Everyone I know has been reading The Davinci Code, so I finally borrowed my sister's copy to see what all the fuss was about. I was hooked quickly. Not because it's well written, because it's not. Not even because the story was that compelling, because, well, it isn't. Not about the secret societies, which Dan Brown obviously loves since he's woven at least two of books around them (see Angels & Demons, which is a superior novel). But because it fits so perfectly into my anti-church sentiments. I also love art history, but that's really secondary.

What's amazing to me about the book is not that the anti-Catholic Church, well, it's hard to call them undertones, overtones, that form the subtext of this novel. What I'm amazed about is not that they are there, but that there is more made of it in the media considering what a huge phenomenon this book has become.

A huge crux of The Davinci Code is that the Catholic Church has been cherry picking documents, Gospels in particular, to disseminate to the public in the form of the New Testament, for example, that fit into their vision for what people should think about Catholicism in general and Jesus in particular. None is this new news. But the fact that it plays a major role in a seriously popular form of mass media is.

But where is the backlash? Where are the Christians demanding to see the Books of Fatima or the missing Gospels? If it's there, I haven't seen or heard it.