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The Archbishop of Canterbury today attacks society's obsession with books such as The Da Vinci Code which, he says, encourage people to believe that the Christian faith is a series of "conspiracies and cover ups". In a strongly worded Easter sermon being delivered in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, Dr Rowan Williams says that there is a tendency to treat Biblical texts "as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story". Fascination with "bringing secrets to light", he said, evoked All the President's Men, the 1976 film about the investigative journalists...

ROME (AP) - The conservative religious group Opus Dei has asked for a disclaimer on the upcoming film based on the best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code." Opus Dei, portrayed as a murderous, power-hungry sect in the novel by Dan Brown, wrote in an April 6 letter to Sony Corp. (SNE) that a disclaimer would show respect to Jesus and to the Catholic Church. "Any such decision by Sony would be a gesture of respect toward the figure of Jesus, to the history of the Church and to the religious beliefs of viewers," Opus Dei wrote in the letter, which...

The Oprah-promoted James Frey book, A Million Little Pieces, turned out to be fiction described as fact. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, a full frontal assault on the basic tenets of Christianity, has been sold as fiction based on fact. And that is why the major media should scrutinize this novel that is being turned into a major motion picture. Carl E. Olson, co-author of the book, The Da Vinci Hoax, says, "There is no such thing as just a novel or just fiction from the standpoint that even lightweight popular fiction has ways of influencing how we...

Welcome to Holy Week, American style. Just as millions of Christians are preparing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, the media is once again out to debunk historical Christianity. Just last weekend I was in an airport bookstore and saw the new book counter filled with numerous editions of The Da Vinci Code. Then I picked up the New York Times, and there I was greeted with the headline on the front page that read, “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal.” You probably have seen the hype, including a one-hour National Geographic TV spectacular: After seventeen hundred years, the...

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (NZ Catholic) – She’s been denounced as a fallen woman, described as “a victim of mistaken identity for almost 20 centuries” and suggested as a likely candidate for “the patron of the slandered.” She’s been depicted in art and literature through the ages, and now – thanks to The Da Vinci Code – Mary Magdalene has emerged into the limelight again as the alleged wife of Christ and co-founder of an arcane dynasty at odds with the institutional church and its beliefs.To Dan Brown, author of the fictional The Da Vinci Code and no stranger to exaggerated...

A RUSSIAN art historian has accused Dan Brown of plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code, just four days after a British Court rejected a similar claim. Mikhail Anikin, a Leonardo da Vinci expert in the Hermitage museum’s Western European art department, said he would give Mr Brown one month to apologise and give up half his revenues from the book or he would take him to court in Russia and the US to seek all his earnings from the novel. “When I read the book, I was shocked at its poor quality and because it used my ideas,” Dr Anikin...

WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAY 19TH? May 19th is the date the Da Vinci Code movie opens. A movie based on a book that wears its heresy and blasphemy as a badge of honor. What can we as Christians do in response to the release of this movie? I'm going to offer you the usual choices -- and a new one. Here are the usual suspects: A) We can ignore the movie. ........ The problem with this option: The box office is a ballot box. The only people whose votes are counted are those who buy tickets. And the ballot...

The Judas Code Father Raymond J. de Souza National Post Monday, April 10, 2006 In the year 4006, an enterprising team from Global Geographic announces that experts in late second-millennium languages and data retrieval have pieced together an authentic copy of the long-rumoured-to-exist Da Vinci Code. Religious experts say that the discovery challenges traditional Christian doctrine, as the widely circulated document shows that early-21st-century Christians believed that Jesus was not divine, had married Mary Magdalene, founded a royal dynasty, etc ... It is believed that early fourth-millennium Vatican officials suppressed the sacred text. That is more or less the...

Da Vinci film faces ban in KoreaA religious group in Korea has applied for a provisional injunction to stop the release of the movie version of the novel The Da Vinci Code. The Christian Council of Korea (CCK) filed its application in Seoul against the film's distributor Sony Pictures, according to Screen International. Dan Brown's bestselling book suggests Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child. CCK said the film was "an insult and defamation" of the holiness of Jesus Christ and the Bible. The group added that they were "concerned about the damage that would be caused to individuals' faith"...

Why Does Sony Fear Free Publicity?   “Don’t protest, you’re just giving them free publicity!”That is the advice that the anti-blasphemy protester must often endure when organizing protests in front of theaters.  The conventional wisdom is that controversy generates interest. And interest will in turn only fuel ticket sales. The best thing a Catholic can do in face of a blasphemous movie is to ignore it. Don’t go. Do nothing.   Thus, the TFP massive protests in front of theaters and especially its current efforts to organize 1,000 protests against The Da Vinci Code movie are at best well-intentioned but counter-productive.Indeed if...

                    In The Da Vinci Code,  one finds the horrible affirmation advanced by one of its  characters that Christ is not God but was deified by Constantine to advance a political agenda. This is supposedly “the greatest cover-up in history.”  From the very beginning of the Church, there have always been those who denied Christ’s Divinity.  However, there have also been saints that have gloriously affirmed Christ’s Divinity.St. Ephrem the Syrian (c.306–373) was one such saint.  In his commentary on the Transfiguration, he comments upon how Christ showed His apostles the glory of His Divinity that has been concealed...

THIS Lenten season, I would like to focus not on Jesus Christ, but on the woman he loved, Mary Magdalene, a mysterious woman who was much misunderstood, maligned, ignored and marginalized by the Christian church. To me, Mary Magdalene stands taller than any of the apostles of Jesus. She was the “Apostle of Apostles” to whom was revealed the greatest spiritual mysteries after the resurrection of Jesus. She was mentioned only a few times in the canonical gospels of Luke, Mark, Mathew and John. But her importance in Christ’s mission cannot be denied. She was present during the most crucial...

Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci' WriterLONDON - A British judge ruled Friday that best-selling thriller "The Da Vinci Code" did not steal ideas from two authors' nonfiction book. High Court judge Peter Smith rejected a copyright-infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," who claimed that Dan Brown's blockbuster "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 book. The favorable ruling will allow the May release of the film, based on the blockbluster and starring Tom Hanks. "Today's verdict shows that this claim was utterly without merit, I'm still astonished that...

'Da Vinci Code' Revives Dispute over Who Mary Magdalene Was Monday, Mar. 20, 2006 Posted: 4:16:19PM EST Redeemed sinner, prostitute, wife of Jesus? Mary Magdalene's image has gone through myriad incarnations over the centuries, and this Lenten season, she's drawing new attention thanks to the upcoming movie version of "The Da Vinci Code," a slew of books and Internet arguments. But those looking for a salacious side to the biblical figure will be disappointed: Serious religious scholars agree that characterizations that stray from faithful disciple and witness to the Resurrection are bogus. Despite stage and screen portrayals, they say, the...

ITALY: DA VINCI CODE ON SHOW IN MILAN Milan, 24 March (AKI) - While Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code is making headlines as the author is facing plagiarism charges and awaiting a ruling in April, the 'real' da Vinci code, a manuscript dating back to the fifteenth century, will be on display at Milan's Castello Sforzesco starting Friday, 24 March, until 21 May. On exhibit is a precious manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, also known as Codice Trivulziano, featuring notes and designs made from 1487 until 1490. The show will also include codes made during the rule of...

More than Low Class? Claims that "Sacred" art in Catholic Churches is inspired by the Devil himself! A new documentary, "Rape of the Soul", claims to "explore the prevalent use of satanic, sexual, and occult and anti-Catholic images in historical and contemporary religious artwork. The film also discusses the acceptance of the artwork at the highest and most trusted levels of the Catholic Church... ..."Artists from DaVinci to Botticelli have imbedded subliminal images into their art for centuries, said Calace...In this case we found penises on crucifixes, anarchy symbols, swastikas, demonic faces and in modern works even the word 'sex'...

A monk may have leapt to his death from a monastery after reading The Da Vinci Code, it emerged yesterday.Abbot Alan Rees, 64, a revered figure in the Benedictine community, fell 30ft from a second-storey balcony at Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire last October. The Swansea-born monk had suffered from depression for the past 12 years. But at a recent inquest into his death, Fr Paul Stonham, the Abbey's replacement abbot, linked his last bout of depression to a novel. There is speculation that he was referring to The Da Vinci Code. The book's central theme, that Christianity is a sexist...

In a world accepting of docudramas and reality TV shows that aren't real, how does one counter a blockbuster movie whose theme challenges the orthodox religious history of the Western world? That's the task facing Christians already distressed by Dan Brown's wildly popular novel, "The Da Vinci Code," and his claim that the thriller is based on historical facts. With sales of more than 40 million, the book has become a cultural phenomenon. Unless the copyright-infringement trial in London (which now awaits the judge's decision) brings an injunction against use of the material, the May release of the film starring...

Washington DC, Mar. 10, 2006 (CNA) - In an attempt to clear up any confusion about Jesus and Christianity that might emerge with the theatre release of The Da Vinci Code, the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign has made available key resources with accurate information about Jesus and the Church.The documentary “Jesus Decoded” presents authentic Catholic teaching about Jesus Christ. It will be available to NBC-TV stations for broadcast starting the third weekend of May. The film, produced by NewGroup Media, offers a solid Catholic response to “Da Vinci Code believers,” concentrating especially on the first three centuries of the...

ENCINITAS, Calif., Mar. 9 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Da Vinci Outreach, a national initiative to expose the anti-Catholic lies in the upcoming movie The Da Vinci Code, is joining the request made by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights for director Ron Howard to clearly state that his film is a work of fiction. This week, the Catholic League ran an ad in the New York Times (http://www.catholicleague.org/linked%20docs/Da_Vinci_ad.htm) calling on Ron Howard to have the decency to do what Dan Brown, author of the novel, did not do: declare up front and in no uncertain terms that the...