Vatican City - The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy on Monday called on the faithful to seize the opportunity provided by the release of the film of the Da Vinci Code to teach their friends about Christian history and faith.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, addressing a conference of Italian bishops in the Vatican, did not repeat a call made earlier this month in the bishops' journal for a boycott of the film, based on the best-selling book by American writer Dan Brown.
A number of cardinals at the Vatican have called on people to stay away from the film, which paints an especially unflattering portrait of the Catholic Opus Dei organisation.
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According to Ruini, works such as The Da Vinci Code "are above all a commercial operation, but also constitute a radical and baseless challenge to the very heart" of the Christian faith.
"It is hard not to have the feeling that their success has a relationship to the feeling of self-hatred, or at least loss of self-love, which invades our civilisation," Ruini said in a reference to Western societies' turning of their backs on their Christian heritage, which Pope Benedict XVI has attacked.
Ruini said the church should seek to use the occasion of the release of the film to "enlighten consciences" and embark on "a deep work of Christian instruction".
There was a need to "help people to draw a clear distinction between the certain facts of the origin and history of Christianity and works of imagination or falsifications".
The film will be screened on Wednesday at the opening of the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Its central thesis is that Jesus married Mary Magdalen and had a child, whose descendants are living today.
The Roman Catholic Church is accused in the film of trying to suppress the truth with the help of Opus Dei. - Sapa-AFP
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