The Pope's Thumbs Up for Gibson's 'Passion' (Liberal Jewish writer accuses Mel of using the Pope)

Pope John Paul II, frail with Parkinson's at age 83, is rarely able to celebrate mass. In recent weeks, such annual holiday ceremonies as the ordination of bishops and the baptism of children in the Sistine Chapel were dropped from his schedule. But why should his suffering deter a Hollywood producer from roping him into a publicity campaign to sell a movie? In what is surely the most bizarre commercial endorsement since Eleanor Roosevelt did an ad for Good Luck Margarine in 1959, the ailing pontiff has been recruited, however unwittingly, to help hawk "The Passion of the Christ," as Mel Gibson's film about Jesus's final 12 hours is now titled. While Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed a margarine for charity, John Paul's free plug is being exploited by the Gibson camp to aid the movie star's effort to recoup the $25 million he personally sank into a biblical drama filmed in those crowd-pleasing tongues of Latin and Aramaic.

"Mel Gibson's `The Passion' gets a thumbs-up from the Pope," was the incongruously jolly image conjured up by a headline over Peggy Noonan's column for the Wall Street Journal Web site as she relayed the "happy news this Christmas season" on Dec. 17. Daily Variety, a day earlier, described John Paul as "a playwright and movie buff," lest anyone doubt that his credentials in movie reviewing were on a par with Roger Ebert's. Mr. Gibson's longtime producer, Steve McEveety, told Ms. Noonan that "The Passion" had been screened "at the pope's pad," after which John Paul declared of its account of the crucifixion, "It is as it was." That verdict was soon repeated by virtually every news outlet in the world, including The New York Times. In Ms. Noonan's view, the pope's blessing was likely to settle the controversy over a movie that Jewish and Christian critics alike have faulted for its potential to reignite the charge of deicide against the Jews. It was also perfectly timed to boost the bookings of a movie scheduled to open nationally on Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday.

Since I am one of the many curious Jews who have not been invited to press screenings of "The Passion," I have no first-hand way of knowing whether the film is benign or toxic and so instead must rely on eyewitnesses. In November, The New York Post got hold of a copy and screened it to five denominationally diverse New Yorkers, including its film critic. The Post is hardly hostile to Mr. Gibson; it is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox film studio has a long-standing deal with the star. Nonetheless, only one member of its chosen audience, a Baptist "Post reader," had kind words for "The Passion." Mark Hallinan, a priest at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, found the movie's portrayal of Jews "very bad," adding, "I don't think the intent was anti-Semitic, but Jews are unfairly portrayed." Robert Levine, the senior rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan, called the film "appalling" and its portrayal of Jews "painful." On Christmas Day, Richard N. Ostling, the religion writer of The Associated Press, also analyzed "The Passion," writing that "while the script doesn't imply collective guilt for Jews as a people, there are villainous details that go beyond the Bible."

And so, John Paul's plug notwithstanding, the jury remains out on "The Passion." What can be said without qualification is that the marketing of this film remains a masterpiece of ugliness typical of our cultural moment, when hucksters wield holier-than-thou piety as a club for their own profit. For months now, Mr. Gibson and his supporters have tried to slur the religiosity of anyone who might dissent from his rollout of "The Passion." (And have succeeded, if my mail is any indication.) In The New Yorker last fall, the star labeled both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times "anti-Christian" newspapers for running articles questioning his film and, in this vein, accused "modern secular Judaism" of wanting "to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church," a non sequitur of unambiguous malice.

This game of hard-knuckle religious politics is all too recognizable in our new millennium, when there are products to be sold and votes to be won by pandering to church-going Americans. At its most noxious, this was the game played by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on Sept. 13, 2001, when they went on TV to pin the terrorist attacks of two days earlier on God's wrath, which Mr. Falwell took it upon himself to say was aimed at all of those "who have tried to secularize America" by "throwing God out of the public square." The two men later apologized, but this didn't stop Mr. Robertson from declaring this month that he was hearing "from the Lord" that President Bush is going to win this year's election in a blowout. "It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad," Mr. Robertson said. "God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."

Such us-vs.-them religious oneupmanship is more about political partisanship than liturgical debate. Its adherents practice what can only be called spiritual McCarthyism, a witch hunt in which "secularists" are targeted as if they were subversives and those who ostentatiously wrap themselves in God are patriots. Mr. Gibson has from the start plugged his movie into this political scheme; his first pre-emptive attack on the movie's critics (there weren't any yet) took place on "The O'Reilly Factor" a year ago. Not for nothing did he stack last July's initial screening of "The Passion" in Washington with conservative pundits like Ms. Noonan, Linda Chavez and Kate O'Beirne who are more known for their ideology than for their expertise in the history of the passion play's lethal fallout on Jews. (Should anyone not get the linkage of conspicuous sectarian piety with patriotism, Ms. Noonan produced a book titled "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag: America Today" last summer.)

A more recent private screening of "The Passion" was attended by another conservative ideologue, the columnist Robert Novak, who was born to Jewish parents and converted to Catholicism. The movie, he wrote in November, is "free of the anti-Semitism that its detractors claim." Since then, he has joined other journalists in applying spiritual McCarthyism to the presidential race, noting darkly that reporters who followed Howard Dean on the campaign trail "recently observed that they never had seen so secular a presidential candidate, one who has never mentioned God and certainly not Christ." It's a measure of how fierce the demagoguery over religion has become that Dr. Dean now tries to fend off such attacks by suddenly (and unconvincingly) talking of how he prays every day, just as the president purports to do.

That a movie star would fan these culture wars for dollars is perhaps no surprise, but it demeans the pope to be drafted into that scheme. It also seems preposterous — so much so that I wondered whether the reports of the gravely ill John Paul's thumbs up for "The Passion" were true. A week after the stories first appeared, the highly respected Catholic News Service also raised that question, quoting "a senior Vatican official close to the pope" as saying that after seeing the movie, the pope "made no comment. The Holy Father does not comment, does not give judgments on art."

I sought clarification from the Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. His secretary, Rosangela Mancusi, responded by e-mail that "this office does not usually comment on the private activities of the Holy Father" and would neither confirm nor deny the pope's feelings about "The Passion." But she suggested that I contact "the two persons who brought the film to the Holy Father and gathered his comments" — Steve McEveety, Mr. Gibson's producer, and Jan Michelini, the movie's assistant director.

Mr. McEveety declined to speak with me from Hollywood, but last week I tracked down Mr. Michelini, an Italian who lives in Rome, by phone in Bombay, where he is working on another film. As he tells it, Mr. McEveety visited Rome in early December, eager "to show the movie to the pope." Mr. Michelini, it turned out, had an in with the Vatican. "Everyone thinks it's a complex story, the pope, the Vatican and all," Mr. Michelini says. "It's a very easy story. I called the pope's secretary. He said he had read about the movie, read about the controversy. He said, `I'm curious, and I'm sure the pope is curious too.' "

A video of "The Passion" was handed over to that secretary — Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, whom Vatican watchers now describe as second in power only to the pope — on Friday, Dec. 5. "McEveety calls me like crazy, 20 times that weekend, saying, `I want to know what the pope thinks,' " Mr. Michelini continues. On Monday, the archbishop convened a meeting with Mr. McEveety and Mr. Michelini in the pope's apartment. There, Mr. Michelini says, the archbishop quoted the pope not only as saying "it is as it was" but also as calling the movie "incredibile." Mr. Michelini was repeating the archbishop's Italian and said that "incredibile" translates as "amazing," though Cassell's dictionary defines the word as "incredible, inconceivable, unbelievable." But why quarrel over semantics? Followed by an exclamation point, it will look fabulous in an ad, perhaps next to a quote from Michael Medved, the conservative pundit and film critic who has been vying with Ms. Noonan to be the movie's No. 1 publicist.

"Are you Catholic?" Mr. Michelini asked me as we concluded our conversation. No, I said. "Maybe you'll become one," he said, laughing. "Many, many Jewish people like this movie."

We shall see. In the meantime, you've got to give Mel Gibson's minions credit for getting the pope, or at least the aide who these days most frequently speaks in his name, to endorse their film in the weeks before it opens in 2,000-plus theaters. In keeping with every other p.r. strategy for "The Passion" — Mr. Gibson has said he felt that the Holy Ghost was the movie's actual director — Mr. Michelini says that the successful campaign for the Vatican thumbs up is an example of divine providence. Jews in show business might have another word for it — chutzpah.

If I were doing a story on the Rolling Stones, I'd want to get Mick's thumbs-up. If I were doing a story on something deeply held by the Catholic church, I'd also want a thumbs-up by their leader. Add to that the fact that Mel is Catholic and would surely want to know that he's not misrepresenting his faith to the world pretty much seals it for me that the endorsement was a good idea.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, And for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet, Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, And her salvation like a torch that is burning.

Isaiah 62:1

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." Matthew 5:38-41

The thing to remember, IMHO, is that this film offends liberal Catholics more than Jews. Liberal Catholics simply hate the baroque Catholic culture that Gibson presents in this film.

And then they expect love in return?! Ridiculous!

"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the pagans do the same?

Matthew 5:43-47

That's it! And they will do absolutely everything to show the contempt to us catholics! And then they expect love in return?! Ridiculous!

A ridiculous lie and unbelievably un-Christian attitude. And what Jew ever asked you for your "love"? Interesting that you would project your hostility and hypocracy onto the Jews. It is you that show contempt, and you that asks for love in return.

Nowhere does this parting shot specify a certain type of Jew.

You missed my sarcasm. It's laughable to contend this statement pertains to only "certain Jews".

It's impossible to say that

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!!!

I know many wonderful Jews and are very close to many. My message was not of hate but of fact. My suggestion to you AAABEST is to get close enough to your Jewish friends to be able to discuss religion honestly. All my close Jewish friends have blamed Christianity for the Holocaust, from a little bit to allot. My father fought and almost died in WWII so I find this belief hard to believe.

I do not believer Christians were responsible for the holocaust but my Jewish friends believe Christians are responsible from a small amount to a great amount. Does this mean that I love them any less? No, not at all.

Well, there's lots of hate to go around. For example the hate expressed by a rabbi writing in the Jerusalem Post saying the passages in Gopsel of Matthew where the crowd accepts respsonsibility for Jesus' death were "crude forgeries" and saying that the New Testament had been edited to make it hostile to Jews. Or Abe Foxman of the ADL telling all who would listen that the Gospels were anti-Semitic. Or the entire ADL effort (assisted by some self-hating Christian theologians) to censor Gibson's film precisely because it is faithful to the Gospels' depiction of the Passion. When people outside my faith presume to tell me what I may believe, or claim that the Gospels are "anti-Semitic," that's offensive.

I'm glad Gibson is succeeding, in spite of the hate campaign against him.

I'm afraid you're right. Too many Jews will scream "persecution" when the film comes out, and too many Christians will use the film as an excuse to dredge up old and inaccurate prejudices against the Jewish race...Maybe Gibson's best legacy will be to teach both sides to behave themselves.

We're all going to have the opportunity to confront bigots on both sides. Of course the more proper time is largely AFTER the film comes out, we've seen it and the reaction.

half were Polish Jews and the other half were Poles.

Meaning "Catholics." Whenever people talk about the Holocaust, the fact that nearly half the victims were Catholic is always lost in the recollection. I have seen people on this website devote a lot of time and energy trying to prove that Pope Pius XII collaborated with Hitler.

Who is stopping him? A Jewish liberal film-critic? Good Lord, what power he must wield!

Anyone can make a film about anything nowadays, and someone is going to whine about it. Some Jews want to complain about a Passion Play. I don't see how this is surprising. No one is going to stop the movie from being shown. Most people will surely enjoy it and some won't. That's life.

The Poles, Ukranians, and Russians who were killed by the Nazis are conveniently forgotten, although Hitler's program for providing "Lebensraum" for the Germans required their extermination/reduction to slavery. The concern of liberals for Jews is limited to discrediting the Christians. The contempt they show for an Israeli government that does not behave as they think it should, their pandering to Islamofascists like Arafat, shows them in their true colors.

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