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Pope never commented on Gibson's 'Passion' film, says papal secretary
Catholic News ^ | Jan-19-2004 | Cindy Wooden

Posted on 01/19/2004 12:22:07 PM PST by drstevej


POPE-PASSION Jan-19-2004 (360 words) xxxi
Pope never commented on Gibson's 'Passion' film, says papal secretary

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II never said "It is as it was" after watching Mel Gibson's film on the passion of Jesus, said the pope's longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

"The Holy Father told no one his opinion of this film," the archbishop told Catholic News Service Jan. 18.

Archbishop Dziwisz watched the film in the pope's apartment with Pope John Paul and with the pope's second secretary in early December.

The film, "The Passion of the Christ," is Gibson's interpretation of the last 12 hours of Christ's life and is set for release in the United States Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday.

The alleged papal quote has appeared in hundreds of newspapers around the world as an unequivocal endorsement of Gibson's controversial film even though papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls refused to confirm the pope said it.

The film drew widespread attention even before it was finished, particularly because of concerns over how it would portray the Jews and its potential for promoting anti-Semitism.

The co-producer of the film, Steve McEveety, was in Rome in early December to host private screenings of a rough cut of the film for Vatican and other Catholic officials.

After the pope and Archbishop Dziwisz watched the film, the archbishop met with McEveety and with Jan Michelini, an assistant director of the film.

According to published reports, McEveety and Michelini said Archbishop Dziwisz told them the pope reacted positively to the film and said, "It is as it was."

But, Archbishop Dziwisz told CNS, "That is not true."

"I said clearly to McEveety and Michelini that the Holy Father made no declaration," the archbishop said.

"I said the Holy Father saw the film privately in his apartment, but gave no declaration to anyone," he said. "He does not make judgments on art of this kind; he leaves that to others, to experts."

"Clearly, the Holy Father made no judgment of the film," he said.

News stories containing the alleged papal quote have been posted on the official Web site of the film: www.thepassionofthechrist.com.

END
 


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; General Discusssion; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: gibson; passion; thepassionofchrist
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This story was on Drudge Report. Did the Pope comment on Mel's film or not? Just curious
1 posted on 01/19/2004 12:22:10 PM PST by drstevej
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To: drstevej
The Passion may be the greatest film ever made. I will reserve judgement until I actully see it.

But Mel Gibson and his people have acted in a tawdry manner IMO, rolling out the film in a cynical campaign. Nothing new for Hollywood, it's how the game is played. But hyping it by misquoting THE POPE?? That's rather beyond the pale, even for Hollywood.

2 posted on 01/19/2004 12:40:25 PM PST by veronica ("Clinton happens"....F. Lee Mark Levin)
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To: veronica
I am looking forward to the film.

It's hard to make heads or tails of the debate swirling around it. But in the end, It's the film's content that will be important.
3 posted on 01/19/2004 12:52:45 PM PST by drstevej
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To: veronica
"But Mel Gibson and his people have acted in a tawdry manner IMO, rolling out the film in a cynical campaign."

Nothing could be more tawdry than the campaign launched against the film by the leftist critics who charged Gibson with antisemitism for portraying the gospel account accurately. I doubt the Gibson crowd intentionally misquoted the Pope. More likely there was a misunderstanding of some sort. Let's not be too hasty to judge on this one and give the Gibson people time to respond
4 posted on 01/19/2004 2:24:54 PM PST by MMkennedy
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To: drstevej; american colleen; sinkspur; Lady In Blue; Salvation; CAtholic Family Association; ...
*"I said the Holy Father saw the film privately in his apartment, but gave no declaration to anyone," he said. "He does not make judgments on art of this kind; he leaves that to others, to experts." *

Imagine you and your wife are given an exclusive viewing of a movie that has not yet been released. You turn to her and say - "that's just the way it was". Later that day, an editorialist who is a personal friend calls and asks your wife what you thought of the movie. She repeats your comment.

Suddenly, that comment becomes the title of an editorial. Within hours, it is picked up by other news services and becomes Dr. Steve's "official" comment. But was it?

From all that I have read on this situation (and that would be lots), this is apparently what happened. The pope made no "official" commentary. Due to his limited access to the media, as a result of his illness, the press rely entirely on any comments that he makes. If I can track down the article that expounded on this, I will post it to this thread.

For my part, this is the most feasible explanation. It is highly unlikely that Peggy Noonan would make up a comment from the pope. She is a catholic with great respect for the pope and enthusiastically shared his personal comment. The Vatican, politically, does not want the 'comment' to be construed as an official stance.

5 posted on 01/19/2004 3:28:19 PM PST by NYer ("One person and God make an army." - St. Teresa of Avila)
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To: NYer
good post.
6 posted on 01/19/2004 3:38:23 PM PST by drstevej
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To: drstevej; sinkspur
The earliest report about the Pope's comment appeared in The Wall Street Journal on December 17, 2003. It would appear to be rather late to publish the Pope's original comment because John Paul II watched the movie on December 7, 2003.

Another interesting thing is that one John Thavis of the same Catholic News Service the agency which published the above article, complained on January 16, 2004 about misinformation allegedly coming from the Vatican on the subject of Pope's comment and other bad things. (When Vatican officials speak, things are not what they appear to be)

But.....
It gets more exciting, when you check old news at the same Catholic News Service, Vatican officials say pope didn't comment after viewing 'The Passion'. The 'no comment' article appeared on December 24, 2003!

I love the way the Catholic News Service and other self-acclaimed "catholic" media show their true "catholicity."
The leader of them all is the National Catholic Reporter - the most anti-Catholic p.o.s. I've ever seen.

(Sinky, whenever I mention the NCR I feel I should give you a ping.)
7 posted on 01/19/2004 3:48:15 PM PST by heyheyhey
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To: heyheyhey
The leader of them all is the National Catholic Reporter - the most anti-Catholic p.o.s. I've ever seen.

Nice language.

Criticize NCR all you want, but they're the only Catholic paper with a full-time Vatican correspondent, so he gets all the face time on CNN and other network broadcasts. John Allen is also fair, and incisive, and is the first to break many prominent Vatican stories.

I don't agree with everything in NCR, but if you want CATHOLIC NEWS, NCR's the usually the first place to get it, and sometimes the only place to get it, unless you go to Catholic News Service.

8 posted on 01/19/2004 3:56:28 PM PST by sinkspur (Adopt a shelter dog or cat! You'll save one life, and maybe two!)
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: sinkspur; heyheyhey; drstevej; NYer
Speaking of John Allen, this is the piece that he posted on 9th January re the Passion - he definitely knows an insider who claims the Pope did say what he said:

"For the moment, controversy surrounds John Paul II’s reported thumbs-up for the film: “It is as it was.”

I reported the pope’s reaction, meaning that John Paul believes the movie is a faithful depiction of the last 12 hours of Christ’s life as described in the New Testament, in a breaking news piece on the NCR web site on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at midday (see Pope likes Gibson's new film). At virtually the same moment, the Wall Street Journal posted a column by Peggy Noonan in which she too quoted the pope, with the same words. Noonan cited the pope’s private aide, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, as the source, relayed to her through the movie’s producer Steve McEveety; my piece quoted an unnamed senior Vatican official. I had not been aware of Noonan’s column, as I presume she was unaware of my report.

The pope’s quote made the rounds of major news agencies, alternately citing the National Catholic Reporter or the Wall Street Journal.

On Dec. 24, however, Catholic News Service quoted two Vatican officials, once again unnamed, to the effect that the pope had made no such remark. “The Holy Father does not comment, does not give judgments on art,” one official said to CNS. “I repeat: There was no declaration, no judgment from the pope.”

Rumors swirled in Rome this week that a major American newspaper would soon carry a piece also suggesting the pope did not make the remark.

One factor fueling the confusion is that Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls has so far not responded to requests for clarification. Normally, if a major newspaper quotes the pope as saying something he didn’t actually say, Navarro would issue a denial. Initially, therefore, most people took Navarro’s silence as confirmation of the original story. As he remained silent after other news agencies, including the highly respected CNS, issued contradictory reports, uncertainty grew as to what the truth actually is.

In the wake of all this, I went back to the original source of my report, a well-placed Vatican official who is normally a reliable guide to the pope’s mind. The official is adamant that the original story was right — the pope did indeed say, “It is as it was.”

The source added a few details. The pope watched the film in two segments over the evenings of Friday, Dec. 5, and Saturday, Dec. 6. He did so in the company of Dziwisz, his secretary. The two men watched the film, by themselves, in the pope’s private apartment, in the dining room that has a television with a fairly large screen and a VCR. The pope watched the movie on a European-format VHS videocassette. The next day, Dziwisz had a conversation with McEveety and the film’s assistant director, Jan Michelini, in which he relayed John Paul’s reaction, which this source said was accurately quoted in NCR and The Wall Street Journal.

If this is so, why doesn’t Navarro confirm the remark?

One possible explanation, according to Vatican sources, is that some individuals in the papal household were unhappy with the way the movie’s producers seemed to be milking John Paul’s reaction for publicity purposes. Although the pope wanted the people responsible for the film to know he enjoyed it, he didn’t necessarily intend “It is at it was” to end up on posters and newspaper ads. Hence the silence has perhaps been styled to dampen commercial exploitation.

A simpler reason is that the Vatican doesn’t like to comment on matters it perceives as the pope’s private affair. I recall asking a Vatican official a year ago about speculation that John Paul II had been swimming at Castel Gandolfo over the summer, surely not a state secret, and was told: si tratta della vita privata del papa, meaning, "that’s a matter of the private life of the pope."

Unfortunately, this is not like a debate that might have occurred 25 years ago, when the press could ask him about it in the back of the plane on the next trip. Today John Paul II never gets close enough to journalists to take questions. The only way to resolve the matter is an official clarification from Navarro.

In the absence of such a statement, those who don’t want to believe the pope said “It is as it was” are free to deny it, while those eager for a papal seal of approval can continue to assert it. This sort of confusion is not only frustrating, but it feeds images of an aging pope and an out-of-control Vatican bureaucracy, where even the pope’s very words are up for grabs, to be spun by whatever constituency has an agenda."

10 posted on 01/19/2004 4:19:49 PM PST by Tantumergo
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To: drstevej
"Did the Pope comment on Mel's film or not? Just curious"

I think its quite likely that he did, but they didn't expect the story to go right round the world's media.

I imagine that Kaspar got onto them and said "Don't upset the Jews", and so they have been back-pedalling ever since.

Two points I would make for background:

1) There is a growing power vacuum in the Vatican as JPII has to do less.

2) The Italians spawned Machiavelli and some of them still regard him as some kind of national hero.

11 posted on 01/19/2004 4:27:19 PM PST by Tantumergo
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To: veronica
Gibson has been the target of an unprecedented slander campaign, grounded in the notion that the Gospels are "anti-Semitic." To his great credit, Gibson has overcome that campaign and is going to have "The Passion" open in 2000 theaters. All of the "tawdriness" has been on the part of those who have attacked Gibson.
12 posted on 01/19/2004 4:54:13 PM PST by Thorin
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To: NYer
" The Vatican, politically, does not want the 'comment' to be construed as an official stance."

And there's the rub! What's not to like from their view? Why the reserve when it is so obvious this film is a holy thing from all who have seen it.

Can you picture the Vatican not commenting on the Pieta? This piece of art is so desperately needed by the Church at large. At least the Pope saw the film and that action speaks louder than the words swirling in the press. But it is deeply troubling to see how infiltrated the Vatican is by the public cold shoulder given to what has repeatedly been called a Masterpiece.

We need some Saints with chisels to cut away the ice on the Dome of St. Peter's.
13 posted on 01/19/2004 5:15:59 PM PST by Domestic Church (AMDG...)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: drstevej; 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; ...
Thanks, maybe somebody ought to straighten out this jerk.

Frank Rich: Chutzpah and spiritual McCarthyism
Frank Rich NYT
Friday, January 16, 2004

NEW YORK Pope John Paul II, frail with Parkinson's at 83, is rarely able to celebrate Mass. 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 the film.

"Mel Gibson's 'The Passion' gets a thumbs-up from the Pope," was the 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 his credentials.

Gibson's longtime producer, Steve McEveety, told 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 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 in the United States 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 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 its portrayal of Jews "very bad," adding, "I don't think the intent was anti-Semitic, but Jews are unfairly portrayed." Robert Levine, senior rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan, called the film "appalling" and its portrayal of Jews "painful." On Christmas Day, Richard Ostling, the religion writer of The Associated Press, wrote that "while the script doesn't imply collective guilt for Jews as a people, there are villainous details that go beyond the Bible."

So, John Paul's plug notwithstanding, the jury remains out. What can be said without qualification is that the marketing of this film remains a masterpiece of ugliness typical of the cultural moment, when hucksters wield holier-than-thou piety as a club for their own profit. For months now, Gibson and his supporters have tried to slur the religiosity of anyone who might dissent from his film's rollout. (And have succeeded, if my mail is any indication.) In The New Yorker last autumn, 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 the new millennium, when there are products to be sold and votes to be won by pandering to church-going Americans. The us-vs.-them religious one-upmanship 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.

A 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." He has since 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."

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" - McEveety, Gibson's producer, and Jan Michelini, the movie's assistant director.

McEveety declined to speak with me, but last week I tracked down Michelini, an Italian who lives in Rome, by phone in Bombay, where he is working on another film. As he tells it, McEveety visited Rome in early December, eager "to show the movie to the pope." Michelini, it turned out, had an in with the Vatican. "Everyone thinks it's a complex story, the pope, the Vatican and all," 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 describe as second in power only to the pope - on Dec. 5. The archbishop later convened a meeting with McEveety and Michelini in the pope's apartment. There, Michelini says, the archbishop quoted the pope not only as saying "it is as it was," but also as calling the movie "incredibile." 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.

In the meantime, you've got to give 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 keeping with every other public relations strategy for "The Passion" - Gibson has said he felt that the Holy Ghost was the movie's actual director - 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.

The New York Times
15 posted on 01/19/2004 6:06:55 PM PST by Coleus (STOPP Planned Parenthood http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/892053/posts)
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To: drstevej
"He does not make judgments on art of this kind; he leaves that to others, to experts."

But he IS an expert on the content of this art. I find it hard to believe he didn't say anything at all.

16 posted on 01/19/2004 6:28:07 PM PST by BlessedBeGod
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To: Tantumergo; drstevej; seamole
THAT'S the story I was looking for!. Thank you, Tantumergo, for posting it.

Although the pope wanted the people responsible for the film to know he enjoyed it, he didn’t necessarily intend “It is at it was” to end up on posters and newspaper ads. Hence the silence has perhaps been styled to dampen commercial exploitation.

There is the distinction!! - a comment made in private to an aide vs a public pronouncement. For all we know, the 'comment' may well have stirred up fresh fodder that is inhibiting ecumenism at some level of negotiation. I think is safe to say that the pope enjoyed the movie - period!

One of John Paul's admirers is the columnist, Peggy Noonan. One of the best columns she ever wrote, described an audience she had with the pope. If you have never read it, this is classic Peggy Noonan!

John Paul the Great


17 posted on 01/19/2004 6:33:05 PM PST by NYer ("One person and God make an army." - St. Teresa of Avila)
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To: drstevej
The Catholic Church is an international joke. Again.
18 posted on 01/19/2004 7:06:32 PM PST by karenbarinka (an enemy of Mel Gibson is an enemy of Christ)
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To: karenbarinka
Do you have any reason to say so?
19 posted on 01/19/2004 7:15:43 PM PST by heyheyhey
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To: sinkspur
hey: The leader of them all is the National Catholic Reporter - the most anti-Catholic p.o.s. I've ever seen.

Sink: Nice language.

Well deserved and I am VERY kind to them, too.

NCR's Tom Fox on homo "marriage,"

We who profess a relationship with a Diety must be especially diligent to remind ourselves that no one has the full picture, no one can claim an inside track. Believers and non-believers alike will be better off when humility reins in certainty, when policies are shaped by attempts to understand and offer care to the hurting and insecure.

on priestly celibacy

Our bishops have become cafeteria Catholics. They seem to think we can do without the Eucharist......
The bishops, however, are so resistant to considering optional celibacy that they view Catholics who raise the issue as "having an agenda," implying that those who seek change really, deep down, want to hurt the church, not extend its mission to build the Reign of God.
This is crazy. No, it's worse. It's scandalous. Let me be clear: to place an arbitrary church discipline in the way of the building of Eucharistic-centered Christian communities is offensive to God.

on Church authority

The process reminds me of a statement that the spiritual guru, Edwina Gately, once made, referring to today's Catholic hierarchy. "The God they give us is too small to worship."

on sexual morality

With so many Catholics rejecting an official church teaching, and the pope insisting on it at the same time, questions of authority and its proper role cannot be avoided. As a matter of fact, the authority issue has been connected to the sexuality issue for more than a quarter of a century, raising the importance of trying to sort out and resolve the human sexuality questions.

There is a tradition within Catholicism that speaks of the sensus fidelium. It literally means "sense of the faithful." It means that the faithful, as a whole, have an instinct or "sense" about when a teaching is -- or is not -- in harmony with the true faith. At a minimum, the sensus fidelium has been demanding that the church reconsider its teachings on human sexuality.

Prominent Catholics have made repeated efforts to do just this since the 1968 papal encyclical. Those who have dared enter these waters have more often than not been denigrated by church authorities for setting forth. Connected to any reassessment has been considerable fear and trauma. Theologians who have dared have found their careers thwarted. As a result, as pressure has grown to probe church teachings on sexuality so has the resistance by key authority figures.
As I have said, NCR is the most anti-Catholic p.o.s.
20 posted on 01/19/2004 7:19:04 PM PST by heyheyhey
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