This Week's Response Blotter

Amidst talk of Maltese protest pilgrimages quashed by the Catholic Church and ongoing debates about banning the movie in the Philippines, Jordan and South Korea, here's a roundup of higher-profile responses to Ron Howard's film and Dan Brown's book:

• Last Monday, a group of about 50 Catholic in Rochester, NY, picketed the Tinseltown USA Theatre in protest of the movie's upcoming screening. The protest was reportedly led by representatives of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign, which had previously said it would simply be organizing peaceful demonstrations on the day of the movie's release. So much for planning.
• At a conference in Rome this week, Opus Dei's Fr. John Wauck (who runs a Da Vinci Code blog) suggested that the upcoming movie might actually lead people to the Church rather than away from it. “If you find what you see there attractive you will probably enjoy a Catholic Mass,” he said. “I’ve seen people who have come back to their faith after reading The Da Vinci Code.”
• An affiliation of Roman Catholic Church leaders called "The Da Vinci Code Response Group," coordinated by Dr. Austen Ivereigh, Director for Public Affairs of the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, issued a press release with a very succint summary in direct contradiction to last week's Vatican rumblings about a boycott: "Our first message to people planning to see the film is: enjoy yourselves, but do not believe anything in it. The Da Vinci Code is fiction trading as fact. Our second message is: the story of the real Jesus is much more compelling than the gospel according to Dan Brown. Enjoy yourselves; then discover for yourselves the real thing."
• In the Protestant world, the best thing I read this week was a column run in the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette written by pastor Steve Conner of the local Covenant United Methodist Church. Among other things, pastor Connor says, "Real truth can usually stand the test. And if it can’t, then it must not have been true to begin with and needed to be challenged. There’s room to explore, grow, discover, wonder and wander while seeking a deeper understanding of all things, and sometimes that means even being willing to challenge the thoughts, ideas or perspectives we hold most dear. Usually, truth, real truth, can stand the scrutiny. It is important for us to learn to think theologically and critically about the issues that concern our world and us." Ahhh. How refreshing.

Various Sources, 04-06.05.06