HYPERVENTILATING about The Da Vinci Code, the Catholic Church has produced — guess what? — a rebuttal documentary. Forget the meek, the turning of the cheek: they’re fighting celluloid with celluloid, brother. The Vatican has already called on Christians to boycott the film when it airs this month — only to find that advance tickets have almost sold out in Catholic Italy, Spain and Mexico. Yes, we’re all susceptible to superstition. How do you think religion got its first break?

Now Cardinal Francis Arinze, one of last year’s candidates for Pope, has got in on the act by ordering the faithful to take unspecified legal action. His statement that “it is one of the fundamental human rights that we should be respected” is about as inaccurate and self-serving as the book. How will he litigate, exactly? Using the Fibonacci sequence?

You know what, chaps? It’s just a story. A thriller. Opus Dei’s furious demands for disclaimers will only make credulous minds suspect they really do have something to hide. Why be so touchy?

There is less to The Da Vinci Code than meets the eye. Yes, Dan Brown attacks the canon. He suggests that the New Testament is a PR job by patriarchal white men, designed to suppress the “truth” that Jesus sired a child by Mary Magdalene. Yes, he suggests that agents of the Catholic Church have been angling to stamp out their descendants for centuries. But I don’t see any feminists rushing to the new cause, despite the 40 million copies sold. We know the Catholic Church is anti-women. We also know the difference between history and entertainment.

It’s time for the Cardinals to show a bit of humility. Faith cannot be worth much if it cannot withstand two Bond-style baddies — a sado-masochist albino and the camp Sir Leigh Teabing, whose name is an anagram of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the book recently rejuvenated by the plagiarism case.

Perhaps the truth is staring us in the face. It’s a conspiracy. Dan Brown, the Vatican, Sir Leigh Teabing — they must all be in league to gain them- selves the oxygen of publicity. Jewish groups unwittingly helped turn Mel Gibson’s The Passion into a box-office hit. Let’s hope the Vatican is shrewd enough to take a cut in exchange for all this heroic free advertising.