September 28, 2003

To write a book that will make the bestseller list, write a very good one or a very bad one. Most popular books are very bad. A current bestseller is a murder mystery called The Da Vinci Code which is written badly, researched badly, and misrepresents Christianity badly.

Novels are allowed to indulge fantasy, but this one claims to be based on fact and proposes that Christianity is a cover-up for what was originally some kind of goddess worship. The New York Daily News credits the author with “impeccable scholarship,” although that tabloid has never been distinguished for its knowledge of form criticism, Scriptural exegesis, patristics, Conciliar history, or dogmatic theology. A theologian must laugh at the author’s ramblings, as would a neurosurgeon listening to a snake oil salesman. The author does not understand the canon of Scripture, gullibly accepts the pseudo-Gospels of the Gnostics, claims the Church burned five million witches, thinks that Paris was founded by the Merovingians, places the Avignon popes in Rome, thinks Gothic architecture was a Freudian sublimation built by degenerate Knights Templar, claims that the Olympic games started as festivals honoring Aphrodite, believes that there are Opus Dei monks and miscalculates by about a hundred the number of commissions da Vinci had from the Vatican. And, oh yes, he says that Jesus was not the Son of God and was married to Mary Magdalene. The September issue of Crisis Magazine, (www.crisismagazine.com) takes a professional look at this silliness.

In 1970 a book called The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross sold well, claiming that the Resurrection was a hoax and that Christianity was a cult based on the psychedelic effects of eating certain mushrooms. There was enough of remnant literacy then for most people to disregard it, while enjoying its unintentional humor. Today most people are so uninformed that they take pseudo-scholarship seriously. The recent forgery of an ossuary claiming to be that of St. James was widely publicized, although the subsequent exposure of the fraud got less attention. Under those circumstances, people could not be faulted for taking it seriously at least at first. There is no excuse for believing utter nonsense. It is worse to be entertained by literary bilge that mocks the Faith. And it is seriously wrong to waste time on such reading when there is so much good to read and learn. There is the Catechism for starters, and Butler’s Lives of the Saints, or the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, and the historic studies of Christopher Dawson, Frank Sheed’s To Know Christ Jesus, and Etienne Gilson’s The Elements of Christian Philosophy. If you want novels, there are the modern classics of Flannery O’Conner, Walker Percy and Robert Hugh Benson. First of all, there is the Holy Bible, which is history’s greatest bestseller but which evidently does not impress some bestselling authors.

Fr. George W. Rutler