A.N. Wilson on seeing the over-hyped movie:
There are no good Catholics in this film. The monk-murderer is the militant representative of an Catholic organisation that is portrayed as fraudulent and malignant.
In a free society, we are entitled to portray Catholics as we please, and to debate their faith. As I have already hinted, anti-Catholic prejudice has an old though not very glorious history in this country.
But the reason I found the film depressing was not just that, in its blundering, ignorant way, it was making cheap gibes at Opus Dei, a devout group within the Roman Church.
It was also openly stating that a free and decent way of life was possible only when we had spat upon our past, and kicked away the tradition that for 2,000 years was at the core of all that was most humane and decent in European history – namely the story that God humbled himself to become a poor human being.
Very many of us must have doubted the divinity of Jesus. Yet the respect for humanity shown by Catholics in situations of starvation in Africa or among the shanty towns of South America derives directly from their belief in Jesus Christ as the God-man, who embraced poverty.
To accuse the Church, which has done so much to stand up for human dignity and peace, of being no more than a group of gangsters and perverts is to do much more than just to insult one religious denomination.
It is yet another symptom of our contempt for our past.
Put this side by side with our craven fear of saying Christianity is true and Islamists are in error, and you have more than enough reason not just to boycott The Da Vinci Code – but also to deplore it.
Worth reading. (scroll down from the link to Wilson’s).