By Ann Rodgers
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette When plans for a speaker fell through one night last month, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh's Susan Rauscher hastily organized a forum on "The Da Vinci Code," the bestselling novel whose movie version, starring Tom Hanks, opens Friday.

To her shock, 500 people packed the meeting to hear a priest and an art historian refute the novel's claims that Christianity is a fraud that the Catholic Church conceals by murder.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Susan Rauscher, director of the deptartment of social advocacy for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, is the point person for efforts to educate priests and laity about church history called into question in The Da Vanci Code. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage 'The Code': The Gnostic Gospels aren't secret 'The Code': Mary Magdalene -- Apostle to the apostles Audio excerpts Here are some excerpts of audio interviews from sources in this article: Brian Finnerty, the U.S. spokesman for Opus Dei, which is featured in the novel in the form of an albino monk who commits murder to cover up the "real" story behind Christianity. Clip 1 | Clip 2 | Clip 3 | Clip 4 Kenneth Bailey, canon theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, is a renowned New Testament scholar who spent most of his career in the Holy Land studying cultural references in the Christian scriptures. Listen Sister Christine Schenk is director of FutureChurch, a liberal Catholic group that advocate's the ordination of women and views Mary Magdalene as a role model for women called to ministry. Listen Diane Apostolos-Cappadona is a cultural historian specializing in religious art who teaches at Georgetown University. She is an authority on Mary Magdalene in Christian art. Clip 1 | Clip 2 Father John Skirtich, pastor of St. Maurice Catholic Church, Forest Hills, who led packed workshops refuting The Da Vinci Code for both his parish and the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Listen Web only Robert Lockwood, edited the book Anti-Catholicism in American Culture. He says The Da Vinci Code, with similar novels such as The Third Secret and The Last Templar, echoes traditional anti-Catholic themes. Clip 1 | Clip 2 | Clip 3

Many churches are doing the same thing, seizing on fascination with the book and movie as a springboard for education.

"We are looking to take advantage of the opportunity to teach about the basic tenets of the church where they have been called into question," said Ms. Rauscher, the diocese's director of the department of social advocacy. She said the diocese had sent discussion guides to all priests in preparation for the Friday opening.

Leadership, a magazine for Protestant pastors, found that 53 percent of those surveyed planned a response to the film. A poll by Outreach Inc., a church marketing firm, found 68 percent of its customers, mostly Protestant churches, planned to respond to "The Da Vinci Code" with some form of evangelism, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Dozens of specialists in early Christianity, literature and renaissance art have produced books and DVDs dissecting, and rejecting, the novel's ideas.

Sony Pictures, which made the movie, set up a Web site on which Christian scholars and evangelists are given the opportunity to dispute the novel: www.thedavincichallenge.com.

The thriller follows a religious scholar and a cryptologist as they uncover the supposedly hidden truth behind Christianity. The novel said the truth was hidden in a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. In the novel, Jesus is a mortal who sought to restore "the sacred feminine" to human spirituality. The book claims he married Mary Magdalene, commissioned her to lead his movement, and that their heirs survive.

The "holy grail" is not Jesus' cup of the Last Supper, but the bones of Mary Magdalene. The novel asserts that Jesus' divinity and the books of the New Testament were forced on the church by fourth-century Emperor Constantine.

A preface, titled "Fact:," makes no disclaimers. It concludes, "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

On his Web page, author Dan Brown says that doesn't mean the theological theories are true. But, he says, "The secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss,"

More than 60 million copies of the book are in print worldwide. And more than 25 books have been published in response from an evangelical or Catholic viewpoint, said Lynn Garrett, religion editor for Publishers Weekly.

The Rev. John Skirtich said he had 100 students for a three-week class on the novel at St. Maurice Church in Forest Hills. Readers who lack a background in church history struggle to separate fact from fiction, he said.

"I knew I had a problem when an elderly woman asked me a year ago, in all sincerity, if Jesus really married Mary Magdalene," he said.

Parishioners who read it "had a vague idea that the theology wasn't correct and that the history wasn't correct," but didn't know enough about those subjects to pinpoint the errors, Father Skirtich said.

Soon after the book's 2003 release, 300 people packed a class at Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church, prompted by director of adult discipleship, James Platt, who teaches ancient languages in the theology department at Duquesne University

That year, he said, "I probably had more students doing papers on 'The Da Vinci Code' than any other single topic."

Although he believes its plot is laced with lies, Dr. Platt expects the movie to open doors for religious education.

"This summer, I'm planning to have a group at the church that will read the book together and see the movie together. It's something that the church needs to tackle head on. We have to educate our parishioners," he said.

Renowned New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey has produced a DVD on the novel. The claims about Constantine's role in early Christianity are false, Dr. Bailey said. He points to ancient churches that developed independently of Rome but share its faith.

"What about the Armenians? They became Christians way before Constantine, and their faith is the same as ours."

Amy Welborn, a popular Catholic writer from South Bend, Ind., wrote "De-coding Da Vinci: The facts behind the fiction of 'The Da Vinci Code.' "

She had reviewed and dismissed the novel as too stupid to worry about when she began to be deluged by e-mail about it. Catholics whose friends had read it wanted to know how to answer their disturbing questions. Others said her faith was blinding her to the truth of the novel.

The novel tries to tell the story of early Christianity without citing the New Testament, she said.

"No matter what your conclusion is about [the canon], you have to start there," she said.

She finds it odd that it blames Catholicism for erasing the "image of the sacred feminine."

"To suggest that the Catholic Church is inimical to incorporating feminine imagery and sensibilities into its devotion is to ignore the blessed Virgin Mary," she said, noting the book never mentions Protestants.

The novel is hardest on the Catholic group Opus Dei. Members, exemplified by an albino monk named Silas, are portrayed as willing to murder to suppress the secret of the grail. The real Opus Dei has kept a sense of humor, even asking to have its New York headquarters included in a "Da Vinci Code" tour of New York.

The Rev. John Wauck, an Opus Dei priest and Renaissance historian who teaches faith and literature at a university in Rome, has a humorous blog, www.davincicode-opusdei.com.

In one of its cartoons, one woman tells another, "It didn't work out. I was looking for a relationship and he was looking for the sacred feminine."

"We've been trying to turn lemons into lemonade," to teach people about Catholicism and about Opus Dei, said Brian Finnerty, U.S. spokesman for Opus Dei.

Among the things the novel gets wrong: Opus Dei has no monks.

"You don't find Opus Dei people running around in monks' robes, not even on Halloween," Mr. Finnerty said.

Art experts are no less scathing.

"Dan Brown is not an art historian," said Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a cultural historian at Georgetown University who specializes in religious art.

The artist was never known as Da Vinci, only as Leonardo, she said.

The novel's "interpretation of the works of Leonardo do not seem to be based on any critical or historical knowledge that we have of Leonardo and his works."

The so-called secret codes in his paintings were well-known symbols, she said. In an age when most didn't read, they learned the Bible through visual cues.

"Christian art or Hindu art or Buddhist art ... is not a secret code," she said.

"If it was a secret code, we'd have no Christians, no Buddhists, no Hindus."

The novel claims that, in Leonardo's mural of the Last Supper, John is really Mary Magdalene.

Though Leonardo's John looks effeminate to 21st century Americans, he fit the Renaissance ideal of a handsome young man, she said.

The novel's plot has been denounced by several influential figures at the Vatican. In a Good Friday sermon to Pope Benedict XVI, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, said, "Christ is being sold again, no longer to the leaders of the Sanhedrin for 30 denarii, but to editors and booksellers for billions of denarii."

But Christians who despise the novel are divided over whether to boycott the movie.

Ted Baehr, publisher of Movie Guide and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, is "calling on people of faith and values not to see the movie," he said.

But at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops there is a concern such efforts could backfire.

"We haven't seen the movie yet, and it's really bad to comment on something you haven't seen. Boycotting just brings more attention to the issue," said Pat Ryan Garcia, the bishops' point person for response to "The Da Vinci Code." They have a documentary, literature and a Web site: www.jesusdecoded.com.

Ms. Welborn advocates what's dubbed an "othercott," seeing another movie on Da Vinci's opening weekend to keep its box office rank down.

"There's no official boycott, but I would say that life is short and there are probably better movies to watch," she said.