Debunking Da Vinci Code !

Debunking Da Vinci Code?

Intrigued by the 'Da Vinci Code' book or movie?
Has it made you a believer?
Has it shaken your faith?
Do you see it as just a piece of harmless fiction...just an entertaining movie?

Don't be fooled! Many, many people are being influenced by the claims this blockbuster book & movie make. The subtle yet very real danger is that people are being seduced into thinking - and often on some level believing - that Jesus could have been merely a man and not the Divine Saviour of humanity. People are most certainly buying into 'The Da Vinci Code's distortions of religious, geopolitical & art histories. The story's numerous deceptions-passing-as-fiction cast clever doubts on Christ, His Church & Sacred Scripture. Here are some of the book & movie's main claims, as well as facts that debunk each.

CLAIM - that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had offspring, creating a 'royal bloodline' that has survived through the generations

  FACT - True God and true man, Jesus' earthly role
  was not the common station of marriage and family
  (whose beauty and importance He endorsed, as
  evidenced by his attendance and first public miracle
  at the wedding in Cana), but rather His founding of a
  spiritual family:  His bride, the Church. Jesus' earthly
  destiny was His own sole incarnation in human form
  (reflected in the Rosary's Joyful Mysteries), His ministry of teachings and miracles (the Rosary's Luminous Mysteries), then His bitter Passion & Death by crucifixion (the Sorrowful Mysteries), and His Resurrection from death & the consequences of that (the Glorious Mysteries). These things He accomplished for the love & salvation of souls in every generation. All historical evidence, reputable scholarship and classical artwork point to these facts.

CLAIM - that the 'Holy Grail' was not the legendary chalice from which Jesus drank wine at His Last Supper (when, more importantly, He instituted for us the Eucharistic sacraments of His body & blood from bread & wine), but that the 'Holy Grail' was the person of Mary Magdalene. Outrageous! 'The Da Vinci Code' alleges that Magdalene was the vessel that contained Christ's blood, in carrying His supposed biological children in her womb. As mother to this fictional bloodline of Christ, she is portrayed as founder of the 'true Church'. The book & movie further claim that the Catholic Church's need to conceal the significance of Mary Magdalene and the 'sacred feminine' or 'divine feminine' was a cause for the supression of women through the ages.
FACT - St. Mary Magdalene, who had formerly been a prostitute, was healed of demonic possession by Jesus, and became His disciple & good friend (being one of the few to stay with Him through His crucifixion and among the first to discover His Resurrection). There is no connection at all between St. Magdalene and the fabled 'Holy Grail'! 'The DaVinci Code' has exulted this blessed woman far beyond her actual status, and completely ignored the most significant woman in not only all of Christianity but all of history: Jesus' own Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, recognized by Christians and Muslims alike. (Madonna & Child are pictured here.)

Next to Jesus, the Virgin Mary's unsurpassed purity, humility, wisdom and love for God and neighbour make her the ultimate role model for everyone, and particularly for women. As Jesus' mother, Mary has a unique & unfathomable value because God saw her worthy to become the Mother of God (she remained fully human and did not share in her Son's Divine nature). The Virgin Mary's loving co-operation, in giving life to & raising Jesus then freely offering Him for the salvation of mankind, merited her the most powerful place in Heaven of any person, next to Jesus. Mary's pivotal role in Salvation history culminated in the Lord resurrecting His mother, taking her bodily to Heaven (the Rosary's fourth Glorious Mystery, 'the Assumption of Mary'), and crowning her Queen of Heaven and of earth (the fifth Glorious Mystery, 'the Coronation of Mary'). This is infinitely more important & interesting than the plotline of "The Da Vinci Code"! Far from undermining the dignity of women - with which Dan Brown's novel-turned-movie slanders the Church - Christianity in fact radically transformed the status of women in society. Even ancient Roman scholars agree that Christianity ushered in a new era for the freedom and dignity of women.

CLAIM - that the Catholic Church is a fraud, whose political purposes have included concealing the 'fact' of a royal bloodline of Jesus' descendants

  FACT - The Church is in fact the appointed guardian,
  proclaimer & servant of the Revealed Truth of Christ
  the Divine Saviour. Jesus Himself founded the Church
  and commissioned it to guard and practise the Truth
  of Himself, to teach & pass it on to each generation &
  to the ends of the earth, and to nourish & give right
  guidance to the faithful. Jesus promised to preserve
  His Church until the end of time. It's nonsensical to think that the Church could be engaged in guarding lies that would include a 'bloodline cover-up', let alone that any secret of that magnitude could be contained for 2000 years!

CLAIM - that Opus Dei is the Vatican's murderous cohort, bent on keeping the 'secret' at all costs

FACT - Opus Dei (Latin for 'Work of God') is a legitimate personal prelature of the Church - not a cult or sect - whose members are not reclusive self-whipping monks, but lay Catholics and parish priests living out their Christian faith amidst secular society.



For lots of great reading on more claims vs. facts, check out these links:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Movie Review for 'The Da Vinci Code'.....plus tons of other movie reviews!

A response from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is their site called jesusdecoded.com. It contains this apropos quote from Mark Twain: "A lie is half way round the world while the truth is still putting its boots on."

An impressive response to 'The Da Vinci Code' from the Prelature of Opus Dei

A 2-part article from Ignatius Insight, which separates numerous facts from fiction using extensive excerpts from the book The Da Vinci Hoax. Here are Part 1 and Part 2.

Next in a line of several best-selling 'outreach' type books that touch on the major issues affecting today's Catholics, is The Da Vinci Deception, from Ascension Press. The same team of authors came together two years earlier to publish the book A Guide to The Passion, which sold over 1.1 million copies and was published in 14 foreign countries. That book went on to hit #6 on both the New York Times Best Sellers List, and Amazon.com's Best Sellers List.

An outstanding analysis of 'The Da Vinci Code' by Bertrand Ouellette, Director of the Montreal-based 'Communication et Societe' (a non-profit org. concerned with spiritual and ethical values in communications and the media). To get to the article, just scroll down to the close-up picture of Mona Lisa's face, click on the link under it, then on the words version anglaise at the top of the page.

Catholic News Service reports call for boycott of 'The Da Vinci Code' movie