What’s Missing from The Da Vinci Code

By Monsignor Francis J. Maniscalco

The Da Vinci Code has gotten lot of attention because of its hero championing the “sacred feminine” and a return to paganism as the religion of nature with its supposedly healthier view of sexuality. A modern celebration of a fertility rite is an important element in the book. Needless to say the Church is portrayed as snuffing out these “healthy” tendencies.

In its disparaging of the Church for suppressing the “sacred feminine” and the sense of the natural good of sex, Catholics would find missing from the novel at least two aspects of our faith which contradict its thesis.

I do not recall the author ever mentioning Mary, the Mother of the Lord.  How strange! There is no greater exaltation of the feminine than the Blessed Mother. Faith-filled maiden who responded to an extraordinary request with the words, “May it be done to me according to your word (Lk 1.38),” when she could have only partially understood all that was being asked of her. A woman of powerful prayer in whose “Magnificat” the words, “He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly (Lk 1.52),” are said to have caused at least one medieval monarch to tremble as he prayed them. Mother, wife, widow, witness to her own child’s death,  mother, by her son’s dying wish, to his disciples as well,  comforting presence with his disciples as they awaited and then received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost,  honored by the Church with the daring title, “Mother of God.” 

No wonder the powerful yet consoling image of Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer, has exercised such an awesome influence on piety, art, and culture down the ages.  The Da Vinci Code’s claims about Mary Magdalene look puny beside this woman who received into her womb the Word which the whole universe cannot contain.

Also missing from The Da Vinci Code is the Church’s true estimation of Mary Magdalene.  Far from trying to wipe out the memory of her importance as a disciple, the four Gospels enshrine it. She is among the women who receive the first announcement of the Lord’s resurrection. In St. John’s Gospel, she is the first person to encounter the risen Christ. There is a tender exchange between the two.  He commissions her to “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,’” and Mary does announce to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (see, Jn 20. 17-18).Clearly the memory of Mary Magdalene as a faithful and important disciple remained in the Church, open and unhidden, She, in fact, became one of our most revered and beloved saints.

As for the supposed tainting of her memory by associating her with the repentant woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, this association may be an error of biblical interpretation, but it hardly constitutes an insult at all. Every Christian is called to repent his or her sins, and this unnamed woman repents gloriously. Jesus contrasts her to his inhospitable host who apparently feels little need for Jesus and his forgiveness. “When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered…. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love” (see Lk 7.44-47).  Mary Magdelene or not, this woman’s repentance has left us with the precious treasure of this profoundly moving image of Christ’s mercy.

As for sex, missing from The Da Vinci Code is any awareness that within the relationship of husband and wife, Catholic teaching holds that sex is a holy reality. It is a sacramental one that reflects the union of Christ and his Church. This teaching holds sex in far greater honor than the fertility rite the novel portrays. It is when sexuality is misused and debased that it becomes a source of sin. Thus the novel presents a severely truncated, and thus distorted, picture of Church teaching. And one would think by now that experience has exploded the myth that using sex in an uninhibited way devoid of moral responsibility brings with it joy and satisfaction.

Lastly, also missing from The Da Vinci Code is the answer to one very important question. Why, if the revelation of  the supposedly awesome secret of the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their descendants would so benefit humanity, is it still kept hidden within an elite group of the famous and powerful who have the time and resources to engage in mysterious rites in French chateaux?  Certainly, as modern times dawned well before the third millennium, there were eras and locales in which the secret could have been revealed safely. 

But the fact is real Christianity is not based on a smug elitism confident in its own moral superiority.  Unlike the novel’s ultra-secret society, the “Priory of Sion” and unlike ancient Gnosticism, the saving mysteries of Christianity are offered to all women and men of every race and social condition.  Throughout history, Christians have been willing to preach the Gospel in spite of persecution and possible death – not a fate our secret socialites seem to relish.  But of course, Christian zeal is to proclaim and to include, not to keep secret and exclude. 

Above all, The Da Vinci Code is missing the realization that the Christianity which converted a pagan empire did so not by tantalizing it with secrets but by the stalwart announcement of the “good news” that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3.16).

Monsignor Francis J. Maniscalco is a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York who has served the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops since 1993, and since 1995 as Director of Communications.