Anne Rice Writes Catholic-ly?

OK. Awkward headline, but it captures my mood when reading this article.

The wildly successful author of horror fiction returned to her Catholic faith in the late 1990s and now writes historical fiction about the life of Jesus. Her latest, “Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana,” is to be published in March. It focuses on the early years of Jesus’ ministry.

Benedicta Cipolla of Religion News Service said the novel “is in many ways an orthodox response” to “The Da Vinci Code.” Rice calls the Dan Brown blockbuster “load of nonsense.”

In what Cipolla calls “a direct salvo at ‘Da Vinci,'” Rice says in the author’s note to the new book: “It is more than ever important to affirm our belief in Christ as sinless and unmarried because that is the way the gospels present Him.”

Later we learn that Miss Rice’s volume is not without nonsense of its own:

“I can draw a valid portrait of him according to Scripture as a sinless, celibate man,” Rice said in an interview. “Not some feminized pious image floating off the ground, but a real, virile man subject to noticing the beauty of the girls of Nazareth.”

Jesus may notice beauty and even be tempted by the idea of marriage with a local young woman, but in keeping with Rice’s beliefs and her Gospel source material, there are no lustful thoughts as in “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and definitely no wedding vows.

The part about “feminized pious image” was nice, but she lost me after that. This is a sort of neo-orthodoxy that flirts too much with the world as it tries to maintain the straight line of the Gospel. As God and Man, Jesus could notice beauty, even feminine beauty. As God he created it and as man he had a perfect aesthetic sense. No problem. But “tempted by the idea of marriage with a local young woman” is over the top. Our Lord had no concupiscence.

I don’t want to dismiss Anne Rice. She’s come a long way. Perhaps her friendship with Archbishop Hannan will take her even further.