An ecclesiastical meltdown- Los Angeles Times

Het die kerk nie dalk oorreageer met die bekendstelling van die Judasevangelie en die bewerings wat in die boeke The Da Vinci Code gemaak word nie? Hier die artikel in die Los Angeles Times bied 'n interessante perspektief.

If I were the pope, my response to "The Da Vinci Code" would have been regal silence — or at most, a release from the Vatican press office along the lines of "we are not amused." As for the Gospel of Judas, I would have issued a bland analysis proclaiming that the early church was right to have rejected Gnosticism as heresy. And then I would have offered a prayer of thanks, as thousands of editors throughout the world deleted my press release from their e-mail, saying "no news here."

Instead, the Vatican went ballistic during Holy Week, the most sacred period on the Christian calendar. And the archbishop of Canterbury — whose Church of England has often been at odds with the Vatican since Henry VIII broke from Rome to marry Anne Boleyn — sounded more Catholic than the pope by denouncing the public "obsession" with conspiracy theories. On Holy Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI described Judas as nothing more than a greed-driven "liar and a double-crosser who breaks with the truth." Only last week, the Vatican called on Catholics to boycott the film as blasphemous.