His Excellency has decided to ban all public screening of the now infamous movie Da Vinci Code due to the pressure applied by the Catholic Church.

One could hardly expect anything less from a president whose whole political philosophy seemed to be nothing more than simple populism, add to that the possible repercussions of not heeding to church pressure on an issue where there is no counter pressure from any other religious element.

It’s the Catholic Church who should be criticized for their unjust curtailment of freedom of expression not to mention the pure stupidity of not understanding the move would only be counter productive as this would result in otherwise unprovoked curiosity which could and probably will result in increased DVD sales of the movie which are already available as ‘camera-copies’. The church should have learned that from the whole ‘Hollywood Buddha’ protests that the Buddhist elements once organized some years ago even after film-maker removed the controversial poster and apologized.

On a more personal note, I, myself being a practicing catholic don’t think anything depicted in the movie (or the book) will change my prospective on the religion I was brought up on. The fact that Jesus could have been married and had children with Mary Magdalene is irrelevant to the philosophy of Christianity I believe in.

The Da Vinci Code is just a good story, many of the so called ‘facts’ in the book have been since proven to be inaccurate. However the best way the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka or elsewhere should have handled this issue is to have not handled it at all.