Wrong Decoder Ring

On the website www.jesusdecoded.com by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop George H. Niederauer opened his defense of his faith against “The Da Vinci Code” by telling a story where a Catholic school girl considered giving up her faith because “[The Da Vinci Code] is all real!” The consequence, I imagine, is that if this is commonly believed by all Catholic girls, there will be no more nuns in the future. The Archbiship continued on to show to all that the basic premise of the novel is factually wrong. The Archbiship took on a rather funny task—to prove that a work of fiction is indeed fictional. This is like proving the parables Jesus told in the Gospels are not literal. The problem, for the Church, is not whether the book is factual but that why are people, women in particular, so willing to accept it as history? What in it makes it so believable to the school girl mentioned in the Archbishop's article? There must be a kernel of truth somewhere, something that echoes reality. Since the Archbiship mentioned a Catholic girl, there must be something in the novel that makes it seems real to the girl. May I suggest to the Archbishop that it is not the dubious nature of the story that is attractive and seems real but the relationship between the Church and its female followers that rings true. It does not matter, for a work of fiction, to be historically correct. All it needs to do is to be empirically plausible. The novel is plausible because the Church has always been repressive towards women since the time of Paul and then Constantine. Rather then saying that young female minds are being misled by a pop novel, the Church should look at it as a venting of frustrations. To say that the novel is fiction would not change anything. To open the Church's hierarchy and decisions to women would.