[Polycarp]

"No one wants to touch something in two dead languages. They think I'm insane, maybe I am," joked Gibson, who was born in New York but grew up in Australia.

The abolition of the Latin mass was one of the key reforms adopted in the 1960s by the Second Vatican ( news - web sites) Council, which sought to bring the liturgy closer to ordinary people.

But Gibson is very much of the old school, and a Latin service is still held at the private chapel of his California home.

He also had some sharp words for the modern-day Catholic Church, rocked this year by allegations of child abuse.

"It's very easy to be shaken these days faith-wise. All this kind of paedophilia stuff in the United States, it's hard to hang on to a foundation with this stuff going on," he told Reuters.