[Seeing More Clearly Now]

Christian Europe did not allow Jews to own land and did not allow them to enter professions - this for more all the way through to the 20th century. Christians blamed the Jews for the bubonic plague and for any and all negative events which befell a community. Was the community got riled up, a Jewish community was no longer safe, and Christian pogroms ensued in which whole communities were wiped out after being incited against Jews for being "Christ killers." I was five years old when I was first told, "You killed my God." This by a hatefilled five year old, who was just repeating what he had heard at home and had just learned in Catholic school kindergarten. The Vatican recognizing the evil it had wrought over so many centuries, tried in its statement Nostra Aetate to reverse its millenia of incitement to hate and murder. Gibson has ignored his own church and set back Christian-Jewish relations big time. Gibson has taken much of his account of Christ's death from an 19th century nun who claimed to have seen visions of events 1900 years before her time. The devil character is Gibson's personal editorial of who hangs out with the Jews.

[Sabertooth]

Gibson has ignored his own church and set back Christian-Jewish relations big time. Gibson has taken much of his account of Christ's death from an 19th century nun who claimed to have seen visions of events 1900 years before her time.

Seen the movie?

The devil character is Gibson's personal editorial of who hangs out with the Jews.

Sheer nonsense. Satan was defeated by a Jew.

[wardaddy]

Man, you are sure reaching with some broad generalizations.

[ultima ratio]

I'm not impressed. Christians have been persecuted as well. Right now hundreds of thousands are being slaughtered and enslaved in Sudan. Christians are persecuted in Pakistan, in India. None of this is unusual among peoples of different religions. Why do you imagine Jews are exceptional? Bloody Mary persecuted Protestants; Elizabeth forced Catholics to convert and hounded and executed priests; Lutheran princes slaughtered 130,000 Catholic peasants; rationalists of the French Revolution slaughtered 300,000 Catholics in one region of France alone; Catholics and Protestants have been at each other's throats for centuries in Ireland; Sunnis hate Shiites and vice versa. So what makes you think the Jews were in any way exceptional? Why must Jews make everything--even a film celebrating Christian redemption--be about themselves? And why do Jews like Krauthammer dare to slander Christianity by linking normal historic frictions between peoples of differening faiths to Hitler's demonic psychopathic genocide? That is the true libel, not Gibson's innocent film.

[stanley windrush]

Being a devout Catholic who was educated in Chicago in Catholic schools for 12 years and starting before Vatican II, I never heard the any mention of calling Jews "Christ Killers" and heck, I went to a Catholic elementary school in the heart of a Jewish neighborhood (West Rogers Park). I had a number of Jewish friends to boot and was a best man at a Jewish wedding (great time by the way). I heard from some of these Jewish kids that the nuns taught the children in their charge that Jews were "Christ Killers". Never heard it in our cathecism classes. I figure you ran into a kid whose parents were ignorant morons. I could tell you stories of the public school kids who relentlessly assaulted us on our way to school (had to walk eight blocks through the gauntlet); we being targeted by our uniforms. The neighborhood being as it was...some of those assaulting us might have been Jewish as well. A little anti-Catholic bigotry for a change!

[iranger]

"You killed my God."

As if man could kill God. Come on.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

"Gibson has taken much of his account of Christ's death from an 19th century nun who claimed to have seen visions of events 1900 years before her time."

I picked up a copy of her book in the church library once. I read two paragraphs and put it down. It was creepy IMHO. It is strictly her private revelation which no Catholic has to give the time of day.

"The devil character is Gibson's personal editorial of who hangs out with the Jews."

You have hit the nail on the head!

[dennisw]

Dittos on all that!