Expected response

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

For the last few weeks, some Catholic leaders have expressed great dismay over The Da Vinci Code book and movie.

Abp. Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said if Dan Brown's "slander, offenses and errors" had been written about "the Quran or the Shoah (the Holocaust), they rightly would have provoked a worldwide uprising."

Card. Francis Arinze, head of the Vatican's liturgy congregation, said Brown and others "are exploiting the Christian readiness to forgive and to love even those who insult us" unlike "some other religions which, if you insult their founder ... they will make it painfully clear to you."

While it can be tempting to second those remarks, it's useful to take a deep breath and a second look.

First, anti-Catholicism in the United States goes back to colonial days and continued into the 19th and 20th centuries where the Ku Klux Klan opposed Catholics just as they did blacks and Jews. The Know-Nothings also targeted Catholics and in 1928 Al Smith lost the presidential election chiefly because he was Catholic. John Kennedy remains the only Catholic President in our 217-year history. That may be why American Catholics value the First Amendment, which protects both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, even when it means that someone can question our religion.

The Bible tells us that denying Jesus' divinity started on Easter when the soldiers reported the empty tomb to the chief priests, who told them to say that Jesus' disciples stole his body (Mt 28:11-15) after Jesus was crucified for stating his beliefs (Mk 14:61-64).

As for how Christians should react, Jesus told us to turn the other cheek (Mt 5:39), to forgive those who wronged us seventy times seven times (Mt 18:22) and to forgive as we want to be forgiven (Mt 6:12). Jesus also warns those who follow him to expect to be treated as he was: "Blest are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because of me" (Mt 5:11). Jesus also warned disciples of upcoming mistreatment (Mt 10:16-20, Jn 15:18,20-21; 16:2-3; 21:18-19).

Sure enough, Jesus' followers are persecuted (Acts 8:1-3; 12:1-2) and Stephen, like Jesus, dies forgiving his killers (Acts 7:54-60). Peter and John particularly suffer for preaching and healing in Jesus' name. But after the Sanhedrin has them whipped, they leave "full of joy that they had been judged worthy of ill-treatment for the sake of the Name" and kept preaching without stop (Acts 5:40-42).

While it may be hard for us to embrace abuse or to hear Jesus mocked, these are, it seems, part of the cross - along with loving, forgiving and teaching our enemies - that Jesus asks us to carry daily as his followers (Lk 9:23).