Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Sabertooth
Here is a bit from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"THANK GOD FOR KRAUTHAMMER: Charles Krauthammer has never written a dumb column, to my knowledge. Even on emotional subjects such as civil marriage, he brings to the debate a calm reasoning that wins the respect of his opponents as well as his supporters. And that is also why his searing criticism of Mel Gibson's inflammatory and idiosyncratic version of the Passion is so helpful. I'm tired of people believing that Gibson is representing Catholicism. He isn't. He is a rebel against Catholicism, specifically the reformed, open, repentant Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council. Gibson doesn't recognize the authority of the current Pope; he doesn't recognize the current mass - the central ritual of Catholics across the world. People are mistaken in believing that he merely prefers the Latin mass; he doesn't. He favors the Tridentine mass, a relic. He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy. He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews, and, as such, is an act of aggression against Catholicism and the current Pope's heroic efforts to confront the shameful history of the Church with regard to the Jewish people. Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie. He doesn't mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie, a device that only students of medieval anti-Semitism would notice. In fact, one reason that today's viewers do not notice the hatred of Jews in the movie is because, mercifuly, they are not familiar with the medieval tropes that signal evil and that Gibson trafficks in. Gibson knows. And he knows how his movie will play in those parts of the world where anti-Semitic tropes are still recognized. Notice I am not accusing people of good faith who have found inspiration in the story portraayed in this movie of being anti-Semitic. I'm sure that many if not almost all of that devition is genuine and not motivated by anything but spiritual hope and reflection. But that cannot disguise the malice that lies beneath. And that Gibson would use the message of Christ to advance it is what makes it doubly unforgivable."

1,050 posted on 03/06/2004 8:46:57 AM PST by Torie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1048 | View Replies ]


To: Torie

I find Andrew Sullivan's observations to be of limited utility, especially of late, and especially with regard to hot issues in the culture wars.

Does he provide any evidence of his list of charges against Gibson?

Here's a bit of info on the Tridentine Mass. It's not quite so diabolical as Sullivan would have you believe.

Here's another view of "The Passion of the Christ," with substantial quotes from Rabbi Daniel Lapin in support of the film:

Gibson's Passion forced to find sanctuary

Gerald Warner

"ECCE homo." The words of Pontius Pilate - "Behold the man" - with which he exhibited Jesus, scourged and crowned with thorns, to the hostile crowd have inspired many devout works of art down the centuries. Yet only now has the cinema, the popular art form of our time, the challenge of portraying what Christians acknowledge to be the defining moment of human history, with the release of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ.

Since it is not due for release in this country until March 26, it would not be possible to offer a conventional critique of this production - the actors’ performances, quality of direction, photography and all the other elements by which a film is normally assessed. The need to suspend judgment on such technicalities, however, should not inhibit believers from taking a stand on the issues with which the enemies of the faith are assailing Gibson and - by extension - the entire Christian canon.

The first point of controversy that must be addressed is the distraction - for that is what it is - of the claim that the film is anti-Semitic. There could be no better way of dismissing this canard than by invoking responsible Jewish opinion, as voiced by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of Toward Tradition, an American organisation that exists to build bridges between Jewish and Christian communities. Rabbi Lapin has excoriated the activists persecuting Gibson with a robustness that few Gentiles would have dared to exhibit.

Two weeks ago, Lapin predicted that the film "will become famous as the most serious and substantive Biblical movie ever made" and that "the faith of millions of Christians will become more fervent as Passion uplifts and inspires them". Pity no Catholic bishop has gone on record in equally enthusiastic vein. Lapin went on to denounce "Jewish organisations insisting that belief in the New Testament is de facto evidence of anti-Semitism". With heroic objectivity, he also condemned the offence given to Christians because "Jewish groups are presuming to teach them what Christian scripture ‘really means’".

The rabbi’s remarks follow upon an even more devastating broadside he delivered five months ago, on the same theme, when he insisted that protests against Gibson’s film "lack moral legitimacy". He cited the exhibition of blasphemous art shown in 1999 at the Brooklyn Museum, when Arnold Lehman was director, including a Madonna smeared with elephant dung. He also pointed out, with a directness that no Christian could contemplate, that Martin Scorsese’s blasphemous film The Last Temptation of Christ was distributed by Universal Pictures, run by Lew Wasserman, and posed the question "why Mel Gibson is not entitled to the same artistic freedom we accorded Lew Wasserman?"

Rabbi Lapin’s moral integrity and plain speaking have done more for Christian-Jewish relations than a thousand futile ecumenical symposia and weasel-worded scriptural trade-offs brokered by pressure groups and Vatican appeaseniks. It seems reasonable to hope that he speaks for a majority of his co-religionists, rather than the strident protesters. That said, the most vitriolic enemies of the film and its message are not Jews: they are drawn from the forces of militant secularism and the Fifth Column within the Catholic Church.

For, make no mistake, this is an intensely Catholic film. Mel Gibson is a traditional Catholic who rejects the humbug and chaos of the Second Vatican Catastrophe - as do an increasing number of the disillusioned survivors stumbling around in the ruins of the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church. The faithful translation on to film of the scriptural narrative of Christ’s passion and resurrection would, 50 years ago, have presented Catholics with an image that was totally familiar. Bishop Joseph Devine, bishop of Motherwell, is one of the few in Britain to have seen the film and has described it as "stunningly successful... a profoundly religious film."

Yet, today, the Easter People, the dancers in sanctuaries, those who claim They Are Church and all the assorted Lollards and Fifth Monarchy Men who have converted Catholicism into a crankfest regard the Passion with as much alienation as any atheist.

Religion should be nice. It should have no doctrines, since that would create division. There are no moral absolutes, no objective truths. In an ideal world, you should not be able to put a cigarette-paper between a Catholic and a Buddhist. Since we are all going to Heaven, regardless of our conduct on earth, what is the point of all this violence on Calvary? Of course, we need some ritual and collective spirituality: so, let’s go and hang some cuddly toys on the railings of Kensington Palace. What we need is a one-size-fits-all, syncretic religion, centred on the United Nations; an ethical code that does not restrict us from the perpetual gratification of all appetites.

You will find little dissent from those propositions among the smirking, blue-rinse nuns of the post-Conciliar Church, or their ecumaniac male counterparts. To them, the crack of the centurion’s whip and the thud of the hammer on nails are distant, alien sounds - a disturbing echo of Holy Week long ago, of Gregorian plainsong, of ferias in Seville. In a word - ecumenically unhelpful; best washed away by a few more cups of tea at Scottish Churches House.

The militantly secular world is also keenly alert to the challenge of the Passion. In responding to Gibson’s initiative, no double-standard is too blatant, no inversion of truth too shameless. Critics are queuing up to denounce "pornographic violence" (the now favourite weasel phrase) in the literal portrayal of the crucifixion.

These are the self-same people who acclaimed every sadistic and pornographic obscenity with which Hollywood has poisoned the world over the past three decades, who vigorously denounced "censorship" and promoted the "pushing of boundaries". Now, suddenly, they are alarmed about pornographic violence.

Yet, amid all the sound and fury, the most contemptible phenomenon is the trahison des clercs. The Catholic Church will not embrace this film, despite the Pope’s verdict on it ("It is as it was!"), because it expresses a faith it now finds embarrassing. The Passion was made with as much religious dedication as the crafting of an Orthodox icon. The Tridentine Mass was celebrated on the set every morning and there was at least one conversion to Catholicism during the making of the film. Small wonder that modernist Roman theologians are galled by the fact that Tradition has produced the most triumphant artistic articulation of faith and that evangelical Protestants are flocking to experience it.

The Mass, as the bloodless continuation of the sacrifice of Calvary, was the perfect complement to this artistic tribute to God. At the elevation of the host, the Catholic believer knows - although he can scarcely comprehend the fact - that he is as close to Christ as were Our Lady and St John at the foot of the cross. That is the cosmic drama of redemption that is re-enacted on the altar: "Behold the man".
Gibson's Passion forced to find sanctuary
The Scotsman | February 29th, 2004

1,055 posted on 03/06/2004 9:11:52 AM PST by Sabertooth (Malcontent for Bush - 2004!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1050 | View Replies ]

To: Torie
That's pretty good from Andrew Sullivan who IIRC was raised Catholic. Sullivan is good when he doesn't talk about "gay issues", such as gay marriage, blech!
1,056 posted on 03/06/2004 9:12:18 AM PST by dennisw (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1050 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson