It’s blasphemy, heresy and crudity powerfully
packaged for maximum sales
and maximum injury to the Catholic Church
The Da Vinci Code: Conspiracy or Communion?
By Stephen F. Brett
A visit to the doctor’s office can result in unwanted, unhappy news. There may be alarming reports of serious illness. Nevertheless, the patient can be grateful for a timely diagnosis that results in immediate life-saving action. Similarly, there may be surprising reasons for gratitude about the soaring popularity of The Da Vinci Code, the megaselling potboiler by Dan Brown in which the leading characters, high-powered academics and a supposed descendant of Mary Magdalene, exchange lengthy lectures on how Christianity strangled the sacred feminine espoused by precocious pagans and overpowered the forces of pre-Christian enlightenment through Constantine’s legions. In this imaginative but hardly original scenario Constantine, cunning political rascal that he was, imposed the new religion of Christianity on West and East to cement his political base even though his pagan heart belonged to the sun god, Sol invictus. Recognizing that the gathering parade was passing by his villa, this shrewd emperor calculated that he could take the lead by agreeing to march to a Christian tune, even if not his personal favorite, not unlike the Bourbon Henry IV acquiring Paris for a Mass.
Some are inclined to dismiss the furor about The Da Vinci Code, claiming that it’s merely fiction. Sadly, it’s so much more than fiction: it’s blasphemy, heresy and crudity powerfully packaged for maximum sales and maximum injury to the Catholic Church . It’s not merely theology produced by P.T. Barnum; it’s thuggery masquerading as theology.
Tourists find travel guides that have transparencies revealing the differences in architecture or populations between two eras very helpful. One sheet is superimposed on another, dramatically showing developments across centuries. Similarly, The Da Vinci Code essentially traces the quack theories and heresies of succeeding centuries, superimposing one upon another until we have an atlas of anti-Catholic polemic. 1
For example, the Da Vinci Code defies the incontrovertible teaching of the New Testament and early Christian writers who hold in unison that Jesus is divine. Instead Dan Brown postulates without either subtlety or historical justification that the divinity of the Lord was the result of a narrow vote at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. So Emperor Constantine and scheming Church men at Nicaea launched the politics that begot Christianity as we know it today.
Apparently Constantine even fooled the sainted Helena, his mother, who was so transfixed by the Christian faith that she spent a lifetime frantically searching for relics of the Lord whom she truly worshipped. While there is always abundant and legitimate speculation about the religious sentiments of political leaders—e.g., the debates about the exact faith of Jefferson and Lincoln—no one doubts the intense sincerity of Constantine’s mother in searching for the true cross and spreading the Gospel across the world. Of course Dan Brown is not one to let little inconveniences such as the likely influence of a canonized saint upon her son get in the way of a supposed three-credit whodunit.
But The Da Vinci Code is far more than a clever page-turner about politics in the Roman Empire or European cults and codes. It takes direct aim at the central beliefs of Christianity such as the divinity of Christ, his celibate status and founding of the Church , and even the authenticity of the New Testament. Attempting to light up in fictional prose some exploded and now soggy firecrackers of biblical revisionism that burst upon the biblical world of the last few decades, Dan Brown announces that Mary Magdalene was the lover of Jesus and their children established the Merovingian dynasty in France. Of course news of this dramatically unconventional account would predictably not sit well with believers so Brown helpfully lists “scholarly” sources that document the rightful place of the Sacred Feminine. Viewers of cable news are accustomed to the crawl of news snippets across the bottom of the screen; similarly, Brown embeds in his book a crawl of agenda-driven feminist sources intent on pillorying the Catholic Church as a sexist enterprise, using author’s names as well as anagrams and puns to point the eager reader toward earlier works of pseudo-scholarship.
Brown sandwiches into the violent events of barely a day’s duration a popularized exposition of the work of authors such as Elaine Pagels and others who argue that the Gnostic Gospels disclose a Jesus totally at odds with His biblical portrait. These findings are patiently recycled for the rubes by two fictional titans of Harvard and Oxford, Robert Langdon, the protagonist 2, and the anagrammatic Sir Leigh Teabing, 3 who complete each other’s sentences and validate each other’s conclusions that the Christianity proclaimed and practiced by the Catholic Church is a monumental fraud. It’s as though the color-coordinated votes on what’s what in the bible concocted by the Jesus Seminar were distilled into bite-sized morsels of revolutionary force and served to a hungry public on dazzling china in the presence of glittering candelabra by a sophisticated Laurel and Hardy duo, holding lecture notes in one hand and a revolver in the other. The Da Vinci Code has sold phenomenally well because it is presented as the rare theological tutorial suitable for the beach.
One must concede to Dan Brown a genuine gift for skimming the best of the romance, murder, suspense and mystery genres and combining them into a gripping story. But his account is not so much a triumph of fiction over fact as a clobbering of undisputed facts by conspiracy-laced myth. His work provides chilling evidence of a popular preference for puzzles instead of mysteries and this, I believe, demands immediate pastoral attention.
The Da Vinci Code abounds with clever symbols and puzzles to capture the best-trained of sleuths but these are not the subtle clues of an Agatha Christie; they are the bilge left from a stream of biblical researchers on ideological steroids who defy overwhelming, abundant and authentic evidence to argue that Gnostic influences are the real story of Western civilization. These “discoveries” validate all of the inferences to be derived from the sexual revolution: we are free to make up our sexual identity, roles and relationships, as we go along; moral codes tracing back to biblical times are now obsolete; conventional notions of the Deity are simply a form of social control and ought to have no effect on human behavior.
An average doctor treating a patient deals with medical puzzles—why this organ or that system is not working. But a good doctor treats the patient and not simply the condition. The astute doctor understands that the patient is a mystery, not merely a system, so the best treatment is holistic. This distinction is old news for those who accept the Genesis account that every human being bears the image and likeness of the Ultimate Mystery, the God who, Christian believers affirm, sent his only-begotten Son into a world that craves his love, meaning and redemptive solidarity. Puzzles can eventually be solved through analysis and research. Mysteries will never be fully fathomed because they touch upon the divine. They are the stuff of creation and redemption, sin and grace, death and Resurrection.
The Da Vinci Code is a powerful alarm warning us that our current culture is dominated by a craving for clever puzzles that both fit and validate an ideological agenda of sexual libertinism. Our culture lacks the self-discipline and patience to move beyond puzzles to the genuinely satisfying realm of unfathomable mystery. What is the response of committed Christians? I believe that the huge commercial success of The Da Vinci Code exposes not only the superficiality of our conventional cultural mindset but it also can point the way in an unintended but productive way to themes that Christians desperately need to reclaim.
Themes and Tasks of Renewal
In diagnosing some of the cultural weaknesses highlighted by the success of The Da Vinci Code, we can also discern a regimen for recovery to help ordinary believers move beyond tabloid puzzles masquerading as scholarship toward genuine mysteries that measure the meaning of humanity. I believe that The Da Vinci Code discloses several realities that must be addressed in the pastoral mission of the Church today. First, there is a popular preference for seeing the Church through easily digested conspiracies rather than studying the Church as a communion. Second, works of sacred art are recast as political statements through a subtle iconoclasm that seeks hidden codes rather than mystery. Third, a widespread innocence of history leaves many otherwise well-educated readers vulnerable to crank theories. Fourth, Flannery O’Connor’s Index of Required Reading needs to be implemented. Fifth, the integration of the various branches of theology is essential to achieve an informed faith not easily overwhelmed by popular prejudice. What is to be done? Here is a prescription for each of these dilemmas.
Conspiracy or communion? Part of the impact of The Da Vinci Code is the breathless unveiling of hidden codes to a highly intelligent, alert and attractive French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, including the fact that Our Lord and Mary Magdalene are atop the family tree of her ancestors. This “wisdom” that Sophie is given has its foundation in a relentless hostility to the Catholic Church. Any datum unearthed in Church architecture, an archaeological find or political intrigue becomes fodder for an attack mentality.
This “enlightenment” of Sophie Neveu is unswervingly secularist. It springs from a desire to believe nothing but the worst about the Church and her leaders. Sadly, the prevalence of “suspicious minds” in our cultural echo chamber is not just a hit tune from Elvis but a daunting abyss that separates belief in the sacred mission of the Church from mistrust fueled by the recent clerical scandals of sexual abuse. The leaders of our dominant culture are very adept at filtering theological truths through a sociological lens. Having neutralized the messengers (the clergy) through stereotyping and outright defamation, critics can then take liberties with the message of Christ and the Church . The credibility of the Church for our almost violently critical culture depends on the exemplary behavior of all the faithful—clergy and laity. We have been judged by the worst instance of corruption; now we must demonstrate faith lived at its best. The most effective antidote to the deadly toxin of The Da Vinci Code will not be found in accurate sources from musty shelves of libraries, important as they are; rather it will be the practice of the faith that restores and recaptures the priority of living it out.
Art and architecture speak as witnesses. For too long there has been a neglect of sacred art and architecture by too many. Dumbing down the sublime has occurred in too much Church architecture. The heavy hand of relativism and historicism has convinced the unwitting that the great works of medieval and Renaissance artists no longer speak to our sophisticated postmodern beliefs. They are, we are told, only interesting insofar as their hidden codes can be unmasked. To suppose that an artist generates magnificence from faith as well as talent is a premise utterly rejected. It must be recaptured for it is true. Just as we are in the midst of a Shakespeare revival, moving beyond the prejudice of those who formerly dismissed him on various grounds, so too we need to begin an artistic renaissance that communicates authentic faith. Perhaps Mel Gibson has shown us the way.
Ignorance of history is ignorance of the Church. Saint Jerome famously averred that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. In the same vein Dan Brown’s agenda demonstrates that ignorance of history is ignorance of the Church. Catechetical and adult-ed programs must equip students with a jeweler’s eye for heresies that have influenced popular thought. Gnosticism emerges emboldened on every page of The Da Vinci Code. Readers who have become adept at finding hidden costs in their bank statements and phone bills must now take the time to study history thoroughly lest they miss the clever scams embedded in popular works of fiction.
Sophie Neveu or Southern Gothic? When Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) was taunted by her Southern neighbors about the Index of Prohibited Books that once bound Catholics, she responded provocatively that what is needed today is an Index of Required Books. There is so much quality writing on Christ, the scriptures, the Church and art available today (e.g., Philip Jenkins, Luke Timothy Johnson, N.T.Wright, Paul Johnson for starters) that Catholics need to remind our co-religionists that narrow or selective reading will inevitably leave the reader poorly informed. A truly well-informed reader may decide to adhere to the Atkins Diet but he or she will do so only after studying both sides of this controversial program. When the health of our soul is at stake, can we do any less?
Christ is indivisible; so too is theology. The rise of an information-based economy has led to an enormous level of specialization in every discipline and field of study. Theology is no exception. If we wish to avoid the sad spectacle of tongue-tied Christians shrugging their shoulders about the impact of The Da Vinci Code, there must be a recovery in seminaries, universities and parish halls of an appreciation of theology that links Christology, ecclesiology, moral theology, history, sacred art, and liturgy. The strategy of dividing and conquering has served critics of the Church quite well. Only when historical claims are neatly separated from a unified vision of Christ, the Revealer and the Revealed, can heresies once again take hold in the popular imagination. The Da Vinci Code has now given rise to a Da Vinci cult—well-educated believers suspicious of the Church and inclined to believe the worst. The challenge of apologetics must be taken up again but informed with the fruit of Vatican II, an historically rich, genuine development of doctrine that has moved well beyond neo-scholastic formulas that no longer speak to current needs. Those who have dismissed the need for The Catechism of the Catholic Church can now see what happens when alternative texts become the catechism of the suspicious.
NOTES
1 My intent in this article is to identify pastoral priorities of the Church in response to the Da Vinci phenomenon. To read an excellent analysis and rebuttal of Brown’s broadside, you can do no better than Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).
2 Langdon is a favorite of Brown, having already appeared in Angels and Demons (New York: Pocket Books, 2000).
3 Brown’s allusion is to Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, (New York: Dell, 1983). Brown recycles the outlandish view of this text that the Holy Grail was not a chalice but the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. One awaits eagerly the ruminations of these authors on UFOs, training their sights on Martians rather than Magdalenes.
Reverend Stephen F. Brett, S.S.J., teaches moral theology at the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, PA. He is also the Chairman of the Department of Moral Theology and a member of the bar in the District of Columbia. His work previously appeared in the October 2000 issue of HPR .
