Saturday, May 13, 2006

Refuting the Da Vinci Code: Abp. Niederauer of San Francisco Wonders "How Dark the Code of Dan?"

My first reaction to Dan Brown's novel, "The Da Vinci Code," was: "It's a work of fiction, a thriller, a page-turner. Everybody knows that." I was wrong. A young friend of mine met a classmate from Catholic high school who told him that she was seriously thinking of giving up her faith after reading "The Da Vinci Code." My friend said, "You'd give up your faith because of a novel?" She answered, "Oh, but it's all true!"

Oh, but it's not! Soon the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code" will open around the country. Carl Olson has shown us that this bestseller works on several levels: mystery novel, romance, thriller, conspiracy theory and spiritual manifesto. There's a good chance that the movie will work in many of those same ways. As Amy Wellborn points out, "The Da Vinci Code" is fiction but the author makes assertions about history and presents them as widely accepted facts, introduced by such phrases as "historians say" and "scholars understand." In The Tidings you can Read More from the Archbishop

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