Code of contention

The hullabaloo about the release of The Da Vinci Code just proves how the Church, ironically, is ensuring more audiences for the controversial film it seeks to ban, reports Ervell. E. Menezes

THE all-India release of Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code has been delayed because of objections from the Christian community to the content that Christ is believed to have married Mary Magdalene, and the stipulation for screening a disclaimer is clearly a sort of compromise.

When one knows that the personas referred to are Christ and Mary Magdalene, it is obvious that they are sidestepping the issue. The Catholic Church has objected to the film and its supporters, including politicians of various hues, have joined in the protest, many of whom have not read the novel by Dan Brown on which the film is based.

I have read the book and it is an excellent thriller about a symbologist, Prof Robert Langdon, who is called to the Louvre museum in Paris one night where the curator has been murdered, leaving behind a trail of symbols and clues. With his own survival at stake, Langdon aided by police cryptologist Sophie Neveu unveils a series of stunning secrets hidden to the world. Among the charges levelled is that the apostle to the right of Christ was a woman (Mary Magdalene), which seems to have hurt the sentiments of the Christians.

But this is not the first time the Catholic Church has come out in defence of its religious beliefs. About a decade ago Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ faced the same ordeal. Kazantzakis’ book is about Christ’s dream on the cross and how he wished to marry Mary Magdalene. In both these issues it is a case of fiction and one is allowed to surmise what could have been. But the Church (as are other faiths) is very possessive of its beliefs and does not want to be questioned.

That the Church is known to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted a few furlongs is nothing new. They condemned and banned Galelio Galilee for saying the world was round and two decades later honoured him for the same thing. The have banned writers like Marie Corelli for her outspoken comments. So this is just another case of the Church trying to exert its pressure on the powers that be to keep their "flock blinkered." Didn’t the British poet Geoffrey Chaucer in his The Canterbury Tales flay the Church and its capacity of "commercialisation of sin" as far back as the 14th century or so? Didn’t he say, "If gold doth rust, what will iron do," referring to the corrupt clergy?

Ironically, by giving it so much publicity the number of persons who want to see the film will automatically increase manifold. The film was premiered at the Cannes film festival. Didn’t the poet Lord Tennyson say "there’s more faith in honest doubt than in all the creeds put together"? Sadly, religion often makes bigots of what could be straight-thinking folks.

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