DLC Blog

'Da Vinci Code' Movie Protests

Filming of “The Da Vinci Code” began recently in London, the movie based off Dan Brown’s the highly controversial bestseller of the same name. The movie will star Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

Many Catholics have been outraged by the book’s main premise, that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child. This theory challenges the previously undisputed aspect of Jesus’ celibacy.

Parts of the film were to take place in the Westminster Abbey; however, the Abbey declined to allow them to shoot the film there. “Although it is a fine page-turner, we cannot commend or endorse the contentious and wayward religious and historic suggestions made in the book -- nor its views of Christianity and the New Testament," the Abbey said in a statement.

Instead, Lincoln Cathedral and another small Scottish cathedral have agreed to let filming take place. The insides of the cathedrals will be made over to look like the Westminster Abbey.

On the day that filming began, a Roman Catholic nun began to protest the filming. Sister Mary Michael was knelt in prayer outside the building for 12 hours in order to protest its filming. She believes the film contains heresy. She was quoted, “To a believer, any believer, what is happening is blasphemous.”

The Very Reverand Alec Knight, of the Lincoln Cathedral, said: “It’s [the book] been attacked as blasphemous because it argues the notion that Jesus’s humanity included an element of sexuality. My view is that the book isn’t blasphemous, it doesn’t denigrate God in any way, but it is speculative, far-fetched and heretical.”

The cathedral accepted an estimated $180,000 donation from the production company to allow filming to take place there.

For more information, see the below links:

Nun stages Da Vinci Code protest
Head-to-Head: Da Vinci Code Filming
'Da Vinci' Film Divides British Churches

Lindsey Aakre
Student Mentor - French

Posted by Lindsey at August 17, 2005 02:45 PM in Social Studies.