Da Vinci Code: The upside

This month will see the release of the movie version of the controversial and over-publicised Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code, with all the attendant hype this will entail.

The movie will surely attract a huge audience which will include many who did not read the novel. So we may brace ourselves for another cycle of the same old questions and misinformed assertions about our Church.

In a sense, the movie is more insidious than the book, because many more people will watch the movie than have read the book. And of these, many will not be the sort of people who read much, be it the type of fiction peddled by Mr Brown or more refined literature. The danger is that such cinema patrons may accept the half-truths, falsehoods and fantasies in the movie as factual.

Catholics will likely face questions about the allegations posed by The Da Vinci Code, such as the preposterous notion of Jesus having fathered Mary Magdalene’s daughter, with whom she supposedly fled to France and whose bloodline lives on. Catholics may also be asked to defend the libel that their Church covered up Jesus’ supposed paternity, in the process resorting to murder.

These absurd claims do not have any roots in fact, as the novelist claims they do, but only in the fertile soil of fantastical conspiracy theory.

Opus Dei, the Catholic organisations presented in Brown’s book as a quasi-masonic and homicidal order will also come under renewed suspicion, even if the film will not refer to it by name.

How we Catholics respond to the film will be important.

We might decide that the film is, after all, only banal entertainment that is best ignored. Or we might fly the yellow-and-white flag as we march into battle against the movie’s assault on the Church. Or we might see The Da Vinci Code as a golden opportunity.

The Vatican has so far given a measured response, other than the proposal by Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, that Catholics boycott the film.

Opus Dei, on the other hand, has made the popularity of The Da Vinci Code work for itself. Indeed, Opus Dei’s strategy provides an instructive case study in Catholic apologetics.

Even though the book doubtlessly upset its members, the organisation calmly sought to set the record straight without resorting to confrontation. Systematically, Opus Dei took the hype surrounding the book as an occasion to publicise itself and in the process address some long-standing misgivings that existed even within the Catholic Church.

In this way the book that slandered Opus Dei has, paradoxically, strengthened the organisation tremendously.

The rest of the Church can learn from Opus Dei.

Of course, it is not unreasonable for Catholics to take offence at Mr Brown’s fiction, and to condemn the content of his aspersions.

Public outrage, however, is rarely a persuasive response to calumny.

Instead we ought to be gratified that The Da Vinci Code has created a heightened curiosity about Catholicism, at a time when interest in the Gospel is at an ebb.

The Da Vinci Code presents us with a rare opportunity to talk about Jesus and the Church.

When we are confronted with the incongruous conclusions of Mr Brown’s tale, as many Catholics surely will be, we can, with patience and knowledge, correct common fallacies about our faith and convey the truth about Jesus and the Church to people who otherwise might not have been open to such dialogue.

Vexatious though The Da Vinci Code may be to the Church, Mr Brown has created for us an excellent evangelical and catechetical opportunity.