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Archbishop attacks "Code"

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: The "Da Vinci Code," Dan Brown's controversial best-seller about a fictional "plot'' to suppress Christ's "secret marriage" to Mary Magdalene, got a hammering from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in his Easter Sunday sermon. Dr. Williams attributed the success of the novel, which has sold more than 40 million copies around the world and is the subject of a forthcoming Hollywood film, to a public obsession with conspiracy theories. A culture of spin had made people suspicious of "prosaic reality'' and there was a tendency to be fascinated by anything that suggested a "conspiracy'' as the book did with its central idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married, had a child and their bloodline, protected by a secret society, survives to this day. Dr. Williams said: "You'll recognise the style, of course, from the saturation coverage of the Da Vinci Code literature. We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups.''

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