What does the Church say about the Da Vinci Code?

[SFX]

I don’t know what to make of this. Yesterday I overheard some Catholic women talking. Both had read the Da Vinci Code. One said she went to a discussion on it and that the speaker said that if Jesus was an average Hebrew He would have been married. As far as Mary Magdelene, the speaker said we just don’t know. Everything I have heard, almost all from Catholic Answers sources, say this is hooey and has the potential to lead people to believe things that go against Church teaching. What are the feelings of the Church concerning this book? I am just curious. From day one I have had no interest in this book. They is too much other approved reading to waste my time on it. Thanks

 

[Peggy_Frye]

The Church has plenty to say about the claims of the Da Vinci Code:

• Jesus is not God; he was only a man.
*Catechism of the Catholic Church * 464: Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

• Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.
Sacerdotalis Caelibatus 21 “Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men.”

• She is to be worshiped as a goddess.
Nonsense. Read Who Really Was Mary Magdalene?

• Jesus got her pregnant, and the two had a daughter.
(*Sacerdotalis Caelibatus * 21) Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men.

• That daughter gave rise to a prominent family line that is still present in Europe today. (ibid)

• The Bible was put together by a pagan Roman emperor.
Catechism 120 It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture.

• Jesus was viewed as a man and not as God until the fourth century, when he was deified by the emperor Constantine.
Catechism 465: From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God’s Son “come in the flesh”.

• The Gospels have been edited to support the claims of later Christians.

• Catechism * 107: The inspired books teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”

• In the original Gospels, Mary Magdalene rather than Peter was directed to establish the Church.
*Catechism * 552: Christ, the “living Stone”,285 thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.

• There is a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that still worships Mary Magdalene as a goddess and is trying to keep the truth alive.
crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm ]Ridiculous hoax

• The Catholic Church is aware of all this and has been fighting for centuries to keep it suppressed. It often has committed murder to do so.
(ibid)

• The Catholic Church is willing to and often has assassinated the descendents of Christ to keep his bloodline from growing.
(ibid)

catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp]Cracking the Da Vinci Code