VATICAN PLAYS HARDBALL WITH 'DA VINCI'

A senior Vatican official has called for a boycott against the new movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code:

A Vatican official reportedly called for a boycott of the upcoming "The Da Vinci Code" film Friday, saying it contained "slanderous" offenses against Christianity that would have provoked a worldwide revolt had they been directed against Islam or the Holocaust.

Monsignor Angelo Amato — Pope Benedict XVI's former No. 2 when Benedict was head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith — made the comments in a speech at the Pontifical Holy Cross University, which is run by the conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei, the ANSA news agency reported.

"I hope all of you boycott this film," the Italian agency quoted Amato as saying. He said the film, based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, was full of "offenses, slander, historical and theological errors concerning Jesus, the gospel and the church."

"Slander, offenses and errors that if they were directed toward the Quran or the Shoah would have justifiably provoked a worldwide revolt," he said, referring to Islam's holy book and the Hebrew word for Holocaust.

"Yet because they were directed toward the Catholic Church, they remain 'unpunished,"' he said.

Now, there is no doubt he is correct about the inviolability of the Koran and the Holocaust. If the movie touched on the latter it simply would not have been allowed to be made. If it touched on the former the author and director would have been...um...eliminated before it could have been made.

My policy is I want Dan Brown & Co. to get as little of my money as possible. I've read the book, but I got it at a thrift store. I would like to see the movie, but I'll at least wait to rent it. I'm on semi-boycott.