Title

The Banned ‘Da Vinci Code’ By:anonymous (Subjective View) CATHOLIC officials have refused to allow filming in two churches featured in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons – the prequel to his controversial best seller The Da Vinci Code. Camera crews have been in Rome for two weeks for filming along with Hollywood star Tom Hanks – who first played Professor Robert Langdon in the 2006 film, The Da Vinci Code. The director, Ron Howard, who also made The Da Vinci Code, had wanted to follow the plot of Angels and Demons and film in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. But the Diocese of Rome refused permission, claiming the film was "nothing but fantasy" – the same accusation it had made against The Da Vinci Code. Both books have similar plots involving secret societies and the Vatican was so incensed by The Da Vinci Code that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone urged people not to read it, branding the book a "sackful of lies". Cardinal Bertone said the book – which claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child with her – was an "insult to the Christian faith" and that it was "shameful and unfounded". The snub is seen as a direct attack on the makers of both films. Father Marco Fibbi, of the Diocese of Rome's Communications Office, said: "We regularly allow film makers to use our churches for productions. "We do so especially to those whose films have a compatibility with religious sentimentality but not to those who wish to film fantasy or damage common religious sentiment as did The Da Vinci Code.'' The refusal has meant that filming will have to move south to Caserta and take place at the city's Royal Palace.