Kerre Woodham: Attack boosts sales

I bet Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone wishes he had a nice, robust piece of hate legislation with which he could tie Dan Brown in knots. Dan Brown is, of course, the bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code, and it's this novel that's giving the cardinal conniptions.

If you're one of the millions of people who've read the book, you'll know The Da Vinci Code revolves around the premise that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child, and their descendants are alive today.

The Catholic Church is cast as the baddie in the novel, with a fabulous cameo from a self-flagellating member of Opus Dei.

The cardinal has branded the bestseller a sackful of lies, and has told the owners of Catholic bookstores to take the book off the shelves. He's also urged good Catholics not to read it, as he says the book sows doubts and dangerous confusion among the faithful. The cardinal sees the book as the latest in a series of devastating attacks on Christianity and suggests that similar attacks on other religions would not be tolerated.

While you can understand the cardinal's anger at the church being misrepresented, surely his outburst is only going to prompt more sales, human nature being what it is.

And let's face it, if a poorly produced paperback can sow seeds of doubt, then the faithful can hardly have been all that jolly faithful, can they?

And by speaking out against the book, he gives what is really a very average novel, albeit one with a sensational plot, far more attention than it deserves.

Am I the only person in the world who thought Brown's novel was a clunker?

Sure, it ripped along but the characterisation was absolutely hopeless, and the structure of the novel was incredibly flimsy.

Still, Brown's laughing all the way to the bank, and it has "made for Hollywood" all over it, so he's not going to give a fat rat's bum what I think.

Nor, indeed, will he care what Cardinal Bertone says. In fact, I suspect he will be flattered.

He'll join a long and illustrious list of writers whose works have been banned by the Catholic Church. John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, the Dumas, pere et fils, Dan Brown ... hmmm, one of these things is not like the other.

And that's the thing about prohibition. It makes that which is forbidden seem all the more exciting and generally inflates it to far greater importance than it really deserves.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who read Lady Chatterley's Lover in the 60s under cover of darkness, full of delicious trepidation and anticipation, only to be left massively underwhelmed.

I suspect anyone who reads any works from David Irving would be left feeling much the same way - Irving being the Holocaust denier who was prevented from visiting New Zealand last year.

There is sufficient legislation in place already to protect those who genuinely fear harm as a result of hate speech.

Introducing more would impel us further down the path of children running crying to Nanny State whenever our desires are thwarted or we feel our rights have been impinged upon.

Openness, robust debate, contestation, and counter-argument - these are the best ways to counter ignorance and lies. Prohibition will not work, and never has worked, as a way of moderating human behaviour.