Easter Sunday is the warmest day so far this spring, providing perfect blue skies for the year's most joyous event. Approaching the church, my grandfather waits for me outside, a wide bright smile on his face reflecting my own. I'm already anticipating the huge lunch my grandmother has prepared. Without fail, another Easter has put me in a wonderfully happy mood.
Midway through the service the congregation is directed to sit and the homily begins. We are fortunate this year to have the diocesan bishop presiding at mass and preaching and I'm a little eager to hear what he has to say. Ten minutes in and we've already been comfortably reminded that through Christ our sins have been forgiven and that eternal salvation is now attainable. My eyes feel slightly heavier and I get a little more comfortable in my seat.
Suddenly there's a change.
The bishop begins speaking with such force and charisma that his passion cannot be ignored. The change catches us off guard, but soon we're absorbing each gesticulated word that leaves his mouth. We're pulled toward him and he has perhaps the most attentive congregation he could wish for and this isn't because he's talking about God. It's because he's talking about The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
For the next 25 minutes we're told that the heretic pagan author Brown is trying to dismantle the Roman Catholic Church like so many others and that as true Christians we are in no way to entertain the immensely popular words that litter his pages. Brown is spreading lies and is an immense threat to our fundamental beliefs. I think the bishop even said reading the book was a sin, but I coughed at this point so can't be sure.
I left the church with a frighteningly strong feeling in my stomach, a combination of frustration and disgust and one that has not left me since. Hmm, this wasn't the Easter Sunday feeling I was used to; what had happened?
I'm a 26-year-old man who is no stranger to university, college, television and world travel. I have seen, read and heard many things and am no idiot when it comes to global issues. We're inundated with issues such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, war, cancer and the environment. It's at the point that the suffering of this planet and its people can be viewed and felt 24 hours a day, seven days a week practically wherever you go. There is work to be done and saying that you don't know how to help or aren't even aware of the problems has become an old and tired cliché.
And here I was warned about the dangers of a work of fiction by an author no one had even heard of until a few years ago. A sermon given by a religious structure fearful of losing even more of its members through the simple act of reading.
Easter Sunday 2005: The world needs help, always has, always will and my church is afraid of Brown and his scythe-like words.
I have a feeling that sitting in a crowd on a hill before Jesus on a warm Sunday much like this one, I would not have walked away with a sick stomach. I think Jesus would have talked about what expression of love really means and that no matter what people say or do we are all loved and cared for by God. Even when some Dan Brown-types hurled some insults from outside the crowd, Jesus wouldn't have cared. Jesus had faith in Himself and his believers.
I wonder what has become of my religion when its leaders preach more on popular culture than the starving millions in sub-saharan Africa? Maybe I should read The Da Vinci Code and see what it's all about.
