It get's tiresome repeating onself, but one feels obliged to do it when someone's being an idiot.

ROME (Reuters) - A top Catholic cardinal has blasted "The Da Vinci Code" as a "gross and absurd" distortion of history and said Catholic bookstores should take the bestseller off their shelves because it is full of "cheap lies."

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview with the Milan newspaper Il Giornale, became the highest ranking Italian Churchman to speak out against the book, an international blockbuster that has sold millions of copies.

"(It) aims to discredit the Church and its history through gross and absurd manipulations," Bertone, the archbishop of the northern Italian city of Genoa and a close friend of Pope John Paul told the paper in its Monday edition. {...}

Let me repeat this for the umpteenth time: The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. It is not meant to be taken for fact. If you believe it portrays Christiantity poorly, well, that's your right, but to actively campaign against a work of fiction? That's just silly. And it makes you look silly, too.

Dan Brown played with the facts to create fiction. He asked what if? and went from there. He created an international bestseller that, two years after publication, the dear Cardinal claims is a threat to the Church.

Well, perhaps, dear red-beanied one, you should have gotten on the ball sooner, if it's such a threat.

Far be it from me, a practicing Catholic, to suggest that the lesson the Church should be taking from this book is that there are many people who find its message regarding femininity appealing. That maybe there should be more to being a woman in the Church than just following in the chaste footsteps of the Virgin Mary. Not that the Virgin isn't a good role model, it's just that, in this day and age, traipsing after the males and adoring them gets to be a wee bit boring.

But, again, what would I know? It's not like I have a say in it.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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