Vowing to not post any more on DVC, the media continues to thwart me – today it was the Diane Rehm show, which today featured in the discussion:

Reverend Thomas Euteneuer

The first caller: An older gentleman from Georgia gets us started by opiniong that the DVC is an outrage, but for the RC church to get upset about this is like the pot calling the kettle black because the Catholic Church has done more to pervert the Gospel than any other institution in history.

Well….er….

Okay. a little bit more conversation, and then came a call which was the one that had me yelling at the car radio. A woman from Indianpolis called and said she’d not seen the movie yet, but had read the book, and that she was a practicing Catholic and her faith had not been shaken or threatened, not one little bit, in fact it had expanded her thinking because it was kind of nice to think that Jesus might have been married ’cause then he could really understand what life was like for married people like her.

And Fr. O’Connell expressed affirmation that it was good that she’d experienced this desire to think about her faith. (I’m paraphrasing but, I think accurately. You have to pay for transcripts of the Rehm show – they’re not even on Lexis-Nexis) .

Next question.

Look, I’ve heard good things about Fr. O’Connell, but this response, both the "My faith survived DVC, heh, heh.." and "Good for your religious explorations" was quite disaapointing. There is a certain category of Catholic pundit that is quite distanced from the popular reaction to this work and its attendant products, people who don’t see that for some, DVC is doing nothing but fertilizing already budding skepticism of the Gospels and the early Christian tradition about Jesus, and is driving the Christology of some Christians to its lowest point since Arius. Hey…lower than Arius , for to Arius, Jesus was sort of semi-divine, at least.

And now, in contrast, Fr. Jim Martin, S.J., from CNN Saturday Morning:

NGUYEN: While some critics say the movie is just blasphemous, let’s ask somebody who’s actually seen "The Da Vinci Code." Father James Martin is a Jesuit priest and associate editor of "American" magazine. He’s also the author of "My Life with the Saints." Father Martin joins us from New York. Thanks for being with us today.

REV. JAMES MARTIN, ASSOC. EDITOR, "AMERICA": My pleasure.

NGUYEN: All right, father, you’ve seen it. What do you think?

MARTIN: Well, as a movie-goer, I found it really tedious and really long. As a priest, I found it really anti-Catholic, so you know, not a good combination in my book.

NGUYEN: All right, but did you feel it was blasphemous I mean or did you feel that it was just a murder mystery based on a fiction novel?

MARTIN: Well, it’s based on a novel, obviously, but you know, it crams all the anti-Catholic stereotypes it can into the movie. You have the evil Opus Dei monk. You have the conniving bishop. You have people murdering, the Vatican covering things up and basically perpetrating this lie. The only way it could have been any more anti- Catholic is if they would have slapped a subtitle saying "the Catholic church is evil" throughout the whole movie.

NGUYEN: Father.

MARTIN: So it was pretty over the top. But as a movie-goer, it was just long and it had like five different endings. So I was kind of bored by the end.

NGUYEN: But don’t you think, you just said it yourself, it was pretty over the top. Don’t you think that just dispels all the worry that this is going to change people’s vision of Christianity. It’s going to make them really believe that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had children?

MARTIN: Well, the problem is that Dan Brown and his admirers have been presenting him and his book as if it is fact. He says it’s based on this historical research and at least a lot of people I talked to, like that women that was just quoted says it’s objective and this is based on research. So I think they’re trying to play fast and loose. They’re trying to have it both ways. They’re saying it’s based on research, but it’s all just fiction. So I think it will end up confusing some people, unfortunately.

NGUYEN: Director Ron Howard basically says, look, if you don’t like the story, don’t go see it, and author Dan Brown, in fact, he’s starting to come out and speak about it. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN BROWN, AUTHOR, "THE DA VINCI CODE": A very wise British priest noted recently in the press, Christian theology has survived the writings of Galileo and the writings of Darwin. Surely it will survive the writings of some novelist from New Hampshire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: There you go. It kind of makes sense. What do you think? What’s your response to that?

MARTIN: That’s a pretty thin response to bigotry. It’s like saying hey look, I’m going to open up a restaurant that doesn’t serve blacks or Jews and if you don’t like it, don’t come. I don’t think you can just say here’s this bigoted novel, this novel filled with prejudice and if you don’t like it, tough. I mean, I think people should have the guts to stand up and say either, I don’t believe in the Catholic Church, or I do, but to sort of hide behind this veil of fiction I think is really bologna.

NGUYEN: But Father, at the same time, you just said it was over the top, and honestly, I’ve seen the movie. I went to see it yesterday just like you did, and it didn’t change my view of Christianity. I thought it was just a movie. So don’t you think that by seeing this movie, people are going to realize, yes, it’s just a movie, it’s a novel of fiction. It’s not reality?

MARTIN: It’s kind of like the Oliver Stone movie "JFK." I mean the stuff is so sort of artfully presented that a lot of people are going to leave the movie theater and say hey, that’s the way it was. They leave JFK and they say well, I guess that’s the way the assassination went. They leave "The Da Vinci Code" and they say well, I bet a lot of that’s true because it’s based on fact, which is what I’ve heard Dan Brown say over and over again.

So I mean if you’re dealing with people who knew a lot about church history, great, but a lot of people don’t. And in this vacuum comes this sort of like what I call a theological equivalent of junk food. So you know, it’s kind of unfortunate. A lot of educated people I know really are taking this stuff seriously, unfortunately.

NGUYEN: I think the fortunate thing out of all of this is, don’t you think, that at least it’s getting people to talk, getting people to research Christianity and its roots?

MARTIN: Well, you would hope so, but then you see the books that people are turning to. You look at the "New York Times" best seller list and it’s a lot of books like "The Jesus Papers" and "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." So I think they’re going from one bit of junk food to another bit of junk food. It’s not like they’re looking at really serious stuff.

You know, they’re not going to go out and buy another book of church history. They’re going to buy another Dan Brown novel. That seems to be more of the case, unfortunately. I mean, if people did do more research on church history, that would be great, but I don’t think that’s happening.

NGUYEN: And very quickly, you’ve had a little fun with this yesterday. You were leaving awfully quickly. You stumbled across a reporter and what did you say?

MARTIN: Well, I said that I had to rush home because like all priests and monks, I have to go assassinate somebody, I mean …

NGUYEN: Goodness, father! You can’t talk like that. I’m praying for you, OK?

MARTI: Thank you. I’m praying for you, too.

NGUYEN: All right, thank you for your time today. We appreciate it.

MARTIN: You’re welcome.

Bravo, Fr. Martin, and the point I bolded is especially well-taken.

NOW can I stop?????