Although the film has been showing and grossing large gate receipts, the controversy is still raging. Theaters in the SM Malls refuse to show the Da Vinci Code while the Robinson chain is offering the show. Politicians of some metropolitan areas sought to ban the showing, perhaps to curry favor with religious authorities. We in Bohol accept the fact that it is up to the movie goers to interpret the movie according to ones persuasions. But what is really the Da Vinci Code?

This is a novel of Dan Brown, a work of fiction based upon a non-fiction book. The principal character had stumbled on a clue in a classical painting, which leads to an investigation of a well-kept secret. This came to the attention of a shadowy organization, the Prieuré de Sion, which discourages any investigation of the secret. Although the movie is a work of fiction, the basis of the story is so realistic and devastating that the showing may induce a crisis of faith in the moviegoer.

The story is based on a well-researched non-fiction book Holy Blood Holy Grail, which claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had an offspring with her. After the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene and her child was brought to southern France by followers of Jesus. From their child came the Merovingian dynasty of longhaired kings.

History tells us that the Merovingians were displaced by the Carolingians but the Merovingian bloodline still exists until today. The secret of their existence is closely guarded by and organization called Prieuré de Sion. Any non-member of the organization, who might know of that secret, would meet an untimely demise. His death or disappearance is blamed upon the organization. The object of Prieuré de Sion is to restore the Merovigians not only to the throne of France but to the thrones of other European nations as well.

According to reliable researchers the Prieuré de Sion exists until today. The past grandmasters of the organization were Italian painters Sandro Filipepi otherwise known as Botticelli 1483 – 1510; Leonardo da Vinci; 1510 – 1519; English physicists Robert Boyle 1654 – 1691 and Isaac Newton 1691 – 1727; Frenchmen Victor Hugo 1844 - 1885 and Claude Debussy, the composer 1885 – 1918. Though remaining in the background, the Prieuré exerts so much influence that their secrets are scarcely touched except by the most resourceful researchers.

The problem of the Prieuré de Sion is to identify the one man who could claim direct descendant of Jesus. Family trees scatter, subdivide and in centuries grow into veritable forests. Even if there would be “incontrovertible proof” that exists and theological, political and other repercussions will result with enormous impact affecting the thinking, the values and the institutions of the contemporary world in which we live will survive.

The Church should not be overly concerned on the effects of the work of fiction or speculative research. Major religions had all faced crisis when their origins and tangled past had became open to scrutiny. None of them emerged unscathed, some collapsed altogether. But for us the teachings of Jesus will survive for all time. His teachings alone will prove who He is. He taught that when men will become pure in heart, the Messianic age promised by the prophets would come.