Read more about Silas (The Da Vinci Code) at: Wikipedia Official Site: Sony Pictures This is a list of fictional characters from Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on it. Bishop Manuel Aringarosa is a fictional Spanish bishop, portrayed in the film by Alfred Molina. Bishop Aringarosa is the worldwide head of Opus Dei and the patron of the albino monk Silas. Five months before the start of the narrative, he is summoned by the Vatican to a meeting at an astronomical observatory in the Italian Apennines and told, to his great surprise, that in six months the Pope will withdraw his support of Opus Dei. As he believes that Opus Dei is the pulse keeping the Church from disintegrating into what he sees as the corruption of the modern era, he believes his faith demands that he take action to save Opus Dei. Shortly after the meeting with the Vatican officials, he is contacted by a shadowy figure calling himself "The Teacher", who has learned somehow of the secret meeting. The Teacher informs him that he can deliver an artifact to Aringarosa so valuable to the Church that it will give Opus Dei extreme leverage over the Vatican. The artifact is in fact a keystone which provides clues that lead to the legendary Holy Grail. Although the Teacher doesn't provide him with any contact information, Aringarosa is extremely intrigued about this and willingly agrees to co-operate. The Teacher requests that for a short period that Aringarosa and Silas cannot communicate, while Silas does his bidding. Unbeknownst to Aringarosa, the Teacher instructs Silas to kill the four top members of the Priory of Sion, a secret organization pledged to protect the secret of the Grail. On the same night Silas kills Priory leader Jacques Saunière, Aringarosa goes to Castel Gandolfo to retrieve bearer bonds worth twenty million euros from the Vatican, as instructed by the Teacher. While leaving, Aringarosa is suddenly afraid that the Teacher would suspect him of running away with the money, as he couldn't be contacted in the hills with no phone signal. Unable to contact the Teacher, he calls the Opus Dei headquarters to ask if he had any messages. To Aringarosa's surprise, the sole message was not by the Teacher, but by French police captain Bezu Fache. Fache tells Aringarosa that that his fellow nun Sister Sandrine Bieil has been murdered and asks him for information. Aringarosa realizes that Silas had killed Sandrine and that the Teacher had deceived him. He tells everything to Fache, and Fache also realizes that he had wrongly accused Robert Langdon for killing Saunière. |