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No shame on the writer of the article?

If memory serves only a few days ago Vatican sources confirmed that the Pope had NOT said about this film what Gibson and his people claim. On that point, Frank Rich has been vindicated.

Heck, Frank Rich should be ashamed of his criticism of the film without seeing it. Of course shame was being discussed in the context of other posters now deceased statements (which I excerpted earlier) such as

Why do Jews try to kill the Truth? What do they want to gain?

I've rather sympathized with Jews so far. This time my viewpoints have changed completely. I am a Christian and I'm not going to sit and watch Christ being savaged by the group of hateful Jews.

Jews! Leave Christ and Christians alone!!!

You know, those nasty Jews always persecuting Christians, that conclusion flowing from this article. There's plenty of shame to go around.

"If memory serves only a few days ago Vatican sources confirmed that the Pope had NOT said about this film what Gibson and his people claim."

I think we need to parse the Vatican's statement using the Clinton algorithm.

The version I read said that the Holy Father had made no such "declaration."

If one makes a distinction between a Papal declaration and a spontaneous and informal private remark, as I suspect (with about 90% confidence) that they are doing, then they haven't said that "He didn't say it," they've only said that he made no such "declaration."

I think he said it, and that the Vatican is using this deceptive and hair-splitting syntax to *appear to deny* without actually lying, because they don't want to be placed in the position of touting a movie.

I think they're afraid of commercials with a picture of the Holy Father lifting the chalice and a caption, "The Pope says, 'Mel Gibson's new film? I'll drink to that.' "

Of course, Mr. Gibson would never allow such a thing, but I get the impression that most of the people at the Vatican are 99% bureaucrat and at best 1% priest, and you know what bureaucrats are like.

Which brings me to my final point: you wrote, "...Gibson and his people claim."

I've seen people who don't work for him writing about it, but nothing from him or his people. Have you?