4 ‘Da Vinci Code’ Questions

Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene?

There is no evidence, either from Scripture or from early Christian tradition, that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. The notion is a 20th-century invention. Of course, Jesus is married — to the Church. We all have the “holy bloodline” coursing through our veins. Jesus-Mary Magdalene chatter misses the point of Jesus’ cosmic redemptive mission. — Amy Welborn

Did the Priory of Sion really exist?

In a way. The Priory of Sion was an organization founded by a right-wing, monarchist anti-Semite, Pierre Plantard, in France in 1956. He and a colleague planted false documents regarding past “grand masters” of this group (cited in “The Da Vinci Code”) in French libraries. It was widely discounted as a fraud and a hoax in France in the 1980s and, more recently, on a segment of CBS 60 Minutes. — Amy Welborn

Does the Catholic Church condone corporal mortification?

Yeah, in moderation. Nothing that would physically harm yourself or anything like that. It’s not mutilation, it’s mortification. — Fr. Tim Davern

Was Leonardo da Vinci anti-Church?

Da Vinci was a man in many ways typical of his age. The subject of art was almost always religious. Most people had a true faith in God, but many, including Da Vinci, could and did see that as very different from a faith or trust in the institutional Church. The Church was much more a political power to them, yet it was also from God. They could hate the pope and the cardinals yet see them as having been placed in office by God. So it is not accurate to say that he did not like the Church in the modern sense of rejecting its teachings, he did not like the Church in the sense that he resented its politics. I do not think that his religious beliefs diminish his paintings. I think he was a man of faith, painting with faith. — Fr. Thomas Faucher