"We have become so suspicious of the power of words. . . the first assumption we make is that we're faced with spin of some kind, with an agenda being forced on us. So that the modern response to the proclamation, 'Christ is risen!' is likely to be, 'Ah, but you would say that, wouldn't you? Now, what's the real agenda?' "

The Da Vinci Code, by the American author Dan Brown, tells of a Church-led conspiracy to suppress Christ's marriage to Mary Magdalene and his fathering of a royal bloodline. The novel has sold more than 40 million copies and was the subject of an unsuccessful plagiarism action in the High Court this month.

The Gospel of Judas is also scorned by the Archbishop

The Archbishop also pours scorn on the recent discovery of a leather-bound papyrus written around 300AD believed to be "The Gospel of Judas", which claims that it was Christ himself who asked Judas to betray him.

"Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect," says Dr Williams. "Someone is trying to stop you finding out what 'really' happened, because what really happened could upset or challenge the power of officaldom."

In his first Easter sermon, on Friday, the Pope effectively dismissed the "Gospel" text by reasserting the orthodox thinking that Judas, the 13th apostle, "evaluated Jesus in terms of power and success". And Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, the Pope's personal priest, also used his Easter sermon to criticise The Da Vinci Code.

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the Editorial from the newspaper

The devil and Da Vinci
4/16/2006

Easter Sunday, the day on which the Resurrection of Christ is celebrated, is the most joyous in the Christian calendar. Both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, however, think there are plenty of reasons for feeling gloomy about contemporary Christendom. Pope Benedict XVI insists that "a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan".

Surprisingly, he wasn't referring to The Da Vinci Code - but he could have been, at least according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who uses his Easter Sermon today to attack Dan Brown's novel for encouraging its 40 million readers to believe that the Christian faith is a series of "conspiracies and cover-ups".

The ease with which supposedly sophisticated people fall for the fantasies of books such as The Da Vinci Code is surprising and depressing. A large portion of that book's readers claim to believe its contention that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had a child by her, and founded a dynasty of French kings. The infallibility of Dan Brown is rather less plausible than the reality of the Resurrection - yet only a minority of people in Britain are willing to say they believe in that miraculous event.

It is further evidence of the aphorism attributed to G.K. Chesterton, that "when a man stops believing in God, he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes in anything". The Da Vinci Code is not an inane apologia of evil or a senseless cult of Satan - but it is extremely silly. We hope its baroque fantasies will soon be forgotten.

END