Dan Brown’s Run-ins with the Catholic Church
And We Run into Angels and Demons all over Rome
The Catholic Church was outraged when Dan Brown published The Da Vinci Code, an entertaining story that includes a rather preposterous tale involving the life of Christ. So, most people were not surprised when Ron Howard, the director of the movie version of The Da Vinci Code, came calling to request permission to film a few scenes in two Paris churches, St Sulpice and Notre Dame, and the Church denied his request. And they were not too surprised when Ron came calling a few years later. This time he asked if he could film a few scenes in two Roman churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, for another Brown story, Angels and Demons. And he was denied again. The church was not too happy about this story, either.
Angels and Demons is about a secret society called the Illuminati that was formed to protest the Church’s stand on art and science during the Renaissance. According to Brown, famous artists and scientists such as Copernicus, Galileo and Bernini belonged to this secret society and the Church murdered them and most of the other members. Those that survived went underground, not to reappear until they attempt to get their revenge when the Cardinals of the Church flock to Rome to elect a new Pope. Enter Robert Langdon, Brown’s super symbologist, played by Tom Hanks, to save the day.
The Church actually asks Langdon for help in this story. Father Patrick McKenna, the Church’s Camerlengo (property administrator), played by Ewan McGregor in the movie, calls Langdon when four of the Cardinals are kidnapped.
Hollywood prefers to consider Angels and Demons as a sequel to The Da Vinci Code since Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code was released in 2006 and Angels and Demons in 2009. But Dan Brown wrote Angels and Demons in 2000 and The Da Vinci Code in 2003. So, The Da Vinci Code is really the sequel to Angels and Demons.
I read the book prior to our trip in 2009 but the movie did not come out until after our return and I saw it a few months later.
The Da Vinci Code was a super blockbuster that made Dan Brown famous. But some people, including yours truly, actually liked Angels and Demons better. OK, Brown has done it again in conjuring up another preposterous story. But Angels and Demons is as entertaining as any modern-day spy thriller as Robert Langdon confronts the Illuminati assassin all over Rome.
Angels and Demons is a perfect yarn for tourists wishing to visit Rome. The sites that make up the plots are the same sights on any list of places to see in Rome: its churches, its fountains, its museums, its ancient buildings.
Here are some photos I took on our 2009 Rome vacation. As I recall, the plot of Angels and Demons involves all of these sights.
The problem with Dan Brown’s stories is that Brown himself claims they are true and many of his readers and movie followers believe him. We watch and enjoy all these Hollywood superhero movies even though we know that Batman, Spider-man and others who reside in various alternative universes don’t really exist. Why can’t we treat Brown’s stories in the same way?
A few years ago, I had a series of posts on my Crow Canyon Journal blog about our favorite walks. The walks that came in first and third place both came from our 2009 vacation in Rome. You can find them here and here. And you can learn about what we did on that Easter Sunday in Rome here. And just the other day I published a story on Medium on The Da Vinci Code and St Sulpice. You can find that story here.
