Opus Dei priest John Wauck says the lead character in Dan Brown’s potboiler Angels & Demons actually promotes Church teaching at one point in the book.

“There’s a scene in the novel when the hero, Professor Langdon of Harvard University, suddenly finds himself in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the thoughts that go through his head at that moment — in the novel, he’s the voice of scientific authority — sound like an advertisement for Roman Catholicism,” Father Wauck said in this interview published yesterday by Zenit. “It’s hard to tell whether we’re reading Dan Brown or the Catholic Catechism! This is the passage:

“‘Peter is the rock. Peter’s faith in God was so steadfast that Jesus called Peter ‘the rock’ — the unwavering disciple on whose shoulders Jesus would build his Church. On this very location, Langdon realized — Vatican Hill — Peter had been crucified and buried. The early Christians built a small shrine over his tomb. As Christianity spread, the shrine got bigger, layer upon layer, culminating in this colossal basilica. The entire Catholic faith had been built, quite literally, upon St. Peter. The rock’(Angels & Demons, Chapter 118).”

Said Father Wauck, “As advertising goes, it’s not a gigantic billboard in Times Square. But still, it’s not too bad.”

The film version of Angels & Demons opened Friday in U.S. theaters. The Register has published a detailed two-part critique of the movie, writtenby our film critic Steven D. Greydanus. The first part is titled Dan Brown: Fiction and Falsehood. The second part is titled Breathless Scavenger Hunt Ultimately Fruitless.