Fighting for God; Europe's dwindling Christians take on 'The Da Vinci Code,' and more.(Cover Story)

Byline: Carla Power (With Edward Pentin and Jacopo Barigazzi in Italy and Tracy McNicoll in Paris)

It's only an airport thriller. But the best-selling "The Da Vinci Code" has so irritated leading members of the Roman Catholic Church that one prominent prelate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa, last week mounted a public offensive debunking its "lies." Chief among them: that Jesus fathered a daughter with Mary Magdalene. "What would the reaction be," the potential pontiff told the daily Il Giornale, "if a novel came out manipulating the whole story of the Holocaust?"

Recent times have been rough for Europe's Christians. The European Union's new Constitution mentions neither God nor Christianity, despite church lobbying. The European Parliament rejected Rocco Buttiglione, Italy's nominee for Justice commissioner, after he declared homosexuality to be a sin. Britain's new Education minister, Ruth Kelly, recently came under fire after admitting that she took "spiritual guidance" from the conservative Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.

For many Christians, Buttiglione included, European secularism has ossified into an ideology--one that increasingly excludes them. "There is a kind of new orthodoxy: there is only one truth, and this truth is that there is no truth," he told NEWSWEEK in January. Faced with empty churches and full mosques, feeling ever more isolated in an a-Christian culture, they are working to resurrect the sacred. Earlier this month a British Catholic bishop broke with nearly 40 years of tradition of keeping abortion out of politics by saying it should be an issue in the upcoming election. Many look with admiration to George W. Bush's America and its ascendant religiosity. Last summer 10,000 Christians rallied in Stuttgart for a return of religion to public life. This winter the Vatican waged a successful campaign to have ...