Posted on 09/28/2006 11:06:47 AM PDT by Sabramerican
Mel Gibson By Mark Judge
So now Mel Gibson is trashing the war effort. As reported on the Today show, New York Times and everywhere, he has called the death of American troops in Iraq “human sacrafice.”
I have no idea how many folks politicalmavens.com reaches, so this could be a cry in the wilderness, but: folks, this is not a story. There is a certain segment of the conservative Catholic right that is strongly anti-war. Check out the magazine New Oxford Review (linked at the bottom). Like Mel, the NOR has been accused of anti-Semitism. They are more hysterical about neocons than Cindy Sheehan.
So we can sit back and watch the media contort themselves: Michael Moore and George Clooney will open arms to the “new” anti-war Mel, conservatives like Michael Medved, on tv this morning, will scratch their heads and accuse Mel of trying to get in good with the Left after his DUI. And not a single solitary reporter will actually crack a book, open a google, or call a priest to ask a question that could have been asked years and years ago: what kind of a Catholic is Mel Gibson?
I didn’t ask it either. Indeed, it’s time for all the conservatives - like me - to admit a few things. Gibson is an anti-Semite. We were sloppy in reporting about the true nature of his Catholicism. So gleeful that a hero had arrived to stick it to the secular Left, we elevated Gibson to saint and martyr, forgoing simply research in favor of hosannas in the highest. The truth was never that hard to figure out, if only we had asked the right questions.
A couple months before the release of The Passion of the Christ, National Review’s Richard Brookheiser asked a question on their website: Is Mel Gibson a sedevacontist? A sedevacontist is a schismatic branch of Catholicism that believes that Vatican II, the Church council of the early 1960s that modernized Catholicism, was not valid, and that every pope since the council is not valid. Brookheiser noted that, even with all the noise surrounding the Passion, no reporter got an answer - or even asked. We saw the only-Latin church Gibson was building in California. We heard about his family. He gave two hour-long interviews on EWTN, the huge global Catholic television network, and was not one time asked about his form of Catholicism. Is Mel Gibson a sedevacontist? The world may never know. Including me. Both in print and in public I defended Gibson, and I was careless. I thought Frank Rich at the New York Times - who wrote three long pieces about the Passion - and the rest of the liberal media for that matter, had a pathological anti-Christian obsession. That may have been, and may be, true. They also may have been wrong about the Passion. I still don’t think it is an anti-Semitic film. After all, both the heroes and villains are Jewish.
It’s funny: Rich et al simply had to drop their hysterical anti-conservatism and the open sore would have been revealed: Mel Gibson is not a good Catholic. In fact, he’s not even a conservative Catholic, but an ultra-Right Catholic. Thus his anti-Semitism and his anti-war stance would make perfect sense.
I’m not a well known journalist, and my articles, books and essays don’t reach many people. But in my small way I helped erect the golden calf to Mel. I was lazy reporting about him. As a Catholic journalist I read various Catholic publication, from the liberal Commonweal to the neoconservative First Things to the ultra-Right New Oxford Review. Gibson, an ultra-Right Catholic, has some company that would not have been hard to find had a journalist or Catholic with honesty - including me - had simply done some research. The New Oxford Review is virulently anti-neocon, and recent its editor Dale Vree panned a long piece called “Who are the Neocons?” Answer: former Jewish radicals who have infiltrated the White House.
Does Gibson agree with this? And once and for all, is he a sedevaciontist? Don’t expect an answer anytime soon.
If you go the movie's web site, you won't see any place where you can let Disney know that you're not gonna see this movie.
If you go to Disney's corporate site, ditto.
Disney movies, part of the "no go" network.....
What the heck is a sedevaciontist??? I looked it up on the web. Not a hit.
So I would not expect an answer anytime soon as well.
How about this. Mel is an idiot, regardless of his faith.
Wasn't his kooky brand of Catholicism pretty widely reported. I recall seeing it written about in various places when the movie came out. Mostly through interviews with his father.
It's too bad about Mel--he's not an idiot, but it seems he's been steeped in hatred for too long. I wish he would develop part of his brain and see that it's not the Jews causing problems in the world but radical Islamists. Pat Buchanan, also another man who is not an idiot, suffers from this same malady.
should be "sedevacantist"...
Author misspelled the word(s).
sede-vacantist
Mel's been an apostate for some time now. Not long before "The Passion" was released, he indicated that he "had no use" for the Church magisterium...
It wasn't spelled correctly
It should have been spelled Sedevacanists, who denounce the post-Vatican II popes as heretics and believe that there has not been a Pope since. I believe Mel's father is a member of this sect.
"Vatican II corrupted the institution of the church. Look at the main fruits: dwindling numbers and pedophilia." — Time, January 27, 2003
I am a Conservative Catholic and had a lot of misgivings about Mr. Gibson. In the movie "Signs" his character was supposedly a Priest as one of the other characters mentioned going to him for confession. He was a married man though, so that confused me.
Mel Gibson is one of those people I hesitate to criticize because those who seem to be unraveling, often are. If he goes totally berserk and drives off a mountain or something, I'd be eating my words.
Therefore anything I have to say about Mel will be minimal and said over at Caskets on Parade (my favorite dead pool).
Thanks for the answer!
He was a Reverend, not a Priest.
Oh..I had thought he was supposed to have been a priest. A few of the other actors in the movie (other than his children) addressed him as "Father".
Not important though, but thanks.
It's is obvious what kind of Catholic Mel is: a heretical one who does not recognize the authority of the Pope or any of the reforms from Vatican II, and believes that the Jews killed Jesus and are cursed by it. This is the kind of guy who would have had no problem with a pope's kidnaping a Jewish child. Mel is a bad guy and he can join George Clooney is a special circle of hell - the one for people who hate America.
I think the character was an Episcopal priest. Remember, Mel has said that he does not know if his Episcopalian wife can get into Heaven!
Mel is no idiot. And the Iraq War never should have been launched.
Vatican II was heretical, contraverting the Christian theology of the previous 1900 years plus.
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