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PINE BLUFFS – A few years ago, while on a ten day whirlwind book tour of my home state of Wyoming, my wife and I attended Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral, in Cheyenne, where I picked up a copy of the Wyoming Catholic Register, the excellent Diocesan newspaper.
It was exciting to see articles by Carl Olson and George Weigel, truly “workers in the vineyard,” regarding The Da Vinci Code, a troubling novel “based on the belief that Jesus was a mere man, that Christianity is a despicable sham because Jesus was married to Mary of Magdela and had a child, and that all claims to objective truth (a tenet of Moral Relativism), are to be avoided.” Although The Da Vinci Code’s author wants readers to believe that he conducted extensive research, his work contains many errors.
Olson, a former editor of Envoy Magazine, exposed the bias toward Catholics in Brown’s novel and suggested that its success indicates a lack of understanding of their faith by many Christians.
Weigel picked up on this theme. A senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., George is best known for his epic biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope. This book, published in 1999, and Malachi Martin’s The Keys of this Blood, published in ‘90, are the definitive works about John Paul’s papacy written to date.
Weigel hails from Baltimore. He grew up in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen parish, where his elderly parents may still reside. In 1986, as he was beginning his research, he came to the Basilica of the Assumption in downtown Baltimore to give a talk sponsored by The Catholic Review, Baltimore’s Archdiocesan newspaper. Sadly, only six people attended that Sunday afternoon. George’s mother, father and I made up half the audience that day, in an area where many activities compete for the limited free time available to hard-working people. As a writer myself, I can empathize. Fortunately, George persisted, and three years later, completed his wonderful, non-fiction work. The world is all the richer for it.
Together, Olson and Weigel made a convincing case that Catholics should read De-Coding Da Vinci, by Amy Welborn, The Da Vinci Hoax, by Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel, and the OSV pamphlet, A Catholic Response: The Facts Behind The Da Vinci Code. These three readily available sources expose the lies contained in Brown’s destructive novel for anyone, especially Roman Catholics, who might still think the book is “harmless entertainment.”
Anthony Joseph Sacco, a licensed private investigator, writer, and author of three books, The China Connection, Little Sister Lost, and Echoes in the Wind, holds degrees from Loyola College of Maryland and the University of Maryland Law School. His articles have appeared in the Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Voices for the Unborn, the Catholic Review, WREN Magazine and the Wyoming Catholic Register. E-mail him at AnthonyJSacco@hotmail.com and visit his website at www.SaccoServices.com.