Trash and More Trash

There are many historical errors in Angels and Demons, some of which are so ridiculous you wonder how anyone with half a brain could read such garbage, much less spend time making a movie about it.

And what are the Illuminati up to? In the book it says that “the Illuminati were hunted ruthlessly by the Catholic Church.” In a trailer for the movie, Tom Hanks, who plays Langdon, says of the secret society that “The Catholic Church ordered a brutal massacre to silence them forever. They’ve come for their revenge.” On pp. 39-40 in the book, it says the Illuminati were founded in the 1500s; the movie says the same. On p. 223, it says that “Word of Galileo’s brotherhood started to spread in the 1630s, and scientists from around the world made secret pilgrimages to Rome hoping to join the Illuminati….”

The film’s director, Ron Howard, concurs: “The Illuminati were formed in the 1600s. They were artists and scientists like Galileo and Bernini, whose progressive ideas threatened the Vatican.” Brown, on his website, hammers this point home: “It is a historical fact that the Illuminati vowed vengeance against the Vatican in the 1600s. The early Illuminati—those of Galileo’s day—were expelled from Rome by the Vatican and hunted mercilessly.”

* Lies about the Illuminati: The truth is that not a single member of the Illuminati was ever hunted, much less killed, by the Catholic Church. Exactly who the Illuminati were shows how bogus Brown’s claims are. The Illuminati were founded by a law professor, Adam Weishaupt, in Bavaria on May 1, 1776. It didn’t last long: it totally collapsed in 1787. This isn’t a matter of dispute, so dragging Galileo into this fable is downright dishonest—he died in 1642, almost a century and a half before the Illuminati was founded. Brown must know all this because on his own website there is a section on the Illuminati that correctly identifies its founding in 1776!

Amid the laughable nonsense are some seriously pejorative statements about the nature and mission of the Church. And I really do not understand why Brown decided to pick on Pius XI in such a grotesque manner. (Via Spirit Daily) Share