Mel Gibson: $5 Mil to Fringe Church (FOX attacks "antiquated Catholic ideology")

FOX ^ | Friday, February 20, 2004 | By Roger Friedman

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Mel Gibson's put his money where his mouth is. By now everyone in the world knows he's spent $25 million to make "The Passion of the Christ" and promised nearly $25M more to market it.

But what you may not know is that Gibson has also put up $5.1 million so far to run his own personal church near Malibu.

Last year Christopher Noxon wrote in The New York Times that Gibson had donated $2.3 million to make Holy Family Catholic Church in Agoura Hills, California a reality. Holy Family rejects the universally accepted teachings of the Second Vatican Conference and chooses to stick with antiquated Catholic ideology.

Bu it turns out that Gibson has donated a little more than twice that amount to Holy Family since 1999, according to federal tax filings. And that's not counting 2003, since the most recent report has not yet been filed.

Gibson and his wife Robyn are listed in federal tax records as directors of the Holy Family Catholic Church. The church is run out of Gibson's Icon Production company offices, with an Icon employee responsible for keeping the church's books.

The Gibsons' tax-free donations to Holy Family are made possible by a charity they established called the AP Reilly Foundation, which is named for Mel's late mother. The foundation was created on October 29, 1999 for the sole purpose of creating the church.

The church, by the way, has an unlisted phone number, keeps its address a secret and has asked those who have the information not to release it.

Gibson is no stranger to controversy when it comes to voicing his opinion about his religious beliefs. In a 1992 interview with the Spanish magazine El Pais, his comments about homosexuals — which cannot be printed here — caused an international stir.

In the same interview Gibson talked about the fact that his brand of Traditionalist Catholics did not subscribe to the Second Vatican Council's 1965 rulings on various subjects including who was responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

[af_vet_1981]

Mel is following the Word of God, honor thy mother and thy father... he is not dishonoring him by correcting him publicly.

• He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me:

  He dishonors both his fathers by not rebuking Hutton Gibson.

[ultima ratio]

The opposition is to the historicity of the Gospels themselves. It is anti-Christian bigotry disguised as a fear of anti-Semitism. It fits in with the liberal agenda to reduce faith to a common denominator wherein all belief-systems, Jew and Christian, can comfortably meld together.

[CobaltBlue]

I asked upstream whether Jews object to the movie because it depicts, as is told in the Gospels, the Sanhedrin's involvement in the execution of Jesus? No answer, but I am very curious, wondering if perhaps someone who is Jewish would care to answer?

[DoctorMichael]

..........Roger Friedman's Comments............

Sorry, an Off Topic Comment: Nevermind Friedman when there are a number of Anti-Catholic FReepers.

[CobaltBlue]

I would like to hear the point of view of a Jew on this issue. It seems like Jews don't believe in Jesus, period, not even that He existed? That the Gospels are fictional?

[af_vet_1981]

I have not seen the movie but I do not object to a depiction of the Sanhedrin's involvement per se in the trial of Yeshua. The Romans picked the leadership of the occupied nation. I do not defend their betrayal of a Jew into the hands of wicked Gentiles. I object to what some people who "claimed the name" have done with that depiction in history. I object to Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism.

[rogator]

But vatican II did not direct ripping out altar rails, removing religious statues, turning around the altar, and introducing "profane" music to services. This is part of what I am referring to as traditional Catholic worship practices.

[Heyworth]

He's a wacky old man without much education who doesn't deserve the attention he's getting

That wacky old man without much education won $25,000 on "Jeopardy" in 1968. That's the money he moved his family to Australia on. He's not stupid or unknowledgable. He is, however, an autodidact, and they usually have huge blind spots somewhere.

[HairOfTheDog]

Gibson, apparently in a cynical ploy, used the Pope to try to get an endorsement for his movie. The Pope leads an institution that Gibson no longer believes in.

Gibson screened the film for, and tried to get endorsement from many Christian and Jewish religious leaders. It is being sold through churches of all denominations... Many types Gibson himself doesn't follow.

[lonevoice]

The gut-twisting anger coming from some quarters towards this film has, I posit, nothing whatsoever to do with Mel Gibson. These people really don't care what church Gibson supports or what Gibson's father said or didn't say. The same people hated this movie before the script was ever written, before anyone had screened the film, and before anyone accused the film of inciting anti-Semitism.

[kcvl]

Religious Freedom is for Everyone - Not just Minorities

Published on 1/7/2004
by TLP Staff

By Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Well, 2004 has arrived which means that dreaded “C word” is behind us. Put politely, “the holiday season” has passed. Having shopped in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle lately and having listened to talk radio in each city I couldn’t help noticing a startling double standard.
Overwhelmingly, store assistants and talk radio hosts bid farewell to Jewish guests with a cheerful “Happy Chanukah” while others, including those identified as Christians, received the generic “Happy holidays.” With each passing year, secular fundamentalism more successfully injects into American culture the notion that the word “Christmas” is deeply offensive. Well, after watching this year’s repeat of the annual “hate Christianity ritual,” I think we may be mistaken in allowing this assault to go unchallenged.

Okay, maybe referring to it as a “hate Christianity ritual” is a little over the top. But it certainly is obsequious regard for faiths like Judaism and even Islam, while treating Christianity with contempt and disrespect. It is not that I want Judaism treated with less respect; it is just that I think that Christianity deserves just as much respect. And I say this as an Orthodox rabbi who has spent a lifetime teaching Torah and devoting myself to the long term interests of Judaism.

I don’t think that America’s Jewish community does itself any long term good by denouncing every public expression of Christian faith as if it were a force-fed dose of castor oil. This anti-Christianism is not only unhealthy for all Americans; I think it is particularly destructive for Jews to be leading the extirpation of all signs of Christian fervor from the village square.

Palm Beach, Florida, prohibited a Christian group from placing a depiction of Christ in the manger alongside a menorah on public property. One of the plaintiffs, Maureen Donnell, told Fox News, “They’ve discriminated against us, they allow the menorahs but they have absolutely no interest in these Nativity scenes.” Donnell and her co-plaintiff want the menorah and the Nativity scene to be displayed next to each other. But Palm Beach officials remained unmoved. Today, Palm Beach is a city with a large Jewish population. It would be wonderful to be able to believe that Palm Beach’s Jews fought as valiantly for Christian religious rights as they have had to do in the past for their own.

Many Jewish parents, who remain indifferent when their children bop to rap music’s obscene lyrics, recoil in horror at the same kids’ exposure to Christmas carols. It is invariably a local rabbi who teams up with the ACLU to file a lawsuit against the school singing carols or the town unwary enough to allow a Nativity scene on the library lawn.

A music teacher in a Washington school removed the “C word” from the lyrics in Dale Wood’s “Carol from an Irish Cabin” to read: “The harsh wind blows down from the mountains and blows a white winter to me.”

Parent Darla Dowell, whose 7-year-old daughter sang the song, called the decision “absurd.” “I think the most important thing that angers me is that they sent a message to my child that there’s something wrong with Christmas and saying Christmas and celebrating it and performing it at her school with her peers,” Dowell told Fox News. She couldn’t understand why it’s okay to exclude Christmas when her daughter was forced to sing Hanukkah tunes that included lyrics about the “mighty miracle” of Israel’s ancient days. In that song, there were at least six mentions of the Jewish holiday.

Although I suppose it is possible, does anyone feel confident that Mrs. Dowell will think better of Jews in 2004 than she did in 2003? How exactly does this aggressively applied double standard help to maintain the mutual respect that used to characterize the relations between American Jews and Christians?

A 1989 Supreme Court decision in Allegheny County v. ACLU found a Nativity scene on the main staircase of the county courthouse to be unconstitutional. The court emphasized that the privately owned crèche, which included a banner proclaiming “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (“Glory to God in the Highest”), was indisputably religious. In the same case, however, a five-judge majority found that a nearby display, featuring an 18-foot Hanukkah menorah did not violate the Establishment Clause. In the interests of truth and friendship, it ought to be the entire Jewish community protesting the court’s actions. Instead, in a bizarre inversion of truth, many of us Jews triumph at Christianity’s suppression as if we had just replayed the two millennia-old victory of the Macabees against secularism.

Holiday greeting cards also demonstrate this syndrome quite well. Don’t take my word for it, step up to the greeting card racks in your local drug store and see what I mean. Virtually every Chanukah card is tasteful, well okay, deferential at least. Similarly, every Kwanza card is a paper paean to this rootless, recent invention. Cards intended for blacks and Jews are respectful. No sir, you won’t find too many cards taking vulgar, humorous shots at those holidays.

Now check out the Christmas cards. Oh sorry, I should have said “check out the holiday cards” or “check out the winter season cards.” You’ll be hard pressed to even find a card that mentions the word “Christmas.” It is as if word is deemed so offensive that casual card browsers should be protected from accidental contamination. Alongside the decent cards you’d expect, you will also find tasteless Christmas cards that mock the holiday. You’ll even find off-color risqué Christmas cards that you’d be embarrassed to be caught looking at. What secularism seems to be saying is, if we can’t completely banish Christmas, let’s at least turn it into a bad joke.

New York City schools encourage their students to bring decorations that reflect Judaism and Islam but Christian decorations are prohibited. Yes, that is right. Holiday displays of the Jewish menorah and Islam’s star and crescent are allowed in some 1,200 public schools in New York City, but the creche, or nativity display, are verboten. (The case is currently being heard in Federal Court in Brooklyn. The suit, which should have been brought in a spirit of brotherhood by a Jewish organization, doesn’t seek to prohibit the Jewish and Muslim exhibits, but to end discrimination against Christianity.) Nationwide, Christmas Nativity scenes are banned from city halls and shopping malls but Chanukah menorah’s are permitted. (They are only cultural symbols, not religious, you see.) Seattle city employees are prohibited from wishing one another a merry Christmas but permitted to say “Happy Holidays” or even, “Happy Chanukah”.

The storm troopers of secularism who so diligently guard the rest of us from inadvertent exposure to the Christmas virus can rest for another year. Their work is done for now, but right after Thanksgiving, they’ll be back, you’ll see. Hey! I have a great idea-this year, let’s be ready for ‘em.

Radio talk show host, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, is president of Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based, bridge-building organization providing a voice for all Americans who defend the Judeo-Christian values vital for our nation’s survival.

Visit www.towardtradition.org.

[keats5]

"What changes offend your relatives?"

I'm really out of my element here, but I've heard yearnings for the return of the Latin mass and the traditional music, disdain for the guitar mass, some grumbing about plain clothes nuns ("stealth nuns" they call them), warm memories of Friday night fish fries and general nostalgia for a time when the church had a greater spiritual infuence in the lives of parishiners. Like I say, I'm not Catholic, and don't know exactly which, if any, of these changes are really the result of Vatican II. It's just what I hear from the family.

[kcvl]

New York City schools encourage their students to bring decorations that reflect Judaism and Islam but Christian decorations are prohibited. Yes, that is right. Holiday displays of the Jewish menorah and Islam’s star and crescent are allowed in some 1,200 public schools in New York City, but the creche, or nativity display, are verboten.

[VOA]

(FOX attacks "antiquated Catholic ideology")

How does choosing to honor a tradition that was deemed good up until the
early 1960s (about 40 years ago) become "antiquated"?

And as Gibson pointed out in his ABC interview with Diane Sawyer...that tradition
has never been abrogated (e.g., outlawed) even by the Vatican II changes?

(No flames please, I speak as a non-Catholic who has just been following this
situation with interest.)

[kcvl]

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004

Gibson's Family: Father Tricked Into Interview

When Mel Gibson's 85-year-old father, Hutton, told a New York radio interviewer Wednesday that the Holocaust had been exaggerated and that Jews were trying to rule the world, he had no idea he was speaking on the record, let alone being recorded for broadcast, Gibson family sources tell NewsMax.


When WSNR's Steve Feuerstein called Gibson's father in Texas, the family believes he misrepresented himself as a fan of Gibson's, saying he wanted to "congratulate Mel's father" on his son's work. Hutton Gibson says the caller claimed his mother maintained a Web site devoted to "The Passion of the Christ."

Feuerstein allegedly said nothing to Mr. Gibson about a radio interview.

With no idea that his comments were being taped, Gibson's father made no attempt to disguise his views. He told Feuerstein that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust had been fabricated.

"It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he told the radio interviewer.

According to the account obtained by NewsMax, the elderly Gibson talked to Feuerstein for almost an hour before asking for further identification. The talk host promised to call back with more details, but never did.

Feuerstein did not return calls for comment.

So far, Hutton Gibson has not publicly apologized for the explosive remarks. But in previous interviews, first with the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, Mel Gibson noted he didn't share his father's revisionist views on the Holocaust. The actor-director said he had friends who had survived the death camps.

"Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenseless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do, absolutely," Gibson told ABC's Diane sawyer. "It was an atrocity of monumental proportion."

Asked about an earlier interview where Gibson senior offered similarly offensive views, the Hollywood star complained: "Their whole agenda here, my detractors, is to drive a wedge between me and my father. And it's not going to happen. I love him. He's my father."

Gibson's father's comments were the topic Thursday night of Alan Colmes' national radio show.

James Hirsen, a NewsMax columnist, was interviewed and said that Hutton Gibson's "statement is indefensible, but it is also irrelevant. Mel's dad didn't make the movie; Mel Gibson did."

Rabbi James Rudin of American Jewish Committee, who also was on the show, agreed with Hirsen's point.

[CobaltBlue]

Autodidact is a good word here. I like that way of putting it. I have no reason to doubt his intelligence, nor, for that reason, any reason to believe that he's particularly intelligent, but, as you say, stupid people don't win at Jeopardy.

Just took a break from looking at the financial records of an 83 year old client. He is way behind on his spousal support, his ex is almost as old as he is. Very well educated, used to be a hot shot once upon a time. He doesn't want to realize how impaired he is, and his children don't want to realize it, either.

[philosofy123]

Mel deserves the support of all Christians. He had put his career on the line. Christian people should also target his detractors and boycott them. At the end, they will learn that freedom is for every American, and not for a chosen few.

[CobaltBlue]

Not sure what we're arguing about. You prefer the mass in Latin, I like it just fine in English. You like altar rails, I don't miss them. I like being able to watch the priest's face rather than his back, but the other way was OK, too.

I just don't think the things you are talking about are important enough to get worked up over, much less walk away from your religion.

[CobaltBlue]

I object to Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, also. I have heard Mel Gibson specifically denounce anti-Semitism, as recently as this week on Diane Sawyer's show.

[GraceCoolidge]

I don't care about other aspects of this story. Gibson is not in union with Rome, nor is his chapel.

I just don't get the point of so many people being upset over whether Mel Gibson's chapel is acceptable to Rome... Assuming you are correct and Mel Gibson's chapel isn't accepted by Rome, then what? I mean, it's not as if the media is out there every day beating the drum in support of the Catholic church. Is the point supposed to be not to go see the film because Mel Gibson is a lapsed Catholic? That approach by the media would be supremely ironic, given their extensively reported concern about anti-semitism. If the point of that media barrage is not to be judgmental about other faiths, then attacks on Mel Gibson's "fringe" Catholicism seem to be misplaced. I guess I just don't understand why the Vatican's position on Mel Gibson's faith is so important to a lot of people.