Marie Benoît says she is so bored with it already and has no desire to read it although, maybe, she will go and see the film

I won’t be reading The Da Vinci Code since I am tired of it. It has been discussed to death. I tend not to read fiction on the whole and this is a work of fiction. There are many other books left unread which would appeal to me more. But I’ve read and heard enough about it that I feel I am in a position to have my say.

Dan Brown is right when he concludes that organised Christian religion is male-dominated, power-oriented and cover-up prone. These facts we did not have to learn from him. They have been hitting us in the face since forever.

One much-discussed observation in the book is that the figure on the right of Jesus, in Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, is none other than Mary Magdalen whom he had married. This fact appeals to us, especially to women, because it brings out the humanity of Jesus. We like to believe that the real Jesus was not a misogynist or anti-woman as the Christian religion often has been. One only has to look at the pastoral letters emanating from the Curia here. Are men ever told how they should behave especially towards women? Has a pastoral letter about domestic violence which is rampant, ever come out from the Curia? Has it ever dedicated one letter exclusively to men, telling them what their duties towards their illegitimate children are – that they cannot just zip up and leave without taking their responsibilities towards the mother and child, for whom they too, are responsible, seriously?

The Christian religion is still hostile to women, misogynist and anti-women on the whole, though not in an overt way. So we like Jesus better for having married and had children of his own. It makes him more human, more like us. The idea is very attractive.

Dan Brown has claimed that his book is based on fact. Maybe. But maybe not. How many lay persons know much about Church History? We learn bits and pieces during discussions with non-believers who seem to know more than us.

On the downside Church History tells us, there were Popes who had illegitimate children. The Borgia family is one of the most notorious for producing ‘bad’ popes. There is a story told of Pope Alexander VI, formerly Rodrigo Borgia, who was standing at a Vatican window with his twenty-year-old daughter, the notoriously evil Lucrezia while her brother Cesare, from another Vatican window, shot at prisoners down below, one gun for each prisoner until they were all dead. This is not fiction. The basic facts of the event were recorded in the diary of Johannes Burchard, the papal master of ceremonies, loyal servant to his master, Alexander VI.

A strange and bewildering family, the Borgias, produced eleven cardinals of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, three popes, a saint and a queen of England. They were greedy, murderous and incestuous but in some cases also pious.

Of this notorious family, four members in particular are remembered, if only vaguely, as remarkable examples of greed and evil. Two were popes: Calixtus III (Alonso Borgia) and the aforementioned Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). Cesare Borgia, was, for a time, a cardinal, elevated to that position by his acknowledged father, Alexander VI, and later, after leaving holy orders, a murderous and ruthless duke.

Perhaps it is best not to learn too much about Church History. We may find many parts of it deeply disturbing.

One thing is certain. The Da Vinci Code is causing people to ask questions and dig deeper.

The principal target of The Da Vinci Code is the controversial Catholic organization Opus Dei.

The Communications director for the UK branch of Opus Dei, Jack Valero, was on television and in the papers, while I was in London recently. Opus Dei has 86,000 members worldwide and after the publication of Dan Brown’s book, the organization is getting more free publicity than it could have ever hoped for. It has been cast as the central villain in the film based on this novel that has sold 40 million copies. Following the popularity of the book, it is predicted, not surprisingly, that The Da Vinci Code is bound to be one of the most widely watched films in history.

Valero says that Opus Dei is ‘turning lemon into lemonade’ and ceasing this opportunity to make itself and its work better known.

Opus Day was once one of the Catholic Church’s most furtive and defensive organisations, obsessed with secrecy. Its members wear the gothic-sounding cilice – a spiked chain strapped around the thigh for an hour or two most days. In fact, the film is said to contain a flagellation scene of ferocious sado-masochistic violence.

Sony, who have bought the rights to the book, after being approached by Opus Dei, has continually stressed – unlike Brown – that it is a work of fiction, although they would not put in a disclaimer. The movie they say, is ‘a thriller, not a religious tract’.

Opus Dei have in fact acted politely with no calls for boycotts, threats or protests – a different way of handling the situation than the row over the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. However, the Church has been more strident in its protests. Mgr Angelo Amato, the number two at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a speech given a few weeks ago called for Catholics to boycott the film and organize protests. If ‘such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, he said, they would have justly provoked a world uprising.

But Opus Dei have been clever with their strategy. After all, it is evident to everyone that Muslims lost a great deal of sympathy following the cartoon episode. Opus Dei is instead using this opportunity to make itself better known. So they are inviting people to find out the truth for themselves.

This strategy is paying dividends. It has been noted that before The Da Vinci Code the peak of interest in its US website was 200,000 in 2002 – the year of the canonization of the founder, Josemaría Escrivá who is known to have beaten himself till he bled. Last year it was 2.5 million – on top of a rash of documentaries, news slots and magazine profiles. And incredibly a number of Opus Dei’s newest members say they first heard of the organization through The Da Vinci Code! That really is turning lemons into lemonade.

As Valero has pointed out, once the whole business will die down Opus Dei is going to be the best-known group in the Catholic Church!

What I cannot understand and find surprising, is that the public does not seem to be able to distinguish myth from fact. Is faith so fragile that a book of fiction can so easy rock it? Does it matter very much whether Jesus was married and had children or not?

Surely what is important is that we follow his teachings in our every day lives, for they still make sense two thousand years later, even if, many are turning from the Catholic faith and practising ‘mere Christianity’, to use the title of one of C.S Lewis’s books.

And certainly one of the teachings of Christ is that of the “common good”. We have still to learn the power of collective action toward lasting social transformation.

I noted that last month 1 million immigrants and allies took to the streets in the US to call for comprehensive immigration reform. Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims all played leading roles. They all found common ground. We are interdependent. Many still do not understand this well enough.

Never before, it has been noted, was the connection between faith and politics so clear as on that day. Catholic Archbishop Harry Flynn spoke from the podium outside St Paul Cathedral in Minnisota: “I have heard those without documents described as ‘illegal’. Yes, holding one another accountable to the law is important, but there is also a higher law that forms the basis of our legal justice system and many of our religious traditions. Our high law is based on the values of human dignity, community, and solidarity. And we must not only hold one another accountable to these values – we must act on them.”

This is finally what matters. And not whether the person with long hair on the right of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is Mary Magdalen or not. Or whether Jesus was married and had children or not. These are merely academic exercises.