'Don't read Da Vinci Code'

2005-03-16 07:06

Vatican City - The Catholic Church has come out swinging against The Da Vinci Code, dismissing US author Dan Brown's worldwide bestseller about the Vatican supressing the "truth" that Jesus had a child, as a collection of "shameful and unfounded lies".

"Don't read it, and above all, don't even buy the Da Vinci Code," Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, deputy head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Doctrine of the Faith, told Vatican radio.

Bertone, who is archbishop of Genoa and seen as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II, is leading the Vatican's assault on the book, which has become a publishing sensation since it was released in 2003.

Bertone admitted in an interview with Italian daily Il Giornale, that the Catholic Church was worried because "the book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true".

The main theme of the book, which has been in the Italian bestseller lists for more than a year, is that the Church has long suppressed the "fact" that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene.

"You don't do a novel mystifying historic dates or speaking badly or defaming a historic person who has his prestige and his fame in the history of the church, in the story of humanity," Bertone said on Tuesday.

He also criticised Catholic bookshops which have been stocking the popular title.

"I regret that Catholic bookshops, which for reasons of profit, have stacks of this book," said Bertone.

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- AFP