?How could the Church convey such a lie, which has made and is still making fools out of billions of Christians ?? I mumbled when I went through the pages of Dan Brown?s Da Vinci Code.

So troubled was I, that when I turned the last page of the book, I felt myself falling into a deep torpor, rapidly drawn into a tunnel to a strange yet so comforting world! Loads of people glowing with the warmth of love.

A blind man detached himself from the crowd to welcome me. ?Hello my name is Louis. I can see you are blinded by the illusive light the book seems to have shed upon the divinity of Christ questioning the very foundation of your Christian faith. I can understand your feelings because faith is vital to each and every human being.?

While Louis was talking, he was joined by another man, Michel, who added that I should not let myself be overcome by doubts though I was living in a world, which often aims at destroying what it considers as constraining freedom-threatening values. Its message being: ?Life is short and you must do what you want to do at all costs.Religions which in general purport to be vectors of such values are the favourite target of destabilizing, dehumanizing forces. While Dan Brown sows the seeds of doubts in the heart of credulous Christians, some media draw an unjustified line between terrorism and Islam. Its not because a minority of terrorists kill in the name of Islam that all Muslims are terrorists.?

While my two new friends were talking, I felt very relieved. Where my senses were drowned in the intricacies of the Da Vinci code, the wisdom of these two men made me see and hear again and it was far from being a coincidence. When I came back to my senses, I found out that my saviours were Louis Braille and Abbe Charles Michel De L?Epée. The former, a devout Christian who even played the organ in a Paris church, was to be the eyes of the blind through the embossed coded language he developed in his endeavour to contribute to their welfare.

As for Michel, he was a Catholic priest who contributed significantly to developing a sign language for the deaf and dumb. He once came across two little girls affected by the handicap and felt so sorry for them that he vowed to change their lives. He became the ears and mouths of millions of deaf and dumb people and his legacy simply can?t be evaluated.

Likewise, millions of believers in the ?fable? of Christ have sowed the invaluable seeds of cooperation in this world. Mother Teresa founder of Les Soeurs de la charité, Rene Descartes father of modern philosophy, Father Jacques Désiré Laval apostle of Mauritian abandoned slaves and multicultural unity are but a few examples.

The truth of the pudding is in the eating - the Bible, fable or not, has made and is still making of this world a better place.

<B>Alain JEANNOT</B>