May 25th Comments (68) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

This blog was begun on the assumption that huge numbers of people were going to see the Da Vinci Code movie. The blog was meant to prepare for that eminently foreseeable event. When 40 million people read a book, a good proportion are going to see the movie out of simple curiosity… no matter what [...]

May 23rd Comments (18) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

One is mine on Beliefnet. You can find it here.

The other is Anthony Lane’s in The New Yorker

Lane‚Äôs is brilliant, brutal and …

May 22nd Comments (157) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

For those familiar with the history and tradition of the Catholic Church, The Da Vinci Code might provide more cause for laughter (at the absurd) than suspense. Author Dan Brown sounds as if he’s accusing the Catholic Church (and perhaps all Christian Churches) of not recognizing women, particularly in their role as mothers.

May 20th Comments (50) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

A short piece I wrote called “Laugh When You Watch That” has been posted at National Review Online. You can read it here: NationalReview Mercatornet, an online magazine from Australia, has a special issue dealing with the Da Vinci Code, including some interesting international takes on it. Mercatornet

May 19th Comments (106) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

Contrary to what some enraged commentators on this blog seem to think, I have always thought that The Da Vinci Code was mostly a laughing matter. Intentionally or not, the novel is, both as literature and history, laughably bad. Dan Brown has laughed his way all the way to the bank. The critics laughed at [...]

May 18th Comments (44) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

Well, who’d have thunk it? Well, I guess, in a way, I did. I make no claims to be a prophet, but the following is a comment I put on this blog on January 26th: “About the movie, my question is whether it will be flop along the lines of Bonfire of the Vanities, which [...]

May 18th Comments (7) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

On Friday, I will be in Florence at the presentation of a book – Il Codice da Vinci: bugie e falsi storici (The Da Vinci Code: Lies and Historical Falsehoods) – to which I contributed a chapter.

May 17th Comments (20) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

Da Vinci Code Marketing…

May 17th Comments (21) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

The marketing campaign Рat least here in Italy Рfor The Da Vinci Code cracks me up. “The secret will be revealed!” claim the ads, but, if I’m not mistaken, the secret’s been stale for a couple of years now, hasn’t it? I mean… psst, don’t tell anyone before May 19th, but Jesus married [...]

May 17th Comments (29) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

As I’ve said before, one of the funniest things about The Da Vinci Code is that the whole convoluted story revolves around a “search” for a saint’s tomb that has been a popular pilgrimage site in Provence for over a millennium… Well, today is the 14th anniversary of the beatification of the founder of Opus [...]

May 16th Comments (20) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

This morning I took part in a round-table discussion of The Da Vinci Code at Italy‚Äôs Foreign Press Association. The Associated Press reported on the discussion, and, while my remarks are rendered fairly accurately, the headline of the AP wirestory (‚ÄúOpus Dei priest faults church for failing to teach truth to counter ‘The Da Vinci [...]

May 15th Comments (179) / RSS Post Filed under Recommended Posts, The Da Vinci Code

Tourists have been flocking to Paris, London and Rome to see the places and things mentioned in Dan Brown’s novels. It’s a great opportunity for artistic and religious education, and I’d just like to add a few stops in the itinerary. The Church of the Immaculate Conception The Church of the Immaculate Conception (dedicated to [...]

May 13th Comments (47) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

‚ÄúExhaling slowly, he savored the cleansing ritual of his pain. Pain is good, Silas whispered, repeating the sacred mantra of Father Josemar??a Escriv?°‚Äîthe Teacher of all Teachers. Although Escriv?° had died in 1975, his wisdom lived on, his words still whispered by thousands of faithful servants around the globe as they knelt on the floor [...]

May 11th Comments (29) / RSS Post Filed under The Da Vinci Code

The anti-Catholic villain of The Da Vinci Code, Sir Leigh Teabing, claims that Christianity is the “greatest story ever sold” – a commercialized fraud, a con job. But of course, that can’t be true, can it? Christianity wasn’t sold… certainly not in the crucial days when, according to Teabing, it was supplanting the worship of [...]