My Ph.D. is in "Blasphemy Studies"

Reuters colors the news with the descriptive word "broadside":

In the latest Vatican broadside against "The Da Vinci Code", a leading cardinal says Christians should respond to the book and film with legal action because both offend Christ and the Church he founded.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was considered a candidate for pope last year, made his strong comments in a documentary called "The Da Vinci Code-A Masterful Deception."

Arinze's appeal came some 10 days after another Vatican cardinal called for a boycott of the film. Both cardinals asserted that other religions would never stand for offences against their beliefs and that Christians should get tough.

"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs.

"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others," Arinze said.

In researching Cardinal Arinze's reference to the Danish cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammad, I went to sources like this compilation of cartoons which blasphemy him.

The worst of the cartoons, three in number, were faked and never published in a Danish newspaper. The details and images are in the Wikipedia.

Which led me to a news blog, The Brussels Journal
quoting Godfried Cardinal Danneels, "We should be able to laugh at ourselves from time to time so that we do not take ourselves too seriously." -- in reference to this cartoon.

It is blasphemous. But like the Mohammad cartoons, a society with press and religious freedom cannot criminalize the authors and publishers.

As a matter of prudence, you ought to be consistent. Cardinal Danneels condemned the Mohammad cartoons but gave the "Yawning Christ" a pass.

The problem with The Da Vinci Code is not blasphemy as much as it is the corruption of truth. More on this later.