EXTRA!! Movie About Christian Anti-Semitism Premiers Today!

Good Timing!

The book, Constantine's Sword, deals with Christian anti-Semitism from the time of Emperor Constantine's "conversion" (313 CE) to today's Benedict XVI and all of the Christian Right. Written by former Catholic priest, James Carroll it was the winner of the 2001 National Book Award. It's very large (750+pages) but very engaging. Carroll takes you through the astonishing struggle Judaism has had under Christianity in a largely personal way. He was interviewed yesterday on ABC News and, while struggling to seem unbiased, has to admit to the Catholic Church's complicity in the events leading to the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust: i.e., while many people have called Pius XII "Hitler's Pope" Carroll correctly defines the pope as "Hitler's Cardinal" (before he became pope, Pacelli as the Vatican's Secretary of State, was directly responsible for the treaty between the Vatican and Germany - the ReichsConcordat of 1933).

Today, a documentary based on the book premiers:

In reviewing the Ben Stein movie Exposed (see post below), TV Guide reviewer Ken Fox has this to say:

Check out the documentary CONSTANTINE'S SWORD, released in theaters on the very same day as this slickly produced bit of nonsense, if you need a reminder of the atrocities fueled by terrible distortions of religious beliefs. --Ken Fox

John Anderson (Newsday) In "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore went looking for the heart of darkness in American culture. In the considerably more serious, sober and oh-so-solemn "Constantine's Sword," writer and ex-priest James Carroll goes looking for the genome of violence in Christianity and has little trouble finding a churchly culture based in conquest and awash in blood.

Ron Wilkerson (Monsters & Critics):

Although the film starts out as an apparent frontal attack on the Catholic Church, it subtly widens its perspective to look at a much larger and more important picture. The real issue becomes the genesis of hate replacing love as the central doctrine of organized religion. The present day microcosm is the Air Force Academy’s apparent obsession with evangelical Christianity, which has reached the point of obsession based on the documented reports of anti-Semitic slurs and harassment by the cadets. Remember, these cadets are the guys who will control your nuclear weapons in a few years.

Andrew Sullivan (New York Times Book Review):

And it is a book of a deeper sort -- a rigorous theological and moral dialectic that Carroll, the author of ''An American Requiem,'' never removes from the personal necessity of choice, for good over evil, for memory over denial and for love over power.

I intend to see this movie. Hope it's as good as the book.