ROME (CNS): Cardinal George Pell of Sydney and three Vatican cardinals have weighed in on The Da Vinci Code, saying the bestselling novel shows contempt for Christianity and ignorance of the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, who heads the Vatican’s liturgy congregation, suggested that Christians might take legal action to counter the disrespect shown by the book and film version of the work.
He and others spoke in a documentary titled The Da Vinci Code: A Masterful Deception.
Cardinal Pell was also interviewed for the documentary. He called The Da Vinci Code “a load of nonsense” and said it was full of historical errors.
In the Spanish version of the documentary, Cardinal Julian Herranz, the Vatican’s top canon law official and a member of Opus Dei, recounted how he and a fellow cardinal laughed painfully at the novel’s fictional depiction of the machinations of the Vatican.
He described the novel as fantasy, “ridiculous” and totally ignorant of how the Church really works.
Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, who is head of the Vatican’s sainthood congregation, said it was disturbing that “no respect is being shown for the hundreds of millions of people who believe in Christ, the Church and the Gospels”.
