Rome - Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code novel has sparked unprecedented interest in Opus Dei, with a record 3 million people visiting its website during the course of 2005, the Catholic organization said Thursday.
'The increase in interest for Opus Dei is explained by last year's papal transition, but also by the popularity of the Da Vinci Code,' an Opus Dei spokesman in Rome told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.
Founded by Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in 1928, Opus Dei ('Work of God') is a laymen's organization emphasizing the holiness of everyday work.
In Brown's best selling novel - which has sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide and which has been turned into a movie starring Tom Hanks and due to be released on May 19 - it is depicted as a kind of religious mafia whose members practise masochistic rituals of self-torture and murder people in an attempt to cover up that Jesus Christ sired a bloodline with Mary Magdalene.
Opus Dei officials say this is a highly distorted and offensive view of their organization, which has 85,000 members in more than 60 countries.
However, they acknowledge that the book has increased interest in their organization and has given them a unique opportunity to make their work better known.
Online since 1996, www.opusdei.org has just been revamped and is now available in more than 20 languages, including Korean and Swedish.
Its visitors in 2004 totalled 1.9 million.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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