“The Vatican stepped up its offensive against The Da Vinci Code on Friday when a top official close to Pope Benedict blasted the book as full of anti-Christian lies and urged Catholics to boycott the film.” (Yahoo News) Okay, I’ll admit it now, I’ve finally read the book, and am looking forward to the film. From the trailers I have seen, it looks to be a pretty literal adaptation. My work as an anthropological researcher with the modern-day Maya of southern Mexico when I was a college undergrad showed me firsthand how grafting Christianity on top of indigenous spiritual beliefs as a way of getting its soul-saving foot in the door inherently co-opted those beliefs. So the broad thrust of Brown’s thesis about the Christian Church’s relationship with the ‘pagan’ beliefs it supplanted makes sense to me, as does the Church’s investment in maintaining the paradigm in the face of the current challenge. Should be fun to watch all the hubhub, as it was with the Last Temptation film some years ago.

And:

The Priory of Sion

“Ed Bradley decided to find out for himself whether or not the Priory of Sion, which is central to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code was a real organization or not.” (CBS 60 Minutes thanks to walker)