Da Vinci Code Damage

The Da Vinci Code has done serious damage to the Catholic Church. A poll found that the majority of the book's readers believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene.

Two thirds of Britons who have read Dan Brown's thriller believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a claim rejected as baseless by historians and Bible scholars.

Those who have read it are also four times as likely to think that the conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, whose members include the Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly, is a murderous sect.

Seventeen per cent of readers are convinced that the lay group, whose founder was canonised by the late Pope John Paul II, has ordered or carried out a murder, compared with four per cent of those who have not read the book.

Yes, it's fictional - informed people realize that. But as critics have rightly mentioned, this simply wouldn't happen to Islam. If it did, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard would be in hiding for fear of their lives and theaters that showed the film would risk being burned to the ground.