c. 2005 Religion News Service
Cardinal Urges Catholics to Boycott “The Da Vinci Code”
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Denouncing “The Da Vinci Code” as a “castle of lies” that play on anti-Catholic sentiment, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa has urged Catholics to boycott the best-selling thriller about the life of Jesus.
“Don’t read it and don’t buy it,” Bertone said in an interview with Vatican Radio on Tuesday (March 15).
The cardinal’s view carried additional weight because for seven years he held the No. 2 post of secretary in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s highest authority on matters of faith and morals.
“The Da Vinci Code,” by American Dan Brown, has sold 25 million copies in 42 languages. In a forthcoming film version, Tom Hanks has been cast in the leading role of a Harvard professor specializing in symbols.
The book contends that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants live in modern-day France. It says that Leonardo da Vinci knew of the secret and put clues to it in his paintings.
“You don’t write a novel distorting historical data or slandering or defaming an historical person who has his own prestige and fame in the history of the church, in the history of humanity,” Bertone said.
The cardinal attributed the success of the book to astute marketing.
“I believe that there is a strategy in the diffusion of this castle of lies,” Bertone said. He said its promotion is an attempt to negate the positive picture of the Catholic Church and Christianity as a whole.
Bertone said that the marketing strategy is to imply “that one is not an adult Christian if one does not read this book.” He said the idea was circulating among high school students that “one must read this book to understand the dynamics of history and all the manipulations carried out by the church in the course of history.”
The book’s most “mystifying element” is its “denial of the death and resurrection of Jesus,” the cardinal said. He said it also seeks the “obliteration of the feminine aspect from the Gospel narratives and in the life of the church.”
“The truth is that there is a great anti-Catholic prejudice. I ask myself what the reaction would be to a similar book full of lies about Buddha or Muhammad or if a novel came out manipulating the whole story of the Holocaust, the Shoah,” Bertone said.
_ Peggy Polk
Sales of `Purpose Driven Life’ Spike After Hostage Drama
(RNS) An Atlanta woman’s decision to read “The Purpose Driven Life” aloud to an alleged courtroom killer who held her hostage has renewed interest in the former bestselling Christian book.
On Sunday (March 13), Ashley Smith told reporters she had piqued Brian Nichols interest by reading from Pastor Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” (Zondervan, 2002). By Monday (March 14), the book had jumped from No. 79 on the Amazon.com best-seller list to No. 2.
Other booksellers have seen a similar spike. At Barnes & Noble, the book went from 67 in Web site sales for the week of March 6-12 to No. 2 this week. According to Zondervan, sales nationwide seem to have surged from an average of 700,000 to 800,000 per month to that same number projected for this week alone. The book rose to No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List within 13 months of publication and also made USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists, among others.
“It’s always been in and out of the top 100 (at Barnes & Noble), but with this past weekend’s event, we saw a pop,” says B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown. She noted that to see such a surge for any author who’s in the news is not uncommon: “the media drives it.”
During her hostage ordeal last week, Smith says she asked Nichols’ permission to read and then read aloud from chapter 33 of the book, which begins: “We serve God by serving others.” She says Nichols stopped her after the first paragraph and asked to hear it again.
Warren has been traveling this week in Africa and was unavailable for comment. But in response to the fresh wave of attention, he issued a statement.
“Jesus sometimes calls us in some of the most difficult situations to be an advocate for Him and the message He represented while on this earth,” Warren said. “We are thankful that Ms. Smith was able to draw from the Scriptures and her reading from `The Purpose Driven Life’ to bring some hope to her captor’s life that was unraveling so tragically and dramatically.”
Since its launch in October 2002, “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold more than 21 million copies. Zondervan says it retails for $19.99. Ancillary products, such as a devotional and journal, have sold to the tune of 4 million.
At both amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, the only book selling more quickly this week has been pre-ordered copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” to be released in July by Scholastic Inc.
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Seminar Commemorates Anniversary of Catholic Document Affirming Jews
WASHINGTON (RNS) At a seminar commemorating the 40th anniversary of a Catholic document condemning anti-Semitism, a Vatican spokesman affirmed Catholic-Jewish unity and laid out a three-point plan to increase it.
“We need one another and the world needs us,” said Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s head of ecumenical affairs.
Kasper made the comment to begin three days of Catholic-Jewish theological dialogue at Catholic University of America. The event ended Tuesday (March 15).
Kasper said “Nostra Aetate” _ the 1965 church document condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of racial and religious discrimination _ is “one of the most hotly debated documents of the Second Vatican Council.”
Kasper said the declaration allowed the Catholic Church to rediscover its Jewish roots.
The German-born Kasper said Christians and Jews must undertake three tasks to further relations: fight ignorance through education, respect theological differences and cooperate in international efforts.
Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, a Jewish philosopher, professor and author, also spoke at the conference’s opening session. He said one of the differences between himself and Kasper was he has no official position in his religion, “expect that of rabbi.”
Borowitz, who has participated in Jewish-Catholic relations for 40 years, said he has learned to appreciate the willingness of contemporary Catholics to listen respectfully to their Jewish partners in discussion.
Borowitz addressed concerns put forth by some elements of the Jewish community about engaging in discussions with Christians, saying Jews have a responsibility to share their beliefs.
Jews must “seek out the children of the covenant with Noah,” Borowitz said, emphasizing the shared history of Christianity and Judaism.
Other presenters during three days of dialogue included Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the New York-based Jewish Life Network; Ruth Langer, theology professor at Boston College; and Archbishop William Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore.
_ Celeste Kennel-Shank
Catholics Pray to Late Archbishop Fulton Sheen to Save Schiavo’s Life
(RNS) Supporters of the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen say his heavenly intervention in the case of a brain-damaged woman in Florida could be the miracle needed to move him one step closer to sainthood.
A grass-roots effort is under way to encourage prayers to Sheen, who died in 1979 and was best known for his popular television and radio shows in the 1950s, including “A Life Worth Living.”
Supporters say his divine intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo could both save her life and speed up the process to make him the first male American-born saint (following St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Katharine Drexel). On Friday (March 18), Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed while Republicans in Congress mounted a dramatic, last-ditch legal effort to use the subpoena power of Congress to save her life.
The Sheen effort is led by the New York-based Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, with support by Priests for Life, the Archbishop Sheen Foundation, the Ascension Press publishing house and others.
“If it be according to your will, glorify your servant Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen by granting the favor I now request through his powerful intercession,” says a prayer posted on the Web site dedicated to Sheen’s cause for sainthood.
“Lord, grant that Terri Schiavo’s life be spared and grant her a healing that the world may know the value of every life.”
Schiavo has become a cause celeb among conservatives, garnering the support of Florida’s Catholic bishops, pro-life groups and some Vatican officials.
In 2000, the Vatican declared Sheen a “Servant of God” and opened the process for his possible canonization. In 2002, his native Diocese of Peoria, Ill., filed paperwork at the Vatican supporting his cause.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Dell Reinstates 31 Muslim Employees Who Want to Pray at Work
(RNS) Thirty-one Muslim contract employees at a Dell Inc. plant in Nashville, Tenn., have been reinstated a month after they left work alleging that the company discriminated against them because of their need to pray at work.
The company, together with advocacy groups, announced Thursday (March 17) that a settlement between the workers and the world’s largest computer systems company had been reached. The settlement includes back pay for the employees and full reinstatement of their jobs, as well as provisions for religious accommodation.
Muslims are religiously required to pray five times a day, a practice that American Muslim workers must carry into the workplace with them.
But on Feb. 4, the group of Muslim assembly line workers says, they were told by their manager that if they wanted to continue to work at the plant, they would not be able to pray during work hours.
In protest, the group left their jobs. A Dell spokesman said they never were fired, but left “voluntarily as a result of a miscommunication about Dell’s religious accommodation practices.” Before the settlement, some employees had already returned to work, the company said.
In addition to reinstating the workers, the settlement provides that employees be granted paid time away from their work areas to pray, “as long as those requests are reasonable,” said a statement released by Dell, the contract employer Spherion Corp. and the Nashville Metro Human Rights Commission, which helped mediate the dispute.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based advocacy group, helped to broker the settlement.
“This settlement can be used as a model by other production facilities that employ large numbers of Muslim workers,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, the council’s legal director, who participated in the negotiations.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Report: Anti-Semitic Acts Nearly Double in France, Reach Record High
PARIS (RNS) The number of racist and anti-Semitic acts committed in France nearly doubled in a year, a human rights group reported Monday (March 21).
The government-affiliated National Consultative Human Rights Commission found some 1,565 attacks and slurs with a racist or anti-Semitic intent were reported in France in 2004 _ a record high.
By contrast, only 833 such acts were recorded the previous year, according to the commission, which used French Interior Ministry statistics.
Moreover, the attacks are becoming increasingly violent, the report said. Anti-Semitic attacks injured 36 people in 2004, compared to only 22 people the year before. Many of the attacks against France’s 600,000 Jews are blamed on disenfranchised French Muslim youths.
But more than a third of France’s racist acts targeted members of the 6-million-strong Muslim community, and were largely perpetrated by far-right groups, the commission said. Muslims living in Corsica were particularly vulnerable _ indeed the number of acts against them jumped by a staggering 251 percent in 2004, compared to the previous year.
Anti-Semitism and racism is rising across Europe, experts say. But the trend is perhaps most worrisome in France, home to Europe’s largest communities of Muslims and Jews.
“We see that this wave, which at the beginning could appear as episodical, seems to have become a permanent structural feature of France _ and even of Europe,” said Roger Cukierman, head of CRIF, the representative council of Jewish institutions in France.
The trend is leading to a situation in which “anti-Semitism and racism are becoming opinions, and not crimes,” Cukierman said, in a telephone interview.
Anti-Semitism has been rising in France since 2000 _ mirroring the spike in Israeli-Palestinian clashes during that period. But the report noted that many of the recent incidents appeared to be less and less connected to the situation in the Middle East.
In an interview Monday on France Info radio, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin announced the government would continue its aggressive crackdown against racist acts. French Jewish leaders and anti-discrimination groups have praised the center-right government for its zero-tolerance policy on anti-Semitism and other forms of racism.
But Cukierman suggested community leaders and municipal governments needed to do more.
_ Elizabeth Bryant
Progressive National Baptist Convention Promotes Wellness Program
WASHINGTON (RNS) The Progressive National Baptist Convention has joined forces with the National Cancer Institute to encourage African-American church members to get involved in a wellness program that promotes healthy diets.
“We have all felt the devastating effects of disease in our families and have shared in the loss of many of our congregants who are struck down too soon,” said the Rev. Major L. Jemison, president of the predominantly black denomination at a Tuesday (March 22) event for pastors at the National Press Club.
“It is crucial that we talk about health whenever and wherever we gather, especially in the house of the Lord.”
The breakfast event _ featuring omelets with fresh vegetables and whole-grain muffins without butter _ introduced the “Body and Soul” program of the Bethesda, Md.-based institute to dozens of pastors, mostly from the Washington area. It includes a 50-page guide and training CD for churches and notes that African-Americans are at greater risk than others of developing some diet-related diseases.
Lenora Johnson, director of the Office of Education and Special Initiatives at the cancer institute, said the program was the result of focus groups with African-American pastors who often said the reason they improved their eating and exercise regimens was because “I almost died.”
“We have to figure out what it is that can motivate people so they won’t have a near-death experience,” she said, referring to strokes and heart attacks.
Some of the pastors in attendance said their churches already were offering more nutritious foods at receptions or classes to promote healthy living. But others said more attention is needed.
The Rev. Sarah Britt, “Body and Soul” coordinator for the Baptist denomination, said she used to munch on potato chips and drink Mountain Dew as she prepared her sermons. But Britt, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Deanwood in Washington and a breast cancer survivor, said she has altered her ways.
Institute staffers said about 35,000 copies of the “Body and Soul” guides have been distributed in the last year. Churches involved in the program include Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal and Catholic congregations.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Alleging `Hinduphobic’ Agenda, Foundation Will Launch Campaign
(RNS) Hindus angered by recent initiatives in Congress are protesting what they see as an effort to “systematically promote a Hinduphobic and anti-India agenda within the United States.”
The Hindu American Foundation said Monday (March 21) it will launch a campaign to educate the nation’s 2 million Hindus about risks posed by “a small minority … in the House of Representatives, Islamist groups and radical communist groups.”
In particular, the group is objecting to two initiatives targeting a Hindu-led province in India that has experienced religious violence.
On March 15, Reps. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., and John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced a resolution condemning the conduct of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi “for condoning or inciting bigotry and intolerance against any religious group in India, including people of the Christian and Islamic faiths.” Three days later, the U.S. State Department revoked Modi’s visa on the eve of a visit to the United States, labeling him a foreign official “believed to have responsibility for serious violations of religious freedom.”
About 2,500 Muslims were killed in the Gujarat riots of 2002 after several dozen Hindus died in a train disaster, which some blamed on a Muslim crowd.
“Mr. Modi has attacked Muslims and Christians with vile venom, and according to both India’s highest court and many international human rights groups, has condoned terrible, violent religious hate crimes, all the while shielding those said to have committed them,” Conyers said last week. “Such actions by high-ranking government officials of any religion are unacceptable and must not be tolerated.”
Some American Hindus, however, see a pattern of selective condemnation in which their faith is unfairly singled out.
“The heinous tragedy that befell Gujarati Muslims in riots after the murder of 58 Hindus burned alive on a train by terrorists must be denounced,” said Mihir Meghani, president of the Hindu American Foundation.
Meghani alleged that congressmen targeting Hindus are ignoring violations of religious freedom in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, where “thousands have been massacred, and where religio-ethnic cleansing by Islamist extremists supported by Pakistan has resulted in an exodus of 400,000 Hindus, Sikhs and Indian Muslims from their ancestral homes.”
_ G. Jeffrey MacDonald
Quote of the Week: `God Speaks’ Advertising Campaign
(RNS) “If you must curse, use your own name!”
_ One of nine new “messages from God” in the “God Speaks” campaign of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. The ads, which began in 1999, are funded by an anonymous individual and displayed on billboards across the country with the help of the outdoor ad industry.
