What's Wrong with The Da Vinci Code? Continued
Alas, we do not live in that world, and many people have mistaken the novel's fiction for fact.
Moreover, such confusions aside, fiction itself is a powerful form of communication. When you watch a movie or read a book, your imagination is guided and shaped. Feelings are stirred, questions are raised. Impressions - perhaps false, perhaps true - are formed. Mental associations are created.
Businesses pay millions of dollars for a few seconds of advertising time during the Super Bowl. It matters little that everyone knows that these ads aren't documentaries; that they are creations designed to sell a product. The message is sent anyway. If a few seconds of screen time are so valuable, imagine the power of hours spent reading a novel or the visual impact of an entire film.
In the case in point, Mercedes-Benz is surely delighted that their Smartcar will appear in the Da Vinci Code film; they are confident that it will affect consumers' attitudes. For similar reasons, the Catholic Church has every reason to be less than delighted with its own appearance. In this case, a false and ugly picture is being transmitted to the whole world, for The Da Vinci Code gives the distinct impression that the Church is not only wrong - as I say, in some sense, most of the world believes that anyway - but wicked and mendacious, a massive criminal enterprise organized to defend a fraud: "the greatest story ever sold," in the words of Teabing. Is it unreasonable to suppose that this will affect viewers' attitudes toward the Church?
The novel's offensiveness may well be unwitting, because Dan Brown appears to be somewhat tone-deaf when it comes to things Catholic. He demonstrates no "feel" whatsoever for the way Catholics think and talk. Indeed, Brown doesn't seem to appreciate what it means to be part of the Church. For Catholics, the Church is much more than a pious association, a religious institution, or a venerable historical reality. For Catholics, the Church is precisely what The Da Vinci Code suggests that Mary Magdalene was: the Bride of Christ that becomes one flesh with Him. In the Church, Christians form part of that one mystical body of Christ. In fact, it was a woman, St. Joan of Arc, who said: "About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter."
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