Don’t read or buy The Da Vinci Code, says 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 Pope John Paul II, said yesterday that the 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.