Tom Hanks & Ron Howard Not Welcome In Rome Churches 6/16/08

Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard have been forbidden from filming in two Roman churches by religious leaders.

The pair is making the prequel to controversial film The Da Vinci Code in the Italian city and asked permission to shoot in two churches considered vital to the storyline in Dan Brown's book Angels & Demons. But Rome's diocese has told producers they'll have to film elsewhere, due to the controversial nature of the plot.

A spokesman for the diocese says, "It's a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment. "We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views."

The film deals with suggestions that Jesus was a married father when he died. Dan Brown's books about the mysterious Opus Dei, a secret society which protects the bloodline of Jesus, and Howard and Hanks' 2006 The Da Vinci Code film have upset Catholic leaders throughout the world.

But despite the ban, director Howard will be allowed to film exteriors of the churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria.