DE-CODING DA VINCI: THE FACTS BEHIND THE FICTION OF THE DA VINCI CODE

by Amy Welborn Our Sunday Visitor, 2004 124 pages, $9.95

To order: (800) 348-2440 or www.osv.com

If ever a best seller demanded to be dissected and exposed as nonsense, it is Dan Brown's mystery-thriller The Da Vinci Code. Published more than a year ago, it continues to dominate the sales charts, residing high on the New York Times fiction list and selling 7 million copies in its first year. One factor for the book's stunning success — a big-budget Ron Howard movie is in the works — is its anti-Catholic historical revisionism, which it wraps in a declaration of fact and daring research.

This latter fallacy has been promoted by Brown and supported by many book reviewers and entertainment critics. Some have even labeled The Da Vinci Code a masterpiece and an exemplary work of popular scholarship.

Lately the cacophony of gullibility has been met by a number of strong rebuttals, including, interestingly enough, from a number by evangelical Protestants (some of whom otherwise might be all for a best-selling work of anti-Catholic revisionism). And now Catholic author, apologist and web logger extraordinaire Amy Welborn has weighed in, producing a concise critique that packs a biting, knowledgeable punch.

Welborn wrote one of the first negative reviews of Brown's novel last year and has followed its success and impact closely ever since. An insightful observer of popular culture, she writes: “I'm convinced that the reason so many of us have embraced the claims of The Da Vinci Code with such credulity is because we've never seriously tried to get to know Jesus.” What has happened, she notes, is that “we've absorbed the notion, so common in our culture, that it's all a matter of opinion, anyway, with no sure truth at the heart of it.”

The “it” is Christianity, so brazenly attacked by Brown via his fictional characters. These attacks include the claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, that prior to 325 A.D. no one believed that Jesus was divine, that Jesus was a mere mortal prophet and that the “myth” of his divinity was concocted by Emperor Constantine as a means of solidifying the power of “the Vatican.” Woven throughout are themes and beliefs taken from radical feminism, occult sources and esoteric religious systems.

Welborn addresses these major issues with keen brevity, providing clear refutations while never oversimplifying complex historical events and religious beliefs. She quickly goes to the heart of each issue and makes points that should give pause to even the most ardent fans of the novel. Responding to Brown's claims about the “real” Jesus, Welborn states: “In The Da Vinci Code, Brown doesn't once cite from any book of the New Testament as he discusses Jesus’ identity. Not once.”

In another section, noting that Brown's continual reference to Leonardo as “Da Vinci” is incorrect, she explains that “da Vinci” means “of Vinci,” a small town in Italy.

“Someone claiming to have expertise in art and who continually refers to him as ‘Da Vinci’ is just as credible as a supposed religion expert calling Jesus ‘of Nazareth,’” she writes. Here she refers to Brown's insistence that his claims about Leonardo are well researched and bolstered by reputable scholarship. As Welborn shows, no scholar would take seriously most, if any, of Brown's claims — not just about Leonardo but about early Christianity, the medieval era and just about everything else contained in the novel.

“It's just fiction!” is a common reply to rebuttals such as De-Coding Da Vinci. But as Welborn observes, fiction can shape minds and influence hearts, and The Da Vinci Code is undoubtedly doing both. It needs to be taken seriously because tens of thousands of readers are taking it seriously, allowing it to inform their beliefs about a host of vital topics. And many of those readers are Catholics, usually poorly catechized and uncertain about even the most basic tenets of their own faith.

In de-coding The Da Vinci Code, Welborn ably shows that not only does truth exist but that Catholics have nothing to fear from the truth or from bigoted, nonsensical fiction.

Carl E. Olson is co-author, with Sandra Miesel, of Ignatius Press’ forthcoming The Da Vinci Hoax

(www.davincihoax.com).