The Da Vinci Code...

Dennis P. McCann has a wonderful (and short) opinion piece here on the spiritual environment that exists to cause a book like Dan Brown's to be popular. He says a couple very interesting things like:

The truth is anti-Catholicism is the last respectable prejudice in the USA.

and

The price of a movie ticket is about $8.50, but in psychic terms, it's far cheaper than the price Catholics pay to belong to their church. We live in a time of religious individualism, and Brown has become one of the leading cheerleaders, giving us permission to believe whatever we choose.

The obsession over Brown's book and the upcoming film represents more than just a craving for escapist entertainment. It is another sign of decadence in our civilization. The Catholic Church represents a religious anti-individualism some might find profoundly threatening. Catholics are told from childhood they cannot make things up as they go along. Despite the millions of "cafeteria Catholics" who choose to follow only those church rules that fit their lifestyles, the church, so sinisterly depicted in The Da Vinci Code, continues to challenge its members to face up to the realities of the human condition and deal with them humbly before God.

Here is the part we all need to reflect on deeply and ask ourselves some hard questions where we might slip into this;

Digging for stubborn facts, apprehending the truth about them and acting accordingly are inconvenient, but the failure to do so has resulted in the whirlwind we are reaping. Though our private fascination with all-too-easy fantasies such as those Brown offered is only one symptom of our spiritual disarray, it has the potential to corrupt all aspects of American life.

Let's pray that our faith-based decadence isn't fatal.

Our intellectual laziness; our mantras of "my truth is my truth"; denial of objective realities; microwave and soundbite spirituality allow things like Dan Brown's silliness to flourish.

As I wrote below there didn't seem to be any hesitation that the Church was right! If it doesn't agree with what "I" want, it MUST be false!

We want Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, to take his Cross and go away. Then we can create him in our own comfortable image. No demands. No sin. No judgment. Just the **luv** that affirms us in our okayness. The problem is that **luv** leads us to destruction!