I have always been concerned about the tendency of people to accept as fact what they see on television or read about in newspapers concerning denigratory statements on Christianity. A friend accused me of being paranoid about the danger this book/film poses for Catholics whose faith is weak or are uninformed, but I am in good company because
(a) Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham says ‘I urge those who do see the film not to be taken in by its fanciful themes and deliberate untruths’.
(b) Theologian Father John Redford of Wonersh Seminary says that while it is no problem for knowledgeable Christians, others have actually said to him, ‘John, I think Jesus was married’, and another, ‘Well, the Da Vinci Code might be true, you never know'.
(c) Archbishop Angela Amato, Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, says ‘Catholics should speak out and reject these lies about the Church.’
(d) Jesuit theologian and teacher Father O'Collins says ‘Christians could and should challenge distortions of their faith and factual errors in the book but by means other than boycott'.
Recently I have spoken to five fellow Christians, and was horrified and saddened by their responses because they were deceived by Dan Brown's claim that his book is based on facts and respectable theories. I hope that in conversations with others, this article (which I have had to condense unfortunately) may provide at least a little ammunition for your rebuttal. Three weeks ago I received permission to reproduce in full an article by the distinguished American author and journalist John Mallon in the May issue of the Saint Anthony's Messenger, but since then, having read many comments in Catholic and lay newspapers, watched many documentaries on television's ‘History Channel’, and finally seeing the film itself on 19th May, I find that because of space limitation, I can only include a few extracts with kind permission of St. Anthony's Messenger-Padua, Italy. Such extracts will be identified by the letters JM. Our Deacon Philip Pond has supplied some bullet points from the Catholic Action Group, and these will be indicated by the letters PP.
JM says ‘For centuries whisperings of weird stories, intrigues, legends and secret societies have circulated about the Catholic Church in attempts to show her in a bad light with stories of villainous ecclesiastics doing dirty deeds to protect some unknown interest.... Additionally, in our time there is a great hunger for ‘spirituality’ without religion, making no moral demands on its adherents. Dan Brown capitalizes on these elements. There are also people, with a vested interest in discrediting the Catholic Church, including former Catholics who have departed from the Church’s moral teachings and seek evidence to support their departure. Frequently, they look to the sins of Catholics, especially clergy, as proof that the, problem does not lie with themselves. But here they miss the point- Christ came for sinners, the Church exists for sinners, and without God's grace we cannot live up to Catholic teachings.... The bad things Catholics do don't add up to who and what the Church is. The Church is both divine and human like her founder. The sins of Catholics are not evidence of the Church's failure, but of our constant need for Christ. In any case, the sins of men in no way nullify the saving work of Christ.’
The film is a thriller involving secret societies, conspiracies, the Catholic Church and the fictional ‘truth’ about Jesus Christ. The first half starts off like a CIA or FBI or P.D. James thriller with a Harvard symboligist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) being summoned by the French chief of police in Pads to the Louvre museum where, that evening, the curator Jacques Sauniere has been found murdered, with a diagram of a pentacle bloodily scored on his naked body. Langdon is first wanted for questioning and then for his expertise to explain the mysterious circumstances surrounding the curator's death. Near his body the police have found clues that seem to tell why Jacques was killed, clues hidden within the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci. Langdon is joined by French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) who is Jacques' granddaughter, and they set out to solve the murder mystery and the secret that cost Jacques his life. After eluding the police chief Bazu Fache (Reno), who is sure Langdon has something to do with the murder, Sophie and Robert ask for help from Langdon's friend, fellow symbologist Leigh Teabing. Apart from the police, the duo is trailed by a deadly albino assassin monk named Silas (Paul Bettany) who works for a clandestine Vatican-sanctioned Catholic sect Opus Dei. Opus Dei is not a monastic order and has no monks let alone albino monks. It exists to encourage lay people to sanctify their everyday life and work. Teabing explains that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a child Sarah, born after the crucifixion. Mary and Sarah fled to Egypt, then France. Rosslyn Castle in Scotland also figures in the intrepid duo’s quest for the resting place of Mary's body. Members of the ‘Priory of Sion’ appear in the film. The society is to protect Christ's bloodline and keep the truth alive. Conversely, Opus Dei has been murdering Christ’s descendents to suppress this truth kept hidden by the Catholic Church for 2000 years. Leonardo Da Vinci was allegedly the first Grandmaster (and Jacques Sauniere the last) of the Society, which was later proved to be a hoax based on forged documents planted to create a false history of the Society. Leonardo was a great one for codes and his painting of ‘The Last Supper’, is supposed to be Leonardo’s code implying that the apostle on Jesus’ right is not John but Mary Magdalene! The V-shaped gap between Jesus and the girlish-looking apostle is supposed to also represent ‘The Sacred Feminine’ and this, with the other two gaps on Jesus’ left and that apostle’s right, forms the letter 'M' for Mary Magdalene.
Many of the ideas in the book originate from a heresy of the first centuries after Christ, known as Gnosticism. Speculation about a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene derive from the heretical Gnostic texts called the ‘Gospel of Philip’ and the ‘Gospel of Mary’. Both these were written between one and three centuries after the four accepted gospels and are full of bizarre stories and beliefs that were never accepted by the early Church, hence were never accepted into the Canon of Scripture.
The Catholic Action Group (PP) adds:- The Da Vinci Code primarily attacks Jesus as not being the divine Son of God, saying that He was deified by the Roman Emperor Constantine only in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea, that Sir Leigh Teabing (one of the book's and film's main characters ) says that Jesus was ‘a mere mortal prophet, a great and powerful man….’ PP rightly says that one cannot deny Christ's divinity and still end up with Christianity because His divinity is the very foundation of our Christian faith. He proved his divinity by His miracles especially his resurrection (which incidentally a recent TV documentary claimed is denied by the so-called Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Now the last time I checked I think it was pretty difficult for a dead man to write about something after he had committed suicide). If, as Dan Brown states, Jesus was not divine and if He was not resurrected then as St. Paul says ‘Our faith is vain’.
Brown refers to the Dead Sea Scrolls as some of the earliest Christian documents, whereas in fact they are Jewish documents that make no reference to Jesus or Christianity. PP says that whereas Brown frequently refers to ‘the Vatican’ as the location of corrupt Church this could not be, because ‘the Vatican’ i.e the Vatican Hill in Rome, the site of present-day Vatican City did not become the seat of Church power until the 12th century. In the early centuries it simply did not exist.
JM asked two authors Cad Olsen and Sandra Miesel who have co-written a book, 'The Da Vinci Hoax', about Brown's book playing fast and loose with alleged ‘facts’, laughable to any knowledgeable Catholic, but a danger of terrible misinformation for those of weak faith or ignorant of Catholicism and history. Their abridged comments are given below.
Cad Olsen: Opus Dei essentially takes the place once occupied by Jesuits in 19th century anti-Catholic literature, probably because Opus Dei is newer, less well known and loyal to Magisterial teachings and has been stuck with the label of ‘secretive’ and even ‘strange’. I've actually been asked if Opus Dei really exists and if so, why is it so secretive. I reply that it does exist and has a website with copious amounts of information about its existence, its mission, its practices and so forth.
Sandra Miesel: Brown claims to be factual but his book is riddled with gross errors, not just on history but on objective matters such as the size and medium of paintings, locations, directions, passport laws of the European Union, and even trivial matters from everyday life. As for the Opus Dei reference, I think that Brown wanted to tap public perception of it as a mysterious, possibly sinister organisation. His imagery of a menacing, ‘hooded monk’ is right out of Gothic fiction, deliberately done to manipulate the reader.
As for the common response that ‘It’s only a novel or movie, don’t take it so seriously so what is the harm in a work of fiction dealing with the issues anyway?’, both authors feel that there are some very serious problems with Brown's use of the Catholic Church, a real body affecting the lives of real people. Olsen feels that this is important. He says
‘… when the Code fans discuss the book, they don't spend much time on characters, plot and writing but instead fixate on historical, theological and artistic claims on the novel. Many readers see it as some sort of guide, or catechesis, to questions about Jesus, the early Church, Christianity and much more, and Dan Brown clearly sees it that way as well, consistently indicating his belief in the ideas and themes explored in his novel. He has stated that as he started researching the Code he really thought that he could disprove a lot of the theory about Mary Magdalene and holy blood and all that and then he became a believer. Finally I point out that there is no such thing ultimately as ‘just fiction’, since all fiction, even poorly written popular fiction, has the power to shape beliefs, influence minds and inform opinions.’
Sandra Miesel says, ‘Fiction can affect the reader more strongly man non-fiction. It plants ideas and images that will stick, even with readers who say they were only interested in the mystery aspects and took nothing seriously. Fiction makes excellent propaganda...... Moreover, we live in an age where people are historically illiterate and absorb much of the information about their world from entertainment. The falsehoods in The Da Vinci Code are going to stick with some readers who … have lost their Christian faith (or lost interest in converting) because they have read The Da Vinci Code.’
Both Miesel and Olsen feel sad that there are Catholics who will swallow whole Dan Brown’s fictitious version of Catholicism while rejecting what Christ’s appointed teachers have said consistently for 2000 years. There is an old but persistent false charge that Catholics are expected to be blind followers, a misconception belied by the very rich Catholic intellectual tradition of inquiry and education to which the truth claims of Catholicism have stood up very well for 2000 years. This great Catholic tradition very strongly supports critical thinking and when it comes to the Da Vinci Code, thinking critically is exactly what every Catholic should do.
Finally, may I recommend the following pamphlets from the Catholic Truth Society:
(a) Cracking the Da Vinci Code by Jimmy Akin ... £1.95
(b) The Truth about Jesus... by Father John Redford.... £1.95
(c) Opus Dei ....£1.95
Additionally, I have purchased 25 copies of a CTS leaflet entitled ‘Answering the Da Vinci Code’ Please ask me if you would like a copy - NO CHARGE.
David de Souza