For those who haven't read Dan Brown's runaway thriller The Da Vinci Code, they will be unfamiliar with the fictional albino assassin Silas.

In the pages of the bestselling book, the character is painted as a fanatical, murderous member of the ultraconservative religious group Opus Dei, who lashes himself with an Inquisition-issue whip.

The novel contends that Opus Dei and the church are responsible for covering up the fact that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and sired a bloodline.

The movie, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard, is being released by Sony Pictures division Columbia Pictures and premieres in May at the Cannes film festival in France.

Author Dan Brown's website contends the book's depiction of the Opus Dei, which is portrayed as a homicidal sect fixated on power and self-mutilation, is "based on numerous books written about Opus Dei as well as on my own personal interviews."

But Opus Dei, which is breaking the organization's historical silence to parry negative accusations, says the depiction is inaccurate.

National Catholic Reporter Vatican correspondent John Allen, who has written what is widely considered the definitive book on the group, said virtually none of the information in Brown's book is accurate.

"There really is an Opus Dei, it does have headquarters in New York. Beyond that, most of The Da Vinci Code is a radical exaggeration to the point of being unrecognizable or complete fiction," Allen told CTV.ca.

"There are two Opus Deis. The Opus Dei of myth -- the vast-all powerful outfit -- and then there is Opus Dei of reality, which is the much more modest thing I described."

Fighting fiction with fact

The Opus Dei headquarters in Montreal has launched a publicity campaign to respond to the unprecedented public interest sparked by the book and coming film.

Where the Montreal office may have received two or three requests for information daily some five years ago, today there are easily 15 such calls, with many more expected as the film approaches.

Indeed, at least a dozen press officers in Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver are fielding calls and emails from across the country.

"Opus Dei, through a series of hard knocks in the court of popular opinion, has learned a very fundamental lesson, which is the more you try to avoid attention, the more of it you get," Allen said.

"I think it took them a long time and a lot of black eyes in terms of PR to get the point but I think they finally learned that the only way to counteract impression of secretiveness and nefarious dealings is to open themselves up and be as transparent as they can," he said.

Opus Dei leaders are also working with American and British TV networks on independent documentaries about the organization to be broadcast around the time of the movie's release.

Also, timed to be released just 10 days before the movie opens, the group has struck a deal with Doubleday, the publisher of the novel, to release a collection of spiritual thought by Opus Dei founder Josemaria Escrivá.

The objective of the publicity campaign is to enlighten the public and counter suggestions the group is secretive, cult-like and bent on concealing the truth about Jesus.

"It's an institution of the Catholic church, open to everybody, with the mission to help people to integrate their faith in their day-to-day life," Monique David, director Opus Dei's Council of Women in Canada told CTV.ca.

But the Opus Dei is hesitant to call for a boycott of the Sony Pictures film, as they are mindful that criticism of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" helped popularize that movie.

Still, the public relations strategy hasn't quite managed to narrow the gap between how critics define Opus Dei and how the group describes itself.

A recent issue of Harper's magazine described Opus Dei, "to a great extent ... an authoritarian and semi-clandestine enterprise that manages to infiltrate its indoctrinated technocrats, politicos and administrators into the highest levels of the state."

But Allen, who was granted unprecedented access to the organization, dismissed such descriptions.

"If you go by Opus Dei's public profile, you would think it is this vast all-encompassing force that has virtually unlimited financial resources and extensive political power. And when you actually put it under a microscope, what is striking is how relatively unimpressive it is," he said.

David also rejected suggestions the group is secretive.

"All the information that you want to get and more is on the website," David said.

"There is a press office where you can have all the information that you want -- we are more than open and thrilled to answer questions," she said.

David believes the group may have earned its reputation because there are only 600 members in Canada, she said. "It's not that we are secretive, we are few."

Controversy

Opus Dei, Latin for the "work of God" was dogged by controversy almost from birth.

The group was founded in Spain in 1928 by Catholic priest Josemaría Escrivá, who taught that pious laypeople who strived for a kind of spiritual perfectionism could find holiness in their everyday lives.

It received final approval from the Vatican in 1950 although it remained under the radar of most Catholics until 1982 when Pope John Paul II granted Escrivá's wish that Opus be a "personal prelature," which meant it could deal directly with Rome.

The perception that the Opus' power knew no limits peaked with Escrivá's 1992 beatification, a relatively quick 17 years after his death.

While the book suggests Opus Dei's founder was on the fast track to being named a saint, Opus Dei says in a written statement on its website that Escrivá was one of the first to be processed "after the Church streamlined the procedures for canonization, and so it moved more quickly than was typical before."

Today, the Opus Dei comprises a small, committed membership 85,500 in more than 60 countries, about one-third of which are in Spain.

There are priests in Opus Dei, but they are only 2 per cent of the total membership. Some 70 per cent of the membership, called supernumeraries, live at home with their spouses and children. The rest, which are called numeraries, live celibate lives in separate men's and women's Opus Dei residences, but hold day jobs, with most of the pay going to the group.

In a document on the Opus Dei website, the organization seeks to inform the public that numeraries do not "take vows, wear robes, sleep on straw mats, spend all their time in prayer and corporal mortification, or in any other way live like The Da Vinci Code's depiction of its monk character. In contrast to those called to the monastic life, numeraries have regular secular professional work."

Outsiders have also accused the faction of hoarding endless riches and using its political clout to meddle in governments from Warsaw to Peru.

Some have even claimed that membership in Poland is a political stepping-stone.

In Washington, rumours among conspiracy theorists have also swirled about possible high-profile Opus members, including U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Opus Dei has historically been resistant to revealing the names of members, leaving that decision to individuals.

Adding to the intrigue is the rumour that the group is hiding untold wealth that funded the Solidarity trade union and helped bail out the Vatican bank after the 1982 scandal, a claim which the Opus Dei denies.

On the basis of their study of IRS filings, Allen found $344.4 million US in Opus assets in the U.S. and roughly estimated a global total of $2.8 billion. Still, these figures are only a piece of the pie.

The group boasts several properties donated by wealthy supporters, which are valued at several million dollars that would not show up on such balance sheets.

'Corporal mortification'

Critics have especially seized on the practice of "corporal mortification."

But Opus defends the practice, saying in a written statement that "The Da Vinci Code makes it appear that Opus Dei members practice bloody mortifications. In fact, though history indicates that some Catholic saints have done so, Opus Dei members do not do this."

Numeraries are expected, but not compelled, to wear a small barbed chain around their upper thigh called a "cilice" for a couple of hours every day but Sunday.

Numeraries also engage in a second type of corporal mortification, which involves flailing themselves weekly with a small rope whip called a discipline, for as long as it takes to say the Lord 's Prayer.

The organization also seeks to emphasize that members make limited use of the cilice and discipline.

"The Da Vinci Code's description of the cilice and discipline is greatly exaggerated and distorted: it is simply not possible to injure oneself with them as the book and film depict," the statement said.

But a description of Escrivá's routine by his eventual successor, which has been quoted in a biography on the Opus Dei founder has not helped to downplay speculation.

"I began to hear the forceful blows of his discipline ... there were more than a thousand terrible blows, precisely timed. The floor was covered in blood," the description said.

Stories from former numeraries to journalists that liken the group to a cult have also helped to cement allegations of mind control.

Ex-members have charged that Opus engages in deceptive recruiting, with prospective members unaware they are invited to Opus Dei events, only later realizing that they are expected to limit relations with their families.

But Opus says that those who leave are a minority and that members surely know what to expect after they undergo an 18-month preparatory process. The group also insisted that it has implemented specific safeguards to ensure that decisions to join are free and informed.

"For example, nobody can make a permanent membership commitment in Opus Dei without first having completed more than 6 years of systematic and comprehensive instruction as to what membership entails. Additionally, no one can make a temporary commitment before age 18, nor a commitment to permanent membership before age 23," Opus Dei said in a statement.

Allen conducted more than 300 hours of interviews with both current members and former ones.

"I never got the vibe that someone was playing a script ... so at the end of the day what I concluded was that in most cases what is happening, people are describe roughly the same experiences but from two different points of view," he said.

He said former members who have complained about the faction have, for the most part, been numeraries.

"The bar is set very high, it's a very demanding life - very structured, very little privacy, very regimented. For a certain kind of person all that is terrific, liberating, gives life meaning," Allen said.

"For another kind of person, trying their best to do it at the end of the day comes off as dehumanizing, controlling, and invasive," Allen said.

Allen said he never got the sense that any Opus Dei members were coerced into being there.

"But on the other hand I also completely understand there are a lot of people who thought this is what God wanted of them, and tried very hard over the course of many years to live up to expectations and just kind of ground down by it and didn't get kind of support and sympathy they felt should have gotten," he said.

Despite the criticism levelled at Opus Dei, the publicity generated by the film could actually inspire others to join the group.

"Quite often when a secular outfit goes after a religious group, a certain kind of person is going to think there is something good about this group. In that sense, I've always said The Da Vinci Code is a mixed bag -- on one hand it is an unflattering presentation, which no doubt scared some people away," Allen said.

"On the other hand, it has allowed Opus Dei to introduce itself to the world in a way it could never have afforded on its own."

Canada AM will be on location in Paris and London on May 18 and 19 for Decoding Da Vinci.