Preview: For some Catholics, Da Vinci Code is blessing in disguise

By Andy Goldberg May 16, 2006, 9:46 GMT

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to ...more

Los Angeles - It was meant to be a battle for the soul of America - a good versus evil clash pitting the hallowed teachings of the Catholic church against the nefarious speculation of a sensationalist novelist.

But as America and the world waits for the massive launch of the movie version of the bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code, many US church leaders seem to be adopting a positively Christ-like patience and are turning the other cheek.

The movie, based on the Dan Brown book which has sold almost 50 million copies worldwide and has topped bestseller lists for almost three years, is guaranteed to be a huge success.

It features Hollywood's most bankable star, Tom Hanks, in the role of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon who is called on to help solve a murder outside the Louvre and finds himself on a trail of clues hidden in the works of Italian Renaisance artist Leonardo Da Vinci. As he unravels the code, he discovers that Jesus sired a child by Mary Magdalene. He is pursued by the clandestine society Opus Dei, which is determined to prevent him from discrediting the bedrock beliefs of the Church.

The fictional movie gets its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, and hits screens across the world on Friday.

Many in the US media have cast the movie as the liberal answer to the stunning success of the Last Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's controversial Christian movie that was a stunning success two years ago.

The work questions many of the tenets of Christian faith and casts the secretive Opus Dei church group as little better than a mafia clan, prompting Archbishop Angelo Amato, the number two official in the Vatican doctrinal office, to call for a boycott of the film.

But in the US, where the Catholic Church is still reeling from the terrible fallout of the paedophile priest scandal, a more subtle approach is forming.

Paradoxically, it was Hanks himself who advised religious leaders on the best course of action, urging clergy to use the film to start a debate that will encourage more people to attend church.

'I think the movie may end up helping churches do their job,' Hanks told Entertainment Weekly last month. 'If they put up a sign saying, 'This Wednesday we're discussing the gospel,' 12 people show up. But if the sign says, 'This Wednesday we're discussing The Da Vinci Code,' 800 people show up.'

In other times, Hanks' prescience might have got him labelled a prophet. According to the Christian Post on Monday, more than 500 people attended a six-hour conference Sunday at the Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan in advance of the movie's debut.

Erwin Lutzer, the pastor of Moody Bible Church in Chicago and the author of The Da Vinci Deception, is not surprised at the swell of interest.

'A boycott at this point would not do any good. When you have a tsunami coming, it doesn't help to build a wall,' he said. 'Never in my 30 years of ministry have I seen a time when so many people are interested.'

Other clergy are using the debate to turn out professional videos with titles such as The Da Vinci Delusion and The Da Vinci Deception Experience that point out the flaws of Brown's fictional treatise. Instead of boycotts and picket lines, there are websites, including one from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, lectures, sermon series, Bible studies, blogs, educational packets and talking points.

Opus Dei in Manhattan even took out an ad in New York magazine with photos of three handsome, well-scrubbed guys in their 20s and 30s, and described the organization as akin to a chaste fraternity house at college.

'I'm absolutely for going to see the movie or reading the book,' said Daniel Bock, an evangelical Christian who wrote Breaking the Da Vinci Code, 'It has already penetrated the culture, and millions of people have read it.'

Some conservatives disagree however. The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property, a conservative Catholic group founded in 1973, plans to hold 1,000 'peaceful prayer vigils' around the country on opening day.

'I don't believe we can really call it 'just fiction',' a spokesman said. 'Even if it's a lightweight book, there is a personal responsibility to get the facts right.'