Thursday, December 10, 2009

Those Boston Jesuits, Again



As my wife was riding the train into Boston this week, she noticed that one of the HS students on board was reading The Da Vinci Code.

Hmmmm....she thought. He goes to that local Catholic institution - BC High.

And she wondered if it was an *assigned text*.

Why?

Because supposedly the book is sacrilegious:

The problem is that many of the ideas that the book promotes are anything but fact, and they go directly to the heart of the Catholic faith. For example, the book promotes these ideas:

  • Jesus is not God; he was only a man.
  • Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
  • She is to be worshiped as a goddess.
  • Jesus got her pregnant, and the two had a daughter.
  • That daughter gave rise to a prominent family line that is still present in Europe today.
  • The Bible was put together by a pagan Roman emperor.
  • Jesus was viewed as a man and not as God until the fourth century, when he was deified by the emperor Constantine.
  • The Gospels have been edited to support the claims of later Christians.
  • In the original Gospels, Mary Magdalene rather than Peter was directed to establish the Church.
  • There is a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that still worships Mary Magdalene as a goddess and is trying to keep the truth alive.
  • The Catholic Church is aware of all this and has been fighting for centuries to keep it suppressed. It often has committed murder to do so.
  • The Catholic Church is willing to and often has assassinated the descendants of Christ to keep his bloodline from growing.
Again, we don't know for certain that it was an assigned text...

But when it comes to Boston Catholicism we've been conditioned to assume the worst.

The priest child molestation scandals were about as bad it could possibly get.

I recently blogged on that buffoon Cardinal O'Malley in - Big Stones, Big Church, And Big Government.

And I have a blast from the past here:

Speaking of Boston, most people are aware that Condoleeza Rice gave the commencement address at Boston College this past Monday. The protests were anticipated and hyped up by Big Media. Of course Rice is seen by some as an architect for an "illegal war" and "mass murder of civilians". Boston College professor Steven Almond supposedly resigned in protest, rather than teach at a school that condoned the devilish Rice. Personally, I would have been more convinced of his sincerity if he had quit mid-year. It seems only a shade above quitting right before you get fired. Anyway, I listened to an exchange between the dissenting Almond and John Gibson. It was kind of childish but one part 4 minutes in caught my attention. Responding to Gibson:

Professor Almond - ...yeah, you know that's what all of us Communist homosexual lefties advocate...

Now, the context is completely irrelevant, and you can listen yourself to the dull debate if you don't believe me. All they were talking about was Condoleeza Rice and her role in the Iraqi War, "Bush lied", etc. Why Almond saw fit to inject his self-portrait into the discussion remains mysterious.

But I was shocked that a man of that profile would be teaching at a Catholic college. Almond's entire protest was ostensibly based on how a Jesuit institution shouldn't be welcoming an alleged architect of murder - that it was inconsistent with the school's mission and most certainly against Catholic dogma.

Someone ought to fill in Mr. Almond on the Church's teaching on homosexuality. And I doubt that the Church condones Communism since it's responsible for 50-100 million deaths worldwide.

Now I don't blame Almond for anything because Boston College hired him in the first place. Professors like that just tend to erode the notion of Boston College being a Catholic school.

For those of you lucky enough to have never lived around these parts and don't know....BC High and BC are self-styled *progressive* Jesuit institutions, with the former being a feeder school for the latter.

Initially I agreed with my wife, that there wasn't evidence enough to presume the kid reading The Da Vinci Code was doing his *homework*.

Then I woke up....I spun around and said to my wife,

"HAVE YOU EVER KNOWN A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT TO BE READING A NON-ASSIGNED BOOK AT 7am ON HIS WAY TO SCHOOL???"

I certainly haven't.

5 comments:

Megan said...

I used to, when I was in high school. But I was a nerd.

Also, it made the BC High assholes leave me alone on the T. Headphones on, nose in a book, ignoring them. They were pretty awful, especially when there was a group of them.

I wouldn't have been caught dead with the Da Vinci Code, though. I only read classics, making sure to hold the book up so everyone could see the cover. Yeah, I wasn't so much a nerd, as just a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual snob.

Still, you'd want to think that BC High's academic standards are slightly higher than the Da Vinci Code?

CaptiousNut said...

Megan,

Not to one-up you but...

If you ever picked up the *Brooklyn-bound* 4/5 train in Manhattan after school let out....

Now those were some rowdy, obnoxious, and darn scary packs of teenagers!

What are you reading now?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, probably... but it still sucked. I wasn't even pretty.

Now I'm reading a book about how TV affects kids, and another book about biological gender differences in babies, and Sons and Lovers (which is making me want to slit my wrists), and my supposed light reading is an Icelandic saga about independence (which is better than I expected, as it didn't come with glowing recommendations).

All this is probably why I spend far too much time glued to Google Reader. I should probably pick books that are more fun.

CaptiousNut said...

Interesting.

I'm a one-book-at-a-time kinda guy.

(The Road To Serfdom - at the moment.)

I've started using Google Reader, and IT IS more efficient than direct-clicking, but I just can't find any blogs worth reading on a regular basis.

BTW, LOVE your moniker!

Now get yourself a decent avatar.

Megan said...

Aw crap, I forgot to change my name. I'd been so good about remembering, too. That's my blog too, but I didn't direct link it.

I usually have 6 or so books going at a time. I keep them spread around the house/car/diaper bag so I always have one handy. It means it takes forever for me to finish one. Except that TV one, that's going quickly. Sons and Lovers will probably be abandoned soon, which seems a waste since I'm already 300 pages in. I'm just not a Lawrence fan.