A top Vatican official on Friday urged Catholics to boycott the soon-to-be-released film The Da Vinci Code, saying it "offended" the Christian faith.
Monsignor Angelo Amato, no.2 at the Vatican's powerful doctrinal department, also lamented the failure of the Christian world to denounce the Dan Brown bestseller which spawned the film more strongly. "I hope you will all boycott the film," he said in a speech to participants at a conference at Rome's Santa Croce university.
Dan Brown's creation contains not only "offence and calumny", but also "historical and theological errors about Jesus, the Gospels and the Church," he said.
The novel, which has sold 40 million copies, depicts the Catholic Church as a corrupt organisation determined to hide certain explosive truths. It contains the notion that Jesus Christ married and had descendants.
There is also a highly negative portrayal of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic organisation which encourages its members to strive for holiness through their jobs and ordinary occupations in life.
A key character in the Da Vinci Code is a crazed Opus Dei monk who commits a murder.
In an apparent reference to the recent anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Msgr Amato said that if a book like The Da Vinci Code had been written about Islam it would have provoked a "global rebellion" among Muslims. He added that such a reaction would have been justifiable.
"I think that in these cases Christians ought to be more ready to refuse lies and gratuitous defamation," the prelate remarked.
