Don't read the Da Vinci Code, pleads cardinal

If you’re not among the millions who have already read the blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code, a senior Italian cardinal has a plea for you: don’t read it and don’t buy it.

Genoa Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a friend of the pope, said today that the runaway success of the Dan Brown novel is proof of ”anti-Catholic” prejudice containing “cheap lies”.

Allegations in the novel that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and has descendants have outraged many Christians and have been dismissed by historians and theologians.

“The distribution strategy has been absolutely exceptional marketing, even at Catholic bookstores – and I’ve already complained about the Catholic bookshops which, for profit motives, have stacks of this book,” the cardinal said.

The novel is on sale in the Rome hospital where the Pope underwent emergency treatment earlier this month

“And then there’s that strategy of persuasion – that one isn’t an adult Christian if you don’t read this book. Thus my appeal is: don’t read and don’t buy the book."

Bertone’s comments were significant because until the Pope named him Archbishop of Genoa in 2003 he was for years the number two man at the Vatican’s most powerful department – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Asked about commentary that the book’s success is “only further proof of the fact that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice", the cardinal exclaimed: “It’s the truth.”

“There’s a great anti-Catholic prejudice,” Bertone said. ”I ask myself if a similar book was written, full of lies about Buddha, Mohammed, or, even, for example, if a novel came out which manipulated all the history of the Holocaust or of the Shoah, what would have happened?”

The Da Vinci Code was published two years ago this month and is available in 44 languages. Booksellers expect the novel to remain a best seller for some time.

It is also being made into a Hollywood movie, starring Tom Hanks.

“You can find that book everywhere and the risk is that many people who read it believe that those fairy tales are real,” the cardinal said.

“I think I have the responsibility to clear things up to unmask the cheap lies contained in books like that.”

Cardinal Bertone will be the key speaker at a meeting in Genoa tomorrow night attempting to dismantle the book, which also accuses the Church of covering up the female role in Christianity.

“I will try to clear things up and help form consciences,” the cardinal said.

Bertone firmly rejected the book’s claim that the feminine role in Christianity had been suppressed.

“This is one of the most vulgar of inventions. The feminine element is present in all the Gospels,” Bertone said.