Before the movie began, I asked Mary Ann Surges what she thought of “The Da Vinci Code.” The theologian, feminist and former religious-studies teacher at the old Loretto Heights College looked me right in the eyes and said, “Pretty fantastic.”
She meant that literally.
Dan Brown’s blockbuster best seller is clearly fantasy. But the story of the search for the Holy Grail of womanhood through the streets of Paris and London – complete with murderous clergymen, secret societies, a bloody corpse on the parquet floor of the Louvre and a renegade interpretation of the role of Mary Magdalene – doesn’t have to be true to reveal some essential truths about the Catholic Church.
Which is why so many in the church hierarchy have denounced it so vigorously, and why we eagerly settled in to watch the film version Friday morning.
If a fictional thriller could succeed in getting Catholic bishops this hacked off, no way were we going to miss it.
For the record, the movie is often wordy, tedious and long enough to make the concept of eternity all too real. But it gave Surges and me plenty to talk about afterward, which is one of my chief criteria for a successful film.
We started with the facts. “The idea that Jesus was married is not new,” said Surges, who has a degree in theology and Scripture from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. There is “no indication” in the Gospels that it is true, she said, and she doesn’t think he was – not that there’s anything wrong with that. And the notion that he fathered a child who would continue a bloodline of beautiful white descendants is pretty hard to swallow.
Then again, there’s also no basis for the contention that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, Surges said, but that hasn’t stopped generations of Christian clergy from perpetrating that myth.
“I personally am convinced that Mary of Magdala (or Mary Magdalene) was an extraordinarily important disciple of Jesus,” she said, citing Scriptures that say she and a group of women were the only ones to witness the Resurrection.
The apostles all took off after the Crucifixion, she said, leaving the women behind, and “Jesus gave the women an enormous gift in the Resurrection.”
If you believe in Christianity, that’s no bit part.
“So what is it about Mary of Magdala and women in general that is so threatening to the power structure of the church?” Surges said. “For centuries, they’ve pulled out all the stops trying to vilify women from the New Testament.”
The real objective, she said, has little to do with Scripture and more to do with concentrating power and control in the hands of the few.
“The connection between kings and the papacy in the movie is a good one,” Surges said. “Both structures historically have been patriarchal and not woman- friendly. Both are designed to control.”
While royalty has all but disappeared in the world, the papacy lives on.
And so does the patriarchy.
“What prompts their idiotic statement that women can’t be priests because Jesus was a male?” Surges said. “When will the church leadership realize that women along with men must be equally empowered if we are to survive in this horrendously complicated world?”
“The Da Vinci Code” does a good job of distinguishing between spirituality and the earthly institution of the Catholic Church, Surges said. And with its message that “the only thing that matters is what you believe,” it’s an endorsement – not an indictment – of faith.
But it’s easy to see why the movie makes bishops uneasy.
The most provocative part of “The Da Vinci Code” is not the titillating suggestion that Jesus was married, the sinister portrayal of Opus Dei or the grisly depiction of the cilice, a self-mutilation device that even Mother Teresa is said to have worn. It’s the insight into the church’s subordination of women.
“Spirituality is all about letting go,” Surges said. “When will they give it up?”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
