Press Release Plus Palaver Packs Pulverizing Pietistic Punch
Da Vinci Code Movie Meets 'Largest Protest Against Blasphemy in History'
SPRING GROVE, Penn., June 8 /Christian Newswire/—To date, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and its America Needs Fatima campaign has sponsored 2,025 peaceful protests against The Da Vinci Code movie at theaters nationwide.
"As far as I know, the magnitude of this act of public reparation is unparalleled. The moral outrage is real and Catholics proved it by forming the largest grassroots protest against blasphemy in history,"
said TFP president Raymond E. Drake. "We will not remain silent as Our Divine Savior is publicly ridiculed and reviled by The Da Vinci Code or any anti-Catholic display of disrespect that targets the sacred person of Our Lord.""The Da Vinci Code book and movie will soon be consigned in the gutter of history, and remembered as yet one more failed attempt by the gates of Hell to prevail against the Church," Mr. Drake continued.
According to the TFP's web site, approximately 1,100 protests were held at theaters on the film's opening night, nearly one in every three theaters showing the movie.
"After a full month of theater protests, the American TFP will sponsor a national hour of Eucharistic adoration in reparation for The Da Vinci Code's blasphemies. The event will be held from 5:00-6:00 P.M. (Eastern Time), on June 18, the feast of Corpus Christi," said Mr. Drake. "The TFP hopes more than 1,000 protest organizers will sponsor an hour."
The TFP is organizing final protests on June 24.
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Contact: John Horvat, The American TFP, 717-225-7147 ext. 227, jh1908@aol.com
I'm glad to see good Fatimans like TFP standing up for their culture, but I'm disappointed that TFP's website seems to hide all references to Father Nicholas Gruner of the Ontario-based Fatima Center. I think Gruner would understand the Da Vinci Code people as, well, enemies of course, but enemies who are driven by the same spiritual needs that drive his own flock. Surely these folks recognize eruptions of mariology for what they are: a Powerful Womyn's struggle to make her voice heard. You can find out all about Gruner in my pre-9/11 history of Marian Anticommunism: Featuring supporting roles for Ambassador Joe Davies, Franjo Tudjman, Capt. Scott O'Grady, and Sir Paul McCartney. Proving Mary the mother of Jesus did more to win the cold war than any politican you can name. Making a new prophecy for the 21st century: "No matter what happens, Mary will be kicking some ass." Winding up with this dissenting view, on the occasion of Pope John Paul II's having received a Congressional Gold Medal for "using his moral authority to hasten the fall of Godless totalitarian regimes"…
These papal plaudits are just another attempt to avoid giving credit to a woman—in this case the woman who even before the October Revolution was working, behind the scenes and when necessary at center stage, to end the scourge of Bolshevism. It wasn't John Paul II who finished off the Soviet Union. It wasn't Ronald Reagan. It was the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Fatima.