Dan Brown, author of blasphemous book The Da Vinci Code, and his minions in hell, are toasting to Johnny Walker Blue, due to the tremendous success of the movie sequel to the book, which hit P14-million on opening day in the Philippines.

After Spider Man 2, this was the highest first day film grosser of all times, confirming the theory that like ants drawn to honey, men are attracted to the prohibited - like Eve and Adam seduced by the devil to try and eat the apple in the Garden of Eden.

The Shoemart chain of movie houses that refuses to show "For Adults Only" film barred the Da Vinci Movie showing and they account for 40% of all seating movie house capacity in the country. Mayor Lito Atienza of Manila who with his wife is as steadfast a believer in their renewed Christian faith as they are to daily jogging in Manila, banned the film from showing in his city.

Despite those, the objectionable film could break all records in the Philippines as weeks go by, affirming the fear that this spiritual warfare is for real.

In a strongly worded Pastoral Letter signed by Bishop Leopoldo S. Tumulak of the Archdiocese of Tagbilaran, the Bohol Church lambasted the heresy lodged against the divinity of Christ and his alleged marriage to Mary Magdalene and the siring of a daughter. The Da Vinci Code also pilloried from pillar to post the workings of the Opus Dei, a lay apostolate linked to the Papacy.

The Catholic hierarchy said it is a measure of one's love for the Lord and the Church - to feel pain and resent the attacks done like it was on a loving mother or father by assailants of ill intent. It is also measured by the response one gives to the threat to one's faith as it enjoined establishments (movie houses and bookstores?) linked to the propagation of the theory not to be part of the problem. The faithful was rhetorically asked whether one should willfully endanger one's belief and seek confusion by patronizing either the book or the movie.

The Council of the Laity through president Beatriz Balatero, in a similar letter, expressed its displeasure and protested all activities related to the latest heresies. It enjoined the organizations for fasting and prayers and to hold studies, seminars and workshops to counter these insidious attacks.
Of course, the Church like the State, has every right, nay duty to defend itself whenever forces gather to undermine the very foundation of its edifice.

However, it is our humble opinion that, this spiritual warfare must be fought on two battlefields - one passive, the other active.

The passive one enjoins, the spiritually infant and less sturdy in their faith, just to simply avoid the book and the movie altogether so as not to allow insipid non-dogmas to confuse their fragile state of belief. Why indeed should one dive into a deep river inhabited by crocodiles if one can't even swim, in the first place?

The active one is to go full gear into spiritual battle by fighting lies with truth. As the great Mao Tse Tung said "Know thy enemy." So how indeed can one refute and fight the misleading theories of Brown, Beelzebub and Company (BBC) if one does not read the book or see the movie which stars Tom Hanks?

This set of Christian warriors, like the Crusaders of old, should be trained to fight sword with Excalibur in the fight for the public's mind and judgment. The Church cannot lose this fight by default by doing an "Ostrich Approach" to a problem.

You see, when an ostrich senses danger, it hides its entire head under the sand, a defeatist attitude, while exposing the less pretty part of its anatomy within the line of clear and present danger. Hiding away from the problem doe not make the problem go away. Quite on the contrary.

The Church should now develop a cadre of speakers, while the topic is still as hot as Ara Mina in heat, to spread the counter-gospel and go forth into the fields and valleys and speak to the people in the Name of the Risen Lord, who had been obviously vilified in this Dan Brown money-making episode.

It is for this reason that we had contacted Fr. Regino Cortes, famous Bible scholar who was once based in Rome and author of the equally thrilling counter to the Da Vinci Code called Da Vinci Code: Exigetical Review which is by far, barring none, the most compelling argument against the fallacies propagating by BBC - (you know what the hell that means).

Fr. Cortes has made himself available for this month of May to spend a day in our city to refute line by line the arguments put forth by Dan Brown. This can perhaps be done in a university gym (with PowerPoint presentation) to be attended by both churchmen and lay persons with bullet points to refute Brown point by point, from the historical, novel and spiritual points of view.

Any sponsors for the project?