EASTER IS PRIME time for a biblical epic like Mary Magdalene to be released you might think.
In truth, Easter was just a second best slot fill for Davis’ latest movie after its original release date got scrubbed amid the empirical Weinstein downfall.
Its stalling couldn’t have come at a worst time, pre-Oscar season, a great story, in fact the greatest story never told about the woman from Magdala, a queen of nobility wrongly cast as prostitute by womb-envying patriarchs throughout western religious history.
Who she really was
The Oscars would have been a redemptive platform to set the record straight about who Mary Magdalene actually was. Had the ghost of the ‘fallen woman’ the chance to grace the red carpet and let her truth speak out, that she was never tied to a pillar and stoned, because the only true pillar that existed back then was in fact her, Magdalene, there’d be serious female unrest.
Pope Benedict has been good about giving us whitewash. He conceded in a book he wrote a couple of years ago that he concurred with historians that Jesus could not have been born in December. To this day no one knows what season even he may have been born in but we can grapple with that because we love Christmas and don’t want to ruin any of the magic.
Same with the next harmless revelation (from the same book according to the ex-nuncio) that our little donkey with his heavy load didn’t exist back then either. But how does the Vatican claw back on the latest career-suicide revelation that Mary Magdalene was in truth more midwife than fishwife delivering babies and post-natal care for the local women?
The Church can try and hide behind the many faces of Mary speculated about within the dusty Dead Sea scrolls, but her more plausible role existed somewhere between that of a high priestess and the more humbling role as Mrs JC.
More plausible again that after Christ’s crucifixion it was Mary Magdalene who cleaned his naked blood-soaked body in preparation for burial, and in strict sandal-wearing days a duty reserved for a spouse only.
So what happened?
Who twisted the truth so scurrilously that Magdalene wrongly went down in history as a demon possessed jezebel who tried to weaken the flesh of Christ? A misogynistic 16th century papal nuncio, called Pope Gregory I, who before pre-nups were invented became paranoid that women would rob the Church of men and riches.
So he decided to play ‘good cop bad cop’ with his fearful and devoted congregation – pit the harlot against her virgin nemesis and namesake so ordinary womenfolk would morally fall between the two.
Years after, the patriarchal Church bathed in their fabricated staining of a wronged Magdalene. Until 2016, Pope Francis admitted the indoctrinating defamatory faux pas heralding Mary Magdalene as a mere prostitute. A Vatican clean up commenced and a modest ‘announcement’ followed.
An apostle of the apostles
In recognition of her humanitarian work during Christ’s trial and death, Mary Magdalene was rightfully declared as Jesus’ 13th disciple and was literally crowned ‘an apostle of the apostles’.
It’s all there in black and white in the closing credits of Davis’ movie and for the doubting Thomas’ among us it’s cited on Vatican press site too.
The Church might claw their way back from this but never the hurt of all the countless young women and children who endured the hell homes under Mary Magdalene’s name – a ‘good’ name that was ruined but is now deserved of a just resurrection.
Grace Vaughan is a mother who works at SkyDaddy Media.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say