Holy Bloodline?

If you've ever read the infamous book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, you'd be familiar with the story of the Church of Rennes-le-Château and its alledged association with the assertion that Mary Magdalen came to the south of France and supposedly gave birth to Jesus' offspring who went on to rule Europe before being violently suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church. I was flipping through and saw a program on television just the other day that tried to point out all of the "weird clues" found in this little church of Rennes-le-Château to supposedly back of the claims of Jesus' Holy Bloodline - only now, what I heard made me laugh. What some of these folks call clues might seem mysterious to those who aren't aware of a few facts.

The story, as far as I understand it from the conspiracy theorists, is that a priest at this little church, Fr. Berenger Saunière (1852-1917), found mysterious documents hidden in this church that spoke of a mysterious bloodline that traced back to Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Supposely, the contents of these documents inspired him to renounce his faith and participate in the occult. Furthermore, these folks say that he decided to renovate this church and left clues of his plight to communicate his message without fear of being silence by the Church.

Here is what they said.

Fr. Saunière inscribed 'Terribilis est locus iste' (This place is terrible) above the door to the church! Why would he write such a thing? This must represent his real contempt for the Church!

No - the words are actually taken from the book of Genesis, 28:17 and were used in the Common of the Dedication of a Church. Furthermore 'terribilis' doesn't mean terrible as we might understand it in English, but would mean more like impressive, terrifying, or awe-inspiring. View the faded inscription immediately above the door frame here. Note the other latin inscriptions, such as Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur (My house will be called a house of prayer), all from the Common of Dedication.

They also say:

Fr. Saunière installed a statue of a devil, or what some believe is the demon Asmodeus, near the inscription! Why would he do this, unless it were to insinuate that the devil had entered God's house and further evidence of his occultic practices!

No, the devil is being crushed by a holy water stoup, surmounted by four angels making the sign of the cross with the French inscription, Par ce signe tu le vaincrais (By this sign, you shall conquer). It's called imagery! View the statue here and the angels above it here.

One other amazing thing they have asserted:

There is a statue inside the church, next to the altar, of Jesus holding a little boy! This must represent the fact that Jesus had children - Fr. Saunière is trying to communicate something to his successors!

Actually, the statue is holding a child, but it's a statue of St. Joseph holding the child Jesus in his left hand, flowers in his right. This is opposite to a statue of the Blessed Virgin located on the other side of the altar. View it here.

But why did Fr. Saunière go mad and join the occult unless what he read shook the foundations of his faith?

Is this so novel? If he really did do these things, and that's a big if, so what? We're sinners after all. For some folk, it doesn't take a lot fo shake the foundations of their faith. I understand that. But do we have to put speculative circumstances around one man's struggles? But I must say, the only thing I can extract from his renovation is that he likes imagery and loves his church!

I could not help but watch and laugh as I listened to these assertions. As conspiracy theories go, I think this is more of an attack on the Church than an attack by the Church. But this one has a pretty stable following.