his story, he dredges up every sort of half-truth, supposition and myth from the past 2,000 years.

What about those who may accept Brown’s fiction as truth? Many look for any and every justification for their prejudices or diminished faith. They jump at reports of the priest who fondles young boys, or of a cardinal who dies in the bed of his mistress or the reduction of the female to less than the male. Are any of these acts worse than God’s chosen Apostle who gave that kiss of affection as betrayal? These people may need a reminder that fiction is no more than fiction, no matter how it is written, how it is packaged, how it is hyped. Wishing fiction to be truth does not make it so.

What about the age-old allegations that Christ was in love with a woman or even married? We need to recall that Jesus was both human and divine. We believe that Christ was human like us in all matters except sin. Is it a sin for a man to love a woman, to be married? Surely our faith does not hinge on the celibacy of Christ.

Most of us in this day and age are blessed to have sufficient background and understanding to cope with the multitudinous challenges to our faith. Conspiracies, secret revelations, false doctrines, all pepper church history. But we do not allow them to degrade our gift of faith. Our theology is sacred and secure.

Brown’s novel is not to be missed, but to be enjoyed and accepted for what it is, fiction.

Rex Reynolds

False Problems?

Frederick W. Gluck’s article, Crisis Management in the Church (12/1), is flawed by several statements that are not supported by the available data.

The church’s traditional sources of revenues are drying up. Some weeks ago I finished writing a report that analyzed contributions to Sunday collections and diocesan annual appeals in the years 2001 and 2002. I found that Catholic household giving in the Sunday collections increased from $5.573 billion in 2001 to $5.846 billion for 2002, an increase of $273 million or 4.9 percent. This increase happened in the midst of high unemployment, a recession and the painful and lengthy revelation of the sexual abuse tragedy.

Catholic giving to diocesan annual appeals declined from $650 million in 2001 to about $635 million for 2002. About half of that national drop happened in Boston. The decline in the other 175 geographic dioceses averaged a more modest 1.1 percent, not surprising in a troubled economy.

The church’s ability to recruit has declined dramatically over the last 40 years. I happened to be working on church staffing data recently and found that the number of professional parish ministers increased from 54,055 in 1995 to 63,065 for 2002.

In addition, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, at Georgetown University, has reported that there are approximately 35,000 students in graduate programs of religious studies and religious education.

I think that we need to find some negative numbers before we can rightly declare a staffing crisis.

A number of other statements in the article mystified me. Mr. Gluck stated, for example, that the plant is rapidly becoming obsolete. Perhaps so, but I would like to see the data supporting such a statement. I am familiar with the current rebuilding program in Chicago, where the archdiocese raised in excess of $200 million to repair its buildings.

While discussions of management issues in the church can be fascinating, we should be careful that we are discussing solutions for problems that do in fact exist.

Joseph Claude Harris