ZANUTTO SEEKS MABEN'S POST.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- ``The Da Vinci Code'' opened in Lancaster to pickets carrying signs reading ``I Love Our Lord Jesus Christ -- I Reject `The Da Vinci Code.'''

Led by members of Queen of Angels Church in Newhall, Friday night's protest on the sidewalk outside the Cinemark 22 theater drew some 100 people, who prayed as they walked along behind altar boys carrying a crucifix and candles.

``It's very blasphemous against our Lord Jesus. Also it's untrue,'' said Queen of Angels parishioner Karen Weilbacher of Leona Valley.

Marchers objected to the story's plot in which members of the Catholic Church commit murder to maintain a 2,000-year-old cover-up -- that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants are alive today.

Weilbacher, who organized the protest, said she had not seen the movie, but had read part of Dan Brown's blockbuster thriller on which it was based.

``I started to read the book. I got so disgusted and threw it down,'' she said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) Above, The Rev. Vito Canzoneri of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church joins a protest led by members of the Queen of Angels Church members Friday night at Cinemark 22 in Lancaster against ``The Da Vinci Code.'' Below, Sister Mary Bridget of Queen of Angels Church, center, holds a sign in protest of the film. At bottom, protesters picket outside the theater.

(4 -- ran in SAC edition only) Members of the Queen of Angels Church in Newhall and others picket and recite the rosary on the sidewalk near the Cinemark 22 theater in Lancaster in protest of ``The Da Vinci Code.''

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer