If in doubt, check it out

I have to admit that Anita Kilbride-Jones's letter (January 6) has taken me somewhat by surprise. While I'm not a fan of Dan Brown in particular, I felt almost offended. I do consider myself a practising Catholic and I don't like people calling me a sinner for reading a book, be it Fr Benedict Groeschel or anybody under the sun. If that is so, then I must be an irretrievable sinner because I also possess a copy of the Koran and copies of Dumas and Hugo, both of which featured prominently on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (thankfully suppressed in 1966).

Mr Brown's fault is that he is a good storyteller. His stories are so gripping that one may tend to accept his badly researched facts as truths. Most readers must be aware by now of the existence of another 1983 book - Holy Blood, Holy Grail - which has been blindly quoted and, possibly plagiarised (as claimed by the author of the latter book), in The Da Vinci Code. Another example is Angels & Demons which is full of inaccuracies and appalling Italian! It definitely shows that Mr Brown is very good at writing novels but not history books.

The whole point is that I would like to encourage Ms Kilbride-Jones and other readers to start sifting and evaluating what one hears and reads, be it EWTN or The Da Vinci Code. I feel that statements such as Fr Groeschel's are equally dangerous. People tend to commit a fallacy (ad verecundiam) whereby, given the latter's eminence and authority, all his statements are taken as facts. In this day and age, when we are continuously bombarded by information from all sides, one has to learn to sift before assimilating any of it.

If in doubt, one should seek to get more information. This is where I agree with Ms Kilbride-Jones where she recommends reading other books on the subject. Through such a practice, one's faith can actually mature from simply that handed over by one's parents or teachers to one's very own.