Opus Dei, Ron Howard at odds over Da Vinci Code

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou in a scene from the film version of The Da Vinci Code.

LOS ANGELES - The director of the upcoming religious thriller The Da Vinci Code says he sees no need for a disclaimer labeling the film a work of fiction - provoking a rebuke from Catholic group Opus Dei.

And in the latest Vatican broadside against The Da Vinci Code, a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the church he founded.

Filmmaker Ron Howard has acknowledged the controversy renewed by his film of Dan Brown's best-selling novel, which depicts Opus Dei as a shadowy sect at the heart of a murderous conspiracy to conceal dark secrets of the early Christian Church.

But the Oscar-winning director of A Beautiful Mind rejected the notion that his latest film should carry a disclaimer - as requested by Opus Dei - stating what he said was already obvious.

"This is a work of fiction that presents a set of characters that are affected by these conspiracy theories and ideas," Howard told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.

"Those characters in this work of fiction act and react on that premise. It's not theology. It's not history. To start off with a disclaimer ... spy thrillers don't start off with disclaimers."

Opus Dei, which urged movie distributor Sony Pictures Entertainment in April to consider running a disclaimer, expressed disappointment with Howard's stance.

"A disclaimer could have been a way for Sony to show that the company wants to be fair and respectful in its treatment of Christians and the Catholic Church," Opus Dei's US spokesman Brian Finnerty said on Monday.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was considered a candidate for Pope last year, appealed for Christians to respond to the book and film with legal action.

Cardinal Arinze's made the comments in a documentary called The Da Vinci Code - A Masterful Deception.

Cardinal Arinze's appeal followed a call from another Vatican cardinal who called for a boycott of the film. Both cardinals asserted that other religions would never stand for offences against their beliefs and that Christians should get tough.

"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film-maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specialising in religious affairs.

"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Cardinal Arinze said.

"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected," he said, without elaborating.


The film, which opens May 19, stars Tom Hanks as a Harvard scholar who teams up with a French cryptologist (played by Audrey Tautou) to solve a murder mystery entwined in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and a supposed alternate history of Christianity.

A central premise of the story is that Jesus sired a child by Mary Magdalene, and that a clandestine society has for centuries protected the identity of their descendants from agents of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican, which considers the story blasphemous, has launched its own public relations offensive against the film.

Archbishop Angelo Amato, the No. 2 official in the doctrinal office headed by Pope Benedict until his election last year, called in April for a boycott of the movie.

And the Catholic Church has produced a rebuttal documentary titled The Da Vinci Code - A Masterful Deception.

A Sony spokesman last month said the studio sees the film as "a work of fiction" rather than a "religious tract" and believed the film "will delight audiences, not offend them."

- REUTERS