The Pope and the Da Vinci Code

Amidst all the current controversy about Dan Brown's da Vinci Code there has been a group of people over at www.catholic.com who have been working indistriously on this problem for some time.

Some quotes from the article Cracking The Da Vinci Code:

"The author is Dan Brown. He is a former English teacher who has authored three previous books"

Go English teachers! Yeah! After years of reading dreary essays, stories and conspiracy theories from genertaions of glazed-eyed students, now Dan has the cahnce to inflict his on the world.

"Should other Christians be concerned about the book?Definitely. Only some of the offensive claims of The Da Vinci Code pertain directly to the Catholic Church. The remainder strike at the Christian faith itself. If the book's claims were true, then all forms of Christianity would be false (except perhaps for Gnostic/feminist versions focusing on Mary Magdalene instead of Jesus)."

Yeah! Go Gnostics! Go Feminist theology!Go anyone who wants to make up their own religion from works of speculative (science) fiction! Hang on, don't we already have scientology?

Apart from this the real tragedy is those who are prepared to give intellect and faith assent to the narrative found in The da Vinci Code (for which there is little historical evidence and much speculation and conspiracy theorising) and offer NO time for true christianity (for which there is much evidence and can readily withstand testing according to accepted standards of judicial, scientific and historical fact).

I'll give the final word to www.catholic.com:

"It isn't a defense to say that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. Fiction can't change the basic facts about major historical figures without being subject to criticism. People would be outraged if Doubleday printed a novel portraying Adolf Hitler in a positive light. Christians have a right to be outraged when the basic historical facts about Christ are falsified. The criticism will be even more intense when a publisher releases a book parodying the most sacred beliefs of others in this fashion."