Da Vinci 'Splode!

An article in yesterday's New York Times notes that the Catholic Church's objection to the upcoming theatrical release of The Da Vinci Code

has been colored by the Muslim riots over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Most American media outlets refrained from showing the cartoons, and now some Christian leaders are asking why Christians should be expected to sit by while the media promotes a movie that insults their savior.

In Rome recently, Archbishop Angelo Amato, the No. 2 official in the Vatican's doctrinal office, told Catholic communications officials: "If such slanders, offenses and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising. Instead, directed at the Church and Christians, they remain unpunished. I hope you will all boycott the movie."

American media companies avoided showing the Muhammed images because they feared that the resulting furor would threaten the safety and even the lives of their employees. Clearly, they view angry Christians as far less menacing than angry Muslims. This hardly seems like a reason for the Church to take offense.

A sidenote: Were I in charge of these things, I would simply point out that The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction and should be viewed as such. I would then call upon some respectable academic types to point out a few of the more interpretive historical references in Brown's books. (I don't know precisely how Robert Langdon managed to secure his tenure at Harvard, and I believe I'm happier for that.)