Christians brace for 'Da Vinci Code' film

With round two in the offing, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has put together an hourlong documentary and detailed rebuttal of many of the book's claims, which is available at www.jesusdecoded.com/introduction.php. The film is being distributed to NBC-TV affiliates nationwide with the hope they will air it next weekend. A spokeswoman for KSL-TV said the station has no plans to air the documentary, and the local diocese has nothing specific planned to discuss or deal with the questions the film is expected to raise anew, Howa-Johnson said.

Before the national Web site featuring explanatory material was recently made available, the diocese was left to "basically explain that it's a work of fiction, even though the author says as much," Howa-Johnson said.

Though Utah Catholics are still waiting for the installation of a new bishop since the departure of Bishop George Niederauer earlier this year to become the new Archbishop of San Francisco, the archbishop isn't waiting for the film's release to speak out. He's posted a five-page, single-spaced response to questions raised by the book at www.sfarchdiocese.org/ablwritingsindex.html, which concludes that Hollywood "doesn't know very much about Catholicism, doesn't like what it thinks it knows, doesn't want to learn any more and can't leave Catholic faith, practice and imagery alone."

That doesn't surprise Molly Dumas, spokeswoman for Juan Diego Catholic High School, who listened to the former bishop's interaction with students there during a question-and-answer session last year that included queries raised in the novel. "He just hates the book because everyone assumes it's gospel. And once it becomes a movie, then everyone believes it," she said.

While discussion about the book hasn't been part of the regular curriculum, "we didn't want to skirt the issue," she said, noting students have brought it to school and it's available in the school library. Students are definitely talking about the movie, and are being encouraged to be "critical thinkers," she said.

"We hope they look at the fact that this is fiction and use it as opportunity to explore their faith . . . For the most part, kids are wanting to know about the relationship between Jesus and Mary — was he married or not? We're telling them we don't know that, but you have to look at the culture of the time."

Other local Christian leaders are taking varied approaches to the film, many of them simply ignoring it. But several churches are sponsoring discussions and at least one public forum is planned.