1) There is a bit of a news buzz around Ron Howard and company’s refusal to provide any type of "disclaimer" for the film, particularly in relationship to Opus Dei. Media and blogging types are scoffing at OD, pulling out the "relax it’s a movie" line. Well, step back a minute. Opus Dei is not a fictional organization. It’s real. DVC mischaracterizes (to put it mildly) Opus Dei. It slaps the name of a real organization on actions that include murder and meglomaniac global control. It calls it (something like) an extremist sect. That’s not true. We’re not talking theories here. We talking falsification and lies. Why should Howard and company be able to get away with this with nothing but a chuckle on late-night television? The burden’s on them in this one.

2) I want to re-direct you to Fr. John Wauck’s "Da Vinci Code Catechism." – I do think this is worth forwarding to any priest you know who’s preaching over the next couple of weeks. It’s a really sound approach that serves the greater purpose of teaching some truth, rather than just reacting.

3) I’ve been thinking a lot about what readers of DVC actually absorb as "true" or close to it. I picked apart the variations in this effect in my piece on the bishops’ site, but as I was driving about yesterday, a slightly different angle occurred to me.  DVC definitely feeds into the "CouldBe" mode of historical inquiry, and while most readers don’t believe the specifics of the Priory of Sion, etc., what they do seem to be buying is the fundamental DVC contention that Christianity is based on nothing more than some guys promoting their version of Jesus and winning. Or something – a general sensibility that is being reinforced by the prominence of folks like Pagels and Ehrman.

So I’d say that there are a couple of fundamental DVC lessons that are being absorbed by a good proportion of the general readership – and absorbed, not necessarily because they’re new, but because they reinforce various ideas, assumptions, and theories they’ve heard in the past:

1) The doings of Jesus and his disciples in the first century are essentially unknowable. We have no idea what really happened.

2) Those who promoted what became the orthodox Christian core did so because they sought power. They won, and suppressed the other views, simply because they wanted their story to win.

3) Mary Magdalene has been maligned as a sinful prostitute through 2000 years of Christian history.

That’s what I’m hearing in the interview questions I’m getting – a dismissal of the sillier stuff, Well, of course we know that’s not true, 60 Minutes, hahaha…but then a statement like, "BUT…."

So, no disclaimer needed Ron, my friend. But in my experience, those three points are sticking and seem to have staying power. And because I like, you know, the truth, pardon me for fighting them.