The world readies for 6/6/06

By Scott Rosenberg Jun 4, 2006, 15:36 GMT

From the Eternal Sea he risesCreating armies on either sideTurning man against his brotherTil man exists no moreMany believe the prophecy from the Book of Revelation provides a map to a terrifying futureSor it presents fragments of history that have come to life in our time. The signs, they claim, are all around us: terrorist attacks, extreme weatherS the list goes on.The passage specifically points to the arrival of the ...more

As the world prepares for  the release of The Omen’ on 6/6/06, an Australian clergyman has begun to preach the holiness of that date.

Australian media are running reports of overseas media mention of holding off having children on Tuesday June 6th to prevent them from having devil children like portrayed in ‘The Omen.’

The original ‘Omen,’ directed by Richard Donner, starred Gregory Peck as the United States' ambassador to London, Lee Remick as his attractive but neurotic homemaker wife, and the young Harvey Stephens as their long-awaited child, Damien, who had a 666 birthmark and arrived at 6 am on the sixth day of the sixth month. Unknown to Robert and Katherine Thorn, their child is the devil's spawn, literally marked with the number of the beast.

Richard Leonard, a Jesuit priest and the director of the Australian Catholic Film Office, has urged parents who have a son born on the 6/6/06 to defy superstition and christen their child Damien if they wish.

Leonard has spent the last few weeks lecturing a Catholic response to ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and has now turned his attention to Tuesday’s release of John Moore’s (‘Behind Enemy Lines’) ‘The Omen,’ remake – this time starring Liev Schreiber and  Julia Stiles as the Thorns and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Damien.

He  said that while the film has associated the name Damien with the Devil, it also has a positive holy association.
 
"There were several saints called Damien and they (boys born on June 6) could well follow in their light, so I would advise parents that they should be happy to have their baby on that day and to call him Damien," Dr Leonard maintained .

"To be seduced into that (not calling a child Damien) is to buy into a false superstition. It is simply a horror film which trades on evil taking us over but in the Christian faith, we believe that good and love is a stronger force than evil.

"The release date is exploitative considering there are vulnerable people who could get caught up in it and become upset."