Gibson's passion film 'too Catholic'

Belfast Telegraph ^ | 19 March 2004 | Alf McCreary

[presidio9]

THE controversial Mel Gibson film 'The Passion of the Christ' has been dismissed by the Evangelical Protestant Society as a 'Catholic' interpretation of events which "does not present the Gospel".

Wallace Thompson, secretary of the Evangelical Protestant Society, said the film displayed "an un-Biblical fixation on Mary, the mother of Jesus. None of this should surprise us, for both Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, who plays the part of Christ, are enthusiastic devotees of the traditional teachings of the Church of Rome."

He further claims that Mel Gibson "belongs to an ultra-conservative Catholic group which does not recognise the reforms of Vatican II, and celebrates Mass in Latin".

Mr Thompson says that "this malign influence of Rome ought to cause all evangelical Protestants to reject The Passion of the Christ" and refuse to be swayed by the subtleties of the alleged arguments in favour of it.

Sadly, however, it will be welcomed and praised by many who ought to know better."

Mr Thompson also says that the film is "extremely violent", and that "anyone who watches it will be shaken and possibly terrified by its graphic and bloody scenes."

[Havoc]

Havoc, I didn't know you lived in Belfast. You breathe the same spirit of hatred as the bombers.

Hatred. Oh, right, I suppose the police hate everyone they pull over and ticket for violating the law, eh, Robby? Is there anybody in your opinion, Robby, that doesn't hate the guts of every Catholic on the face of the Planet? Anyone that is that tells them your clergy is wrong and demonstrably so. Mormons use the same tactic. Woe is me - they are bigoted lying haters because we teach polytheism and they won't let us get by with saying we gonna be gods. Woe, they hate us. The erf will end. Grow up Robby. It has never worked with me before and it isn't going to work with me now.

[w-pat]

What do you expect from Orangemen? That is SOP from that mob.

[w-pat]

Please learn about the Orangemen before writing things like that. They don't want or allow love by or of their fellow man. Their allegiance is to the Crown which does not have that much allegiance in return and the Orange Order. Orangemen are Oliver Cromwell's boys. Need I say more?

[w-pat]

The legend is that a nameless woman wiped Christ’s face on the way to Calvary, and His face left an image on her veil. The woman came to be known as Veronica, which means “true image.” Below is an article on the veil that appeared June 1999 in ZENIT, a daily news report from Rome.



PRIEST REDISCOVERS "VEIL OF VERONICA"


Relic Stolen from Vatican in 17th Century


ROME, 3 JUN 1999 (ZENIT).



Almost four centuries after its mysterious disappearance, German Jesuit Fr. Heinrich Pfeiffer reports that he has rediscovered the legendary veil of Veronica, with which Jesus wiped his face on the road to Calvary. Fr. Pfeiffer, a professor of Christian Art History at the Pontifical Gregorian University, found the relic in the abbey of Monoppello, Italy, high in the Apennine Mountains.

A small piece of stained pale cloth kept in this tiny village has long been regarded as a sacred icon with wondrous properties by Father Germano, head of its Capuchin monastery. Fr Pfeiffer, official advisor for the Papal Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, concurs. "Yes, I am firmly convinced of it, that this is the famous relic," he told reporters in a press conference Monday.



The Legend
The story of Veronica and her veil does not, in fact, occur in the Bible, though the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" gives this name to the woman with a blood flow who was cured by touching the hem of Jesus' cloak. Critics of the incident’s historicity point to the very name of the saint: "Veronica" is a combination of Latin and Greek words meaning "true image." Nonetheless, the story has been a part of popular Christian culture for centuries, including a brief scene in Zefferelli's "Jesus of Nazareth."



Physical Features
The almost transparent veil measures about 6.5 x 9.5 inches and bears dark red features of a bearded man with long hair and open eyes. The legend holds that Jesus rewarded Veronica's charity in wiping the sweat from his brow by imprinting his image into the cloth. The image on the Monoppello cloth becomes invisible depending on the angle from which the cloth is viewed.

"The fact that the face appears and disappears according to where the light comes from was considered a miracle in itself in medieval times," noted Pfeiffer. "There are few such objects in history. This is not a painting. We don't know what the material is that shapes the image, but it is the color of blood."



Scientific Investigation
Ultraviolet examinations of the cloth, carried out by Prof. Donato Vittore of the University of Bari, confirm that the image is not paint. Particularly noteworthy are several small flecks of reddish brown -- presumably drops of blood from the wounds caused by the crown of thorns.

Enlarged digital photographs of the veil reveal that the image is identical on both sides of the cloth -- a feat impossible to achieve by ancient techniques. These photographs have also been used to compare the veil with the face on the Shroud of Turin, which millions of Christians believe to be Jesus' burial sheet. Striking similarities were apparent: the faces are the same shape, both have shoulder-length hair with a tuft on the forehead, and the beards match.



Story of a Relic

History records the existence of this relic from the fourth century, but only from the Middle Ages was it strongly linked to the Passion of Christ. From the 12th century until 1608, it was kept in the Vatican Basilica as a popular goal of pilgrims, mentioned in Canto XXXI of Dante's "Paradise." When the part of the Basilica containing the relic was scheduled to be torn down for remodeling, the relic disappeared overnight.

According to records in the monastery, the wife of a soldier sold the veil to a nobleman of Monoppello in 1608 to get her husband out of jail. The nobleman, it turn, donated it to the Capuchins. In 1618, it was placed in a walnut frame adorned in silver and gold between two sheets of glass. It remained in the monastery every since. Fr. Pfeiffer invested 13 years of searching through archives to prove that this is the same cloth that disappeared in 1608.

[Havoc]

Jesus loves you. I understand you can't refute scripture and wish to run away covering your eyes and thus your slanders which you cannot support. Thank you.

[wolfman]

Roman Catholics must be persuaded to study the Bible for themselves and not to rely exclusively on what their priests and bishops teach them. To blindly trust fallible men for their eternal destiny is utterly foolish. To repplace Jesus Christ with any other mediator leaves people open to deception. The Bibe warns its readers over and over again that man cannot be trusted. "Let God be true, and every man a liar" (Rom. 3:4). Scripture must be our final court of appeal for correcting and reproving those who misinterpret, twist or distort the word of God (2 Tim. 3:15-16). The Bible is what God says. Religion is what man says God says.

Many Catholics point to the early church fathers in an attempt to give credence to unbiblical, post apostolic traditoins such as the sacrifice of the Mass, purgatory and indulgences. But some of these church fathers may be the very men Paul warned us about when he wrote, "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves men will arise, speajing perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears" (Acts 20:29-31). The church fathers must be tested using the plumb line of Scripture just as Paul, himself, was tested in Berea.

Paul commended the Bereans for using Scripture to verify the veracity of his teaching. "They received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" (Acts 17:11).Hhe Scriptures were written for individuals, not to a Magisterium or a group of clergymen. Many of the epistles were written to all the saints (Christians) at different churches. John wrote his gospel to all people, persuading them to believe in the person and finished work of Jesus Christ (John 20:31). His first epistle was written to all believers in Christ to give them assurance of eternal life (1 John 5:13). The Bible never directs us to another man, another book or another authority to inteprpret the Scriptures for us.

[B-Chan]

B-Chan: “First: With deepest respect, who are you to teach anything?”

Havoc: Titus 2:15 — “These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.” The whole 3 chapters are rather instructive as to who I am.

B-Chan: He was speaking to St. Titus. You're not him. With all due respect, you're just some guy who claims to be an infallible teacher of Christian truth — a Papacy of One, Pope Havoc. You will forgive me for sticking with the Pope that we have — the one in the Vatican.

B-Chan: “The once-for-all sacrifice of Christ for our sins is precisely what the Catholic Church has always taught.”

Havoc:Bunk. Read Vatican II.

B-Chan:“Vatican II”? Should I read the novel or the comic book, or just wait for the movie?

Vatican II is not a document in and of itself. If you want me to “read Vatican II”, please tell me which of the several documents that proceeded from it you’re referring to.

Havoc:You are either lying or you don't know what you are talking about. The Catholic Church teaches that at mass, the priest summones Christ down from heaven…

B-Chan: Nope. Wrong. No “summoning” is involved…

Havoc: …and into the host and the wine to become really and truly Christ's full body and blood to be offered for sin in an ongoing perpetuation of the sacrifice of Calvary for sin.

B-Chan: Wrong again. Here's what the Church actually teaches:

Because it is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: "This is my body which is given for you" and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood." In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

B-Chan: He gives it us. No summoning required.

The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:

[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper "on the night when he was betrayed," [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different." "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."

Source: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1364-1367

Havoc: Over and over and over…If it is done over and over again, it is not finished. IT IS FINISHED. SIN IS COVERED AND CLEANSED BY ONE SACRIFICE THAT IS DONE AND OVER WITH

B-Chan: Which is, as I said, precisely what the Church has always taught. Contrary to your claims, I have demonstrated from the official Catechism the Church’s teaching that the Sacrifice on the Cross occurred once and for all on Calvary in A.D. 33 or whenever. At the moment the priest speaks the words given by the Lord (“This is My Body”, ”This is the Cup of My Blood”) at the Consecration of the Eucharist, God opens a sort of “window” into His Eternity and allows us here on Earth to directly experience this once-for-all spacetime event by making it occur miraculously here and now.

Havoc: It is referred to as an UNBLOODY sacrifice for sin. If Christ's blood is truly present, then one wonders who's fooling who.

B-Chan: Oh, the Most Precious Blood is there, all right; It simply appears to our limited senses concealed in an unbloody form (wine). Once consecrated, the wine in the chalice instantaneously becomes Blood — 100% Blood of Christ, 0% wine or anything else. (Although…)

Havoc:And that has no basis whatsoever in scripture.

B-Chan:Even if that were true, so what? Scripture is not the sole source of Christian Truth. It can’t be, since the Church existed before the canon of Scripture was compiled.

Havoc:Paul said believe with your heart and confess with your mouth and you shall be saved.

B-Chan: He also said “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats [i.e. physically chews and swallows] my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed [i.e. “My Flesh is really, truly, physically food”] and my blood is drink indeed [i.e. “really, truly, physically a beverage”]. - (John 6:53-55).

Mere intellectual belief and cheap lip-service are not enough. One must first die to self and be reborn through the Sacrament of Baptism, then chew, swallow, and digest His Flesh and drink His Blood to be saved.

But don’t take my word for it — the Lord Himself said “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mk 16:15-16.) Notice that bit about baptism?

Once reborn through Baptism, man becomes a new creature, sharing in the sinless Nature of Christ rather than the flawed nature of Adam. Of course, the temptation to sin remains, but the Lord lovingly provides us a way to return to His good graces when we stumble: He gave the Church the power to forgive sin in His Name.“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:22-23.)

Havoc:1 John 5:13 "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." If I were to claim what this verse just said, according to Vatican II I would be Damned. Anathematized.

B-Chan:Brother, with all due respect — you’re high. Which Vatican II document says this?

B-Chan:“Rome teaches the Gospel handed down in unbroken succession from the lips and quill of Saint Peter, who was given the Keys of Heaven and Earth by the Lord Himself.”

Havoc:Rome teaches bits and pieces that are convienient to the larger philosophy and the philosophy rules. Peter did not teach that Christ must be eternally sacrificed on the alter [sic] and reincarnated into bread and wine weekly to forgive sin. Peter taught that Jesus did it once for real and it was over and that it is a free gift accepted without works as paul said lest any should boast that their works had anything to do with their salvation.

B-Chan:Sez you. Got evidence to back any of that up?

Havoc:Rome states that even if you think Christ died for your sins, you have to expiate them yourself through works. You have to clean your own sins through works.

B-Chan: Dead wrong:

Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God's wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.

[Source: Catechism, 2010-2011]

Havoc:Lastly, I don't take doctrinal differences as personal attacks. But I am a born again spirit filled believer with the promises that entails and I will speak with the self same authority The apostles entrusted and commanded.

No you won't, because you are neither an Apostle nor one consecrated by an Apostle (i.e. a bishop or priest). Neither are you given the charism of infallibility that rests with the Holy Father. You are (like me) just some guy with a lot of personal opinions about the Christian Faith, and, like me, you need not be taken seriously as a teacher of Christian truth.

Havoc:And I really don't care if you like it or not. I didn't come here demanding anyone believe me. As Paul said, so say I, Check every word against scripture. If I present anything other than was presented, let me be accursed. UNUM SANCTUM is a damndable doctrine from the pit of hell and it was never uttered anywhere in scripture. Your church comes teaching other than was taught by the apostles. That's one doctrine among hundreds I could pop off without thinking after 15 years of studying. Just one is all it takes and according to Paul, you're to be accursed for teaching it. Not my words, HIS

B-Chan: 1. Scripture is not the sole source of Christian truth.
2. Consider decaf.

Havoc:I can quote my authority from scripture and stand on it.

B-Chan: Big deal. Satan himself can do that (Matthew 3:13-4:11 ). That's why God gave us Tradition — the key that unlocks the Truth of each Scriptural passage. Without the infallible Tradition transmitted by the Church through the ages, the Scripture can be twisted to mean anything — which is why we have so many denominations today, each one claiming to be the one, true church. They can't all be right…

Havoc:I have no problem with it because God's testimony does not return empty. I'm not infallible…

B-Chan:Then why should any of us care what you think?

Havoc:…and neither is your Pope. He's no more infallible than anyone on this entire site. Proof's in the pudding. You have on record in your own archives the history of an exchange between Popes and a council that officially infallibly proclaimed both sides of a heretical doctrine as correct and anathematized one another.

B-chan:1. There cannot be more than one Pope at a given time; the Keys are passed to one man and one man only. If two or more men claim to be Pope, either one of them is or all of them are not.
2. Care to share these “documents”?

Havoc:Infallibility as a doctrine was proclaimed to shut up protest and questioning so that the church could proclaim whatever it wished to a dumb audience. As people have become smarter and more of the light of day has shown on Rome's actions with each passing year, Infallibility has been gutted and neutered to where it would take einstien to understand the stipulations on it and God to sort out whether anyone ever said anything infallible. Your doctrines are like a chameilian on a table, reflecting whatever is needed for the moment to hide the pretense.

B-Chan: As you said: you are not infallible, so I choose to disregard your unsupported opinions above.

Havoc:I'm Havoc, btw, B-Chan. I am not an expert on catholicism; but, I've studied it and debated it since 1988. I know a little more than you'd care to give me credit for because I have bothered to read your own documents on the matter. Your own "authorized books" which are just free enough from doctrinal error to be required material for Catholics to study; but, full of errors when anyone else quotes them back to you.

B-Chan: For a guy who has studied and debated Catholic doctrine for eighteen years, you display precious little factual knowledge of it. (Hint: when posting a claim of fact, it helps to support the claim with evidence.) Perhaps you have debated and studied somebody's ideas about what the Church teaches, but that‘s not the same as going to the Church itself for the doctrines in question.

Havoc:Pull the other one sir.

B-Chan:I have no idea what that means. May God bless you.

[NYer]

I know I must have met more twisted, hateful and deceitful hearts before

Yes ... but they were screaming "Give us Barabas" and "Crucify Him".

[Jeff Gordon]

How did St. Brigit of Sweden come into contact with Christ?

[sweet_diane]

I never formed my religious beliefs from watching a movie, nor can they be influenced that easily!

Mel Gibson is only a man and "The Passion of the Christ" is only a movie. Mel Gibson and I worship the same God and his movie portrays an interpretation of the most powerful moment in humankind.

I like Charlton Heston, but I know he isn't really Moses!

[cupcakes]

Perhaps it is because we are so close to Catholocism that my church does not dwell on those issues(we are WELS Lutherans). It is about as you said, instead justification as well as transubstantiation(appears we are sandwiched between Catholics and Evangelicals on that one). We talk about the reasons for differences in other things, but these are the two primary issues that differ us.

[sweet_diane]

""anyone who watches it will be shaken and possibly terrified by its graphic and bloody scenes."

No one ever said crusifixion or taking on all the sin of the world, my sins included, was pretty.

This writer claims that Mary is portrayed too important, and maybe she is, I haven't seen the movie. But it does bring to mind something our Pastor (Presbyterian-PCA) has said. He was raised Catholic and feels the Catholic Church does raise her 'status' a bit much, yet we tend to overlook her, and the important role she played in the history of humankind, too much.

[NYer]

And Communication is the thing that is disallowed no matter whether you seek aid or not. No matter what kind of communication it is, it is still communicating with the dead.

The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Thus in Psalms 103, we pray, "Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!" (Ps. 103:20-21). And in Psalms 148 we pray, "Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!" (Ps. 148:1-2).

Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us. In the book of Revelation, we read: "[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God" (Rev. 8:3-4).

And those in heaven who offer to God our prayers aren’t just angels, but humans as well. John sees that "the twenty-four elders [the leaders of the people of God in heaven] fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Rev. 5:8). The simple fact is, as this passage shows: The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

[cupcakes]

Catholics often forget that Luther was a Catholic himself and not just a Catholic, but a learned one at that. A monk I know for sure. He was not some fly-by-night outsider. He read the same "unedited" Catholic scriptures as many here. Compared to most here however, he was a scholar in such works, probably having more knowledge of them and additional traditional teachings than your average Catholic today.

While Catholics will accuse others of piddling over small details, it appears they forget Martin Luther would have been content to drop the small details for the Pope(of that time) to acknowledge the Gospels and justification. What I would ask myself as a Catholic was if the Pope, a man, of that time who was so wrong about indulgencies and the like also be wrong about issues like justification? Did he really have a problem with the idea, or was he so damn mad that Martin Luther was stepping out on him that he refused to even consider it?

here's a little history lesson, in the simplist of terms, for what appears to be the most hated person of Catholics:

Martin Luther dealt the symbolic blow that began the Reformation when he nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church. That document contained an attack on papal abuses and the sale of indulgences by church officials.

But Luther himself saw the Reformation as something far more important than a revolt against ecclesiastical abuses. He believed it was a fight for the gospel. Luther even stated that he would have happily yielded every point of dispute to the Pope, if only the Pope had affirmed the gospel.

And at the heart of the gospel, in Luther's estimation, was the doctrine of justification by faith--the teaching that Christ's own righteousness is imputed to those who believe, and on that ground alone, they are accepted by God.

[cupcakes]

That is a good point that even the likes of Martin Luther would agree with you on. Like I already posted, he was willing to conceed the details if the pope(of that time) would AFFIRM the Gospels. Not get rid of Catholic tradition or popes or any of that, just affirm the Gospels and he would not do it.

[cupcakes]

Yeah and most of those Christians couldn't read and were at the whim of the "Church" to interpret it for them. I suspect the hypocracies would have been pointed out sooner if the general population had even a basic level of education to read and write, but they did not.
You also fail to point out that in those 1500 years, death was most certainly the outcome for anyone who even challenged Papal authority. In the days with no way to escape and for isolation to assure ones death, it would take a big person to challenge such authority. Just look at the Muslims. I would submit that little changes there because they are under the threats and lack of education that Christians were in those 1500 years. I wonder if there was no threat of death and isolation, if what folks like Martin Luther surmissed 1500 years later would have been noted a lot earlier.

[BibChr]

Did Jesus' Deity exist before Mary?

Dan

[cupcakes]

So are you asserting that Martin Luther was not a Catholic who challenged Rome at it's door? Protestantism did not happen in vacuum my friend or in some far off provence without any Catholic help. Martin Luther was most assuredly a Catholic who hoped to reform his Church for the abuses and misunderstandings he noted in it. It was not his intent orginally to be some spin off, but to make the "Holy Father" accountable for some of the wrongs. Had the Pope of that time merely affirmed the Gospel, perhaps the schism would never have happened. Wonder if you have any indignation towards that Pope of that time who contributed to this schism, the same one who was guilty of selling indulgences which we know now you reject as a Catholic today?

[TRY ONE]

"In Matthew 17, do Elijah and Moses not appear to Jesus, Peter, James, and John?"

Yes, and Elijah will appear again during the Tribulation Period!

But the issue is Do we pray to Elijah or Moses (or Mary)??

NOOOOOO!