The book, written by Dan Brown, postulates that the Catholic Church went to great lengths to conceal the fact that Jesus Christ married former prostitute Mary Magdalene, who bore him a daughter.
Lamenting that even 'Catholic bookstores' stocked the bestseller, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that "we are clearly facing a formidable distribution strategy here. The book is everywhere. There is a very real risk that people who read it will believe the fables it contains are true."
Bertone, the Archbishop of Genoa, Italy, is among those seen as a likely successor to the ailing Pope John Paul II.
Bertone will initiate a series of public debates in Genoa to attack the book and its conspiracy theories, which he believes are eroding the Catholic faith.
In Brown's book, a Harvard professor is pitted against the Opus Dei, a patriacrchal Catholic outfit which goes to great lengths, including murder, to suppress the fact that the Holy Grail was not a chalice, but the body of Mary Magdelene, and that Jesus wanted her to succeed him as the head of his church.
Magdalene, who was pregnant at the time of Jesus' Crucifixion, fled to Gaul where she had a daughter, who was named Sarah, says Brown's bestseller.
"He even perverts the story of the Holy Grail, which most certainly does not refer to the descendants of Mary Magadalene," fumes Cardinal Bertone. "It astonishes and worries me that so many people believe these lies."
