{"id":2562,"date":"2006-04-27T19:06:01","date_gmt":"2006-04-27T19:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html"},"modified":"2006-04-27T19:06:01","modified_gmt":"2006-04-27T19:06:01","slug":"love-note-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Love Note of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

The e-mail was entitled, "Bigot:"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
You would probably be in the forefront of the religeous zealots brigade, it’s just as well that burning at the stake has been abolished, or you would be standing with your matches right now. Lighten up, the Catholic way is not the only way, nor necessarily the right way. I come <\/div>\n
from a society that has spent 500 years throwing off the Catholic yoke, why? because of their tunnel vision, bigotry, greed, absolutism, and lies. I, and millions like me, are happy to read a novel like the Da Vinci code, and the more vitriolic your scorn of this book, the more people will wonder why it has hit a raw nerve, perhaps it shakes your confidence? Maybe you see some truth in it.<\/div>\n
I do not mean to be rude, but you are in the minority, open your eyes, see what the rest of the world thinks about your faith.<\/div>\n
I am not a fool, nor vindictive, nor on a crusade, unlike you.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
From my contribution to the USCCB’s "Jesus Decoded" website:<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Just as in any religion, there are different levels of Da Vinci Code<\/em> faithful:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  • Those who believe every assertion made in the novel is true. These people come to my talks clutching copies of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar<\/em>, one of Brown\u2019s main sources for the novel. They stand in front of reproductions of Leonardo\u2019s Last Supper<\/em> and solemnly point out the presence of Mary Magdalene. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      \n
    • Those who are startled by the claims of the novel, suspicious because they\u2019ve never heard them before, but at the same time accepting of the possibility. These folks usually lack any background in history and suspect that there\u2019s no way to know the truth anyway. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • Finally, there are those who really don\u2019t care about the exact content<\/em> of The Da Vinci Code<\/em>, but are glad that it subverts Christianity, and so \u201cbelieve\u201d in the project in general, and heartily approve of it.<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n
        See what I mean, Vern?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        The e-mail was entitled, "Bigot:"   You would probably be in the forefront of the religeous zealots brigade, it’s just as well that burning at the stake has been abolished, or you would be standing with your matches right now. Lighten up, the Catholic way is not the only way, nor necessarily the right way.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLove Note of the Day - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Love Note of the Day - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The e-mail was entitled, "Bigot:"   You would probably be in the forefront of the religeous zealots brigade, it’s just as well that burning at the stake has been abolished, or you would be standing with your matches right now. Lighten up, the Catholic way is not the only way, nor necessarily the right way.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-04-27T19:06:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Love Note of the Day - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Love Note of the Day - Via Media","og_description":"The e-mail was entitled, "Bigot:"   You would probably be in the forefront of the religeous zealots brigade, it’s just as well that burning at the stake has been abolished, or you would be standing with your matches right now. Lighten up, the Catholic way is not the only way, nor necessarily the right way.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-04-27T19:06:01+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html","name":"Love Note of the Day - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-04-27T19:06:01+00:00","dateModified":"2006-04-27T19:06:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/love-note-of-the-day.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Love Note of the Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}