Near the end of Dan Brown\u2019s \u201cAngels & Demons,\u201d the beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra clashes with a Vatican official who insists that the day researchers prove how God acted in creation is \u201cthe day people stop needing faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean the day they stop needing the church,\u201d she shouts, weaving together the novel\u2019s main themes. \u201cBut the church is not the only enlightened soul on the planet! We all seek God in different ways. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cGod is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!\u201d<\/p>\n
This long speech is not in the movie based on Brown\u2019s first novel about the dashing Harvard professor Robert Langdon, who uses his encyclopedic knowledge of art, religion, history, literature, architecture and archeology to crack through layers of ancient conspiracies that bedevil modern humanity. <\/p>\n
This is, however, a speech that \u2014 as a sermon by the author \u2014 offers insights into the worldview behind \u201cAngels & Demons\u201d and the novel that followed it. <\/p>\n
That, of course, was \u201cThe Da Vinci Code,\u201d which ignited a global firestorm because of its depiction of Jesus as a brilliant, charismatic and ultimately misunderstood mortal man who married the brilliant, charismatic and misunderstood Mary Magdalene and had a child with her before his untimely death. This power couple\u2019s goal was to create an inclusive, dogma-free, sexually enlightened faith. But, alas, the power-hungry patriarchs who created Christianity \u2014 especially the Roman Catholic Church \u2014 conspired to wreck and bury their work.<\/p>\n
Director Ron Howard, who also directed \u201cThe Da Vinci Code\u201d movie, admits that large parts of \u201cAngels & Demons\u201d were scrapped and rewritten while turning the prequel into a sequel. Brown gave his blessing since the book\u2019s major themes remained intact.<\/p>\n
As with \u201cThe Da Vinci Code,\u201d Howard is convinced that he has not created an anti-Catholic film. His goal, he said, was to raise questions about the nature of faith. <\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in God, yes, I do. I\u2019m not a member of a church at the moment,\u201d he told reporters, before \u201cAngels & Demons\u201d reached theaters. \u201cThere is no personal struggle, for me, between my beliefs and religion. Basically, in a nutshell, I believe that our intelligence, and our curiosity, and our drive to know more are a part of the plan. \u2026 But I haven\u2019t worked to directly sort of inject my personal spirituality and belief system into the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal, while spinning another conspiracy-theory thriller, was to focus on \u201cthe threat that some in the Vatican may feel about what science represents, what it proposes to say about the origins of the universe and the origins of man,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The plot begins with the sudden death of a \u201cprogressive and beloved pope.\u201d Then, all hell breaks loose as someone claiming to represent a secret society of freethinkers called the \u201cIlluminati\u201d kidnaps what the book describes as the four \u201cliberal,\u201d reform-minded cardinals who were the top candidates to become pope and begins murdering them in public rituals.<\/p>\n
As the coup de grace, this mysterious killer has arranged to steal a container of antimatter produced at the CERN Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border. Langdon and Vetra have to rush around \u2014 call it \u201c24\u201d meets a papal conclave \u2014 and find this missing \u201cGod particle\u201d stuff before it explodes and vaporizes Vatican City.<\/p>\n
By the time it\u2019s all over, Langdon and company have solved a papal-murder mystery, saved the enlightened cardinal who ultimately becomes pope and, literally, saved the throne of St. Peter from being captured a madman who is, of course, the story\u2019s most articulate conservative Catholic.<\/p>\n
This villain \u201cfeels that the church is going down the wrong path\u201d as it pursues peace with science and modernity, noted actor Ewan McGregor. \u201cHe thinks that the church is becoming watered down and is becoming weaker and weaker. \u2026 He\u2019s trying to put it back on course.\u201d<\/p>\n
The key is that \u201cAngels & Demons\u201d offers a Vatican that contains good Catholics and bad Catholics. By the end of the film, said Howard, Langdon has gained a \u201cmore complex view of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, there are good Catholics and bad Catholics and Brown and Howard get to determine who is who.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Near the end of Dan Brown\u2019s \u201cAngels & Demons,\u201d the beautiful scientist Vittoria Vetra clashes with a Vatican official who insists that the day researchers prove how God acted in creation is \u201cthe day people stop needing faith.\u201d \u201cYou mean the day they stop needing the church,\u201d she shouts, weaving together the novel\u2019s main themes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[160,283,286,431,1542,753,754,871],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godbeat","tag-catholic-church","tag-da-vinci-code","tag-dan-brown","tag-hollywood","tag-movies","tag-rome","tag-ron-howard","tag-tom-hanks"],"yoast_head":"\n