Opus Dei, portrayed as a powerful, ultraconservative Roman Catholic faction riddled with sadomasochistic ritual, one of whose members commits serial murder in pursuit of a threatening secret about the church in Dan Browns book, fervently object to their portrayal in his book.

Opus Dei’s rejects claims:

The Da Vinci Code claims that Opus Dei’s members are monks. There are no monks in Opus Dei.The Da Vinci Code describes Opus Dei as endorsing criminal behavior; Opus Dei condemns criminal activity they insist.
The Da Vinci Code calls Opus Dei a “cult” and a “sect.” In fact, Opus Dei is a fully integrated entity of the Catholic Church.
The Da Vinci Code claims that women cannot enter the front doors of the Opus Dei headquarters. Instead, they must use a side entrance. In fact Opus Dei claim, men and women use the front entrance of the headquarters building.

Among the more famous  ranks of the self flagellating member-include powerful public figures such as Mel Gibson and Toni Blair.

An article from the Independant that may be of use to any planning a trip to the area:

The Independent Online

Berenger Sauniere, the man whose life and mysterious activities sparked th Da Vinci Code mystery and inspired many books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the Da Vinci Code, seems to be causing problems even from beyond the grave.It seems Dan Brown has yet another author filing a plagiarism suit against him. This time, it’s an art historian who claims Dan swiped his hypothesis that Leonardo encoded theological ideas in the Mona Lisa. This historian has just released a new book- so the publicity certainly wont go a miss I’m guessing!

The ongoing saga of the Roberto Calvi murder continues, with the announcement this morning that a court in Rome has acquitted the five defendants in his murder trial. Calvi, an Italian banker involved with the Mafia, the pseudo-Masonic organisation P2, and the Vatican Bank, was found hanging from a bridge in London 25 years ago. Originally thought to be suicide, further investigation has led police to believe Calvi was murdered. Dubbed ‘God’s Banker’, there has been some suggestion that the death can be more closely linked to the Vatican than the Mafia.

Researcher Dan Green has experienced an unexpected setback in his quest to expose the truth about his alleged Lincoln Cathedral tomb and treasure. Green believes a tomb in the grounds of the Cathedral may contain treasure of the Knights Templar or even the bones of Mary Magdalene. In short, the previously scheduled scan of the ground beneath the tomb has curiously been cancelled by church authorities who claim they lack sufficient staff to oversee the work. Green informed Andrew Gough’s Arcadia that “Somebody somewhere behind the scenes has decided to exclude me from this Chess game, when there is so much going on at the moment. Why? Is it because I have got it right?”

David Livingstone, author of ‘the Dying God’ gives his opinion: Jacob Rothschild, the current head of the Rothschild dynasty, has intermarried with the Sinclair family, forging an important alliance between the head family of the Illuminati, and the supposed descendants of the Grail family. As has been popularized recently by Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code, or before him by the Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the Stuarts of Scotland are supposedly descended from King Arthur and Jesus Christ.

The Court of Appeal in London has ruled that Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, did not reproduce ideas from an earlier work in his best-selling novel. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that themes from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail were plagiarised by Brown, now face a legal bill of £3m.

In his blog on The Daily Grail, Dan Winter quotes Jean-Luc Robin who is about to publish an English-language book in co-operation with Henry Lincoln. The book will reveal that the Habsbourgs paid Saunière and why they did that. They traced his steps to