From Catholic News Service:
"The success of Dan Brown's novel, "The Da Vinci Code," is the result of a marketing strategy playing on anti-Catholic sentiment, said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, Italy.The cardinal told Vatican Radio he was particularly concerned about the fact that the book, first published in Italian in 2004, now is available in paperback and is popular among high school students.
"There is an idea circulating in the schools that one must read this book to understand the dynamics of history and all the manipulations carried out by the church in the course of history," Cardinal Bertone told Vatican Radio March 15.
"This is truly sad and terrible," he said, explaining why he had scheduled a public discussion about the book in Genoa.
Cardinal Bertone said the most ridiculous premise in the novel is the Catholic Church's alleged "obliteration of the feminine aspect from the Gospel narratives and in the life of the church."
"There is nothing more false," he said, pointing to the importance the church gives to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the attention the Gospels pay to Jesus' female disciples, including the women who announced to the male disciples that Jesus had risen.
"There is nothing more false than the need to rediscover a -- how can I say it -- an 'amazon' Mary Magdalene in order to recuperate the presence of women" in the church, he said.
"The more mystifying element" of the book, Cardinal Bertone said, is its "denial of the death and resurrection of Jesus."
For more good reading concerning the DaVinci Code and related theological themes, I suggest The DaVinci Hoax.