DEL RIO, Texas The recent release of the film version of Dan Browns best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, has sparked protests among Christians in Texas, Alabama, and New York. Thousands of Christians rampaged Sunday in Texas and Alabama, setting fire to the Danish Pastry Emporium, burning French flags, and lobbing stones at movie goers from a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests over caricatures of the story of the life of Jesus spread.

Christian spokesman Oral Roberts made a forceful statement protesting the violence. "It is a critical situation and it is very serious," he said on radio. "Enough is enough, and our people should get more involved. Claiming Jesus was married is bad enough; next thing you know, some author will claim that Jesus was a Jew!"

The Danish Pastry Emporium urged pastry lovers to leave riot areas as soon as possible, while plans were made to pull their popular Easter Bunny and Sunday Celebration pastries. Catholic protesters would not take to the streets on Sunday. Instead, they started their violent protests on Saturday. Bishop Willie Dewitt addresses a mixed crowd of Catholics, Protestants, and atheistic protestors.

The Catholic Church finds the books and movie by Dan Brown highly offensive and demeaning, Dewitt said. It is a terrible day when people are allowed to cast such aspersions on the one true religion. As police subdued the majority of the crowd, Dewitt claimed that the church has two thousand years of unblemished godliness. That is, if you except the Inquisition, witch hunts, heretic burnings, Crusades, pedophile priests, decimation of the West Indies, refusal to decry Hitler, antagonism towards democracy, and a few other minor incidents.

Da Vinci Code director Ron Howard said: "Now it has become more than a case about the film: Now there are forces that want a confrontation between our cultures," Howard said, referring to Hollywood and church groups. "It is in no one's interest, neither them or us. Heck, the churches have made a fortune on religious stories, so now its our turn."

Syria blamed Denmark for the protests, criticizing the Scandinavian nation for refusing to apologize for the popularity of the movie in Europe.

"It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Christians," a spokesman for Fox News said.

After anger had broken out across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September, Hollywood decided to capitalize on the outrage that would follow the release of a film that would upset most of Christianity.

The book and film have touched a raw nerve in part because one of the ten commandments forbids any depictions of Jesus, his private life, and the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

"Insulting the church and Jesus is unacceptable, resentful, and a sign of barbarism," Opus Dei's Foreign Ministry spokesman Isaac OMalley said, adding that the church planned to take further action. Well be asking serious questions, OMalley said. Were putting the quiz back into inquisition.

In Memphis, some 42 protesters came by the busloads to rally outside the Super-Dooper Cinema and Package Goods, where they chanted, "There is no god but God, and Jesus is the messenger of God, and Jesus didnt date!" Some 2,000 troops and riot police were deployed.

Some 1,000 people tried to march to the offices of the ACLU and other aid groups in New York. Police tossed bread and wine coolers into the crowd to disperse them, officials said. Nobody was hurt.

"The violence now, particularly the burning of pastry shops abroad, is absolutely outrageous and totally unjustified, and what we want to see is this matter being calmed down," Iranian Foreign Secretary Mohammed Abdul Mohammed-Swartz said in Tehran, adding that the media must exercise its free speech privilege responsibly, or die.

Robert Sprackland reporting as PETER PAUL ENMARRIE, NEWSWEAK REPORTER