Da Vinci Code
(By Maria Di Paola Blum)

The astonishing progress we lived on the 20th century, specially in computers, internet, and real time communications, made USERNAMES and PASSWORDS something natural in our every day lives. Codes, both of them that open doors to new sites, and, why not, to new worlds to those who happen to know the right codes. On the other hand we grew up in the Century that saw religions, specially the Catholic Church turn page, and go from scrupulousness and intransigency, to a passionate liberalism. From the unbearable control of the thousand eyes of nuns and priests that were always upon us, to the Alaissez-faire, laissez-passé@ which came as a consequence of the lack of eyes due to the dramatic drop in the number of priestly and religious vocations. We saw what it meant to be almost intimidated by the many truths we heard in Sunday Services and what it means to have to make up your own truth because there are not enough Sunday preachers. We lost the key. We no longer know what CODE we need to keep on living in this world, and much less what code we need to enter eternal life.
In this desert where thirst for orientation took over the will of the many travelers amidst the sand, we saw Dan Brown showing up with a CODE, the Da Vinci Code: the key hidden by the Templar knights for many centuries. According to Dan Brown this code would help us understand God, or at least that little bit of God who became man, and would unveil the mystery so carefully kept by those who understood the tragedy that would follow its coming to light. To be honest, Dan Brown began his book by telling us it was a novel, science fiction, a mere invention of his imagination, but people wanted a code, and wanted it real! So, after the enormous success of the first edition, the editors decided to take away those introductory words; why let the cake cool down if people loved it hot! So the great novel became a fantastic Arevealed truth@, after so many Centuries of dormant life. Now it is a media miracle-reality already translated into hundreds of languages. Now the God-Man is more human, too human, just like Nietzsche wanted him to be. So human, that he married Mary Magdalene, and from their love there was a divine kinship. Magic! This fantastic code transforms the cup Christ used in the last supper, known until now as the Holy Grail, into a woman, the wife of Jesus. A real explosion of light in the deepest darkness! So much light that it let us see even less! Disorientation is huge. The God who led Moses through the desert from Egypt to Palestine, is now lost in the confusion we are living The Almighty God who ordered the unfaithful to be stoned to death in the days of yore, let himself go and became the biological father of many of his brothers. We no longer need to look up to see God because He fell down. Perhaps too law. But where? We need a CODE! So after bringing us on a tour through the history of the Templar Knights; the Priory of Sion, and after letting us into so many churches, villas, mansions and banks in France, Switzerland, and England, after opening the criptex and after making the Opus Dei seem ridiculous, depicting it as an Aopus night@: a dark organization avid of power and money, Dan Brown points out that in Leonardo=s Last Supper, we can see for ourselves the painting showing us that the chalice is not a cup, but a woman, and that this woman is actually sitting by the side of Christ, her husband! Once the husband is dead the divine wife protects their offspring by fleeing to France. The legend goes on and merges into history showing us that the dynasty of the Merovingian’s comes down and that the girl helping solve the puzzle is actually the descendant of Jesus. Once she is aware of her divineness, we saw the movie showing us her preferring to turn water into wine rather than walking on water!! The conclusion is that the daughter of the Son of God is living with us! If this were the case, AGod is dead@ because he turned out to be too insignificant, too human and too ridiculous. Well, perhaps not so much because for many among the multitude of those thirsting for spirituality in the desert of modern life it was like a little sip. If not a refreshing sip, an awakening one from the drowsiness produced by the abandonment in which our priests and ministers have kept us.
The fact so many millions of copies of this book have been sold, and keep selling, just shows that the thirst in which we live brings us like blind men and women to drink whatever we get in order not to die from thirst. So far Dan Brown=s book has shown itself more effective to wake up priests and bishops than the already imperceptible scream or lamentation of so many Pontiffs: AWake up and preach@. We now hope to get from them the real CODE that will help us to find the footprints of God around us and within ourselves, in order for us to stop looking or accepting the many esoteric codes that pop up like spam and like new versions of software everywhere.

(Maria Di Paola Blum)