Looks like Mr. Calace’s movie has just been released, with the sensational title, “
The Rape of the Soul.” I’ve taken a look at
the trailer, and, as predicted, his allegations seem completely ludicrous. Not that it’s always easy to see what the allegations are, since the captions are so tiny and the images whiz by so quickly. Which, in itself, says a lot. If he were really interested in informing the public (rather than just cashing in on the Da Vinci trend and making $$$ off his “hotlines” and movie), he’d have made more of the so-called “mountains of evidence” freely available on his web site.
You know, back when I was in junior high in the 80’s, it was the “in thing” to do book reports on the subject of visual subliminal messages. I remember my classmates passing around Reader’s Digest ads and Ritz crackers, so we prurient pre-teens could look for the suggestive words and pictures that were supposedly embedded in them.
As topics went, it was a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, ranking right up there with the Bermuda Triangle and the Lost City of Atlantis. Given the lack of credible research on the subject, though, I find it hard to believe that anyone is still taking it seriously as an adult… much less using it to attack his own Church (Mr. Calace calls himself a “devout Catholic”)… and, strangest of all, trying to blame Renaissance artists such as Botticelli for the present-day clergy sexual abuse scandals!
BTW, I went to junior high in Ontario, Canada… and, from the contact information provided with some of his press releases, it looks like Mr. Calace has roots in Toronto. And his leading “expert” – who wrote the book my classmates used – is from the University of Western Ontario. Maybe this topic is some kind of Canadian national obsession? :whacky:
Anyway, whether this filmmaker is really a confused Catholic, or just a common scam artist, he needs our prayers.
P.S. Is it just me, or does the background audio on the movie’s web site sound like a toilet flushing???
