Well that didn't take long. Less than one week following the announcement that Australia would host the next World Youth Day, the arguments begin.
Posted on 08/25/2005 10:29:33 AM PDT by NYer
Some of the most vehement critics of Mel Gibson's blockbuster film "The Passion of the Christ" are trying to rain on Mel Gibson's parade.
As NewsMax.com reported August 6, Mel Gibson has been asked by Australia's Archbishop George Pell to recreate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the streets of Sydney during Pope Benedict XVI's visit there in 2008 - should that city be selected to host World Youth Day.
According to reports the crucifixion re-enactment - similar to scenes from Gibson's hugely successful film "The Passion of the Christ" - would begin with the Last Supper staged at Sydney's landmark Opera House at sunset, and would end with the crucifixion of Christ at St. Mary's Cathedral.
Pell's invitation to Mel Gibson has apparently enraged disgruntled dissident Catholics and others who were not so happy that Gibson produced the blockbuster film "The Passion of the Christ."
Many of these same critic are now staging a campaign against Gibson in Australia to stop him from creating a re-enactment of the crucifixion.
Warning that his group would drop plans to hold their annual conference in Sydney in 2007 if Gibson's parade goes ahead, Professor John Pawlikowski, president of the International Council of Christians and Jews said the invitation to Gibson is a serious issue for Christian-Jewish relations.
Pawlikowski claimed Gibson is contributing to the "the ever escalating crisis regarding Vatican II within contemporary Catholicism."
According to Australia's Age, Professor Pawlikowski, professor of social ethics at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a leading critic of Gibson's "The Passion" wrote in an e-mail published on the independent website Online Catholics that Cardinal Pell will be giving "affirmation as a Catholic hero before a global audience" to a person [Gibson] who "totally dissents" from the teaching of Vatican II.
His complaint was echoed by Sister of Sion Dr. Marianne Dacy, secretary of the Australian Council of Christians and Jews, who told Online Catholics there were "deep anxieties" in the local interfaith dialogue community.
"Mel Gibson cannot be allowed to be part of this Sydney event. It will be a severe body blow to the progress that has slowly been made in Christian-Jewish relations," Dr. Dacy said.
Mel Gibson, who grew up in Australia, has not said whether he would honor Cardinal Pell's request.
I have no problem with this except to say that it seems like a bizarre request.
Well that didn't take long. Less than one week following the announcement that Australia would host the next World Youth Day, the arguments begin.
Oxymoron-of the-day
I wonder what the angle for this anti-Christian protest going to be? Since the "Passion-Plays-are-notoriously-anti-Semitic-and-will-cause-mass-beatings-in-the-streets" was had no credibility after the Gibson's Film release, they'll have to find a new outrage.
Why would anyone want to watch an enactment of torture?
Are you a believer? If so, it seems a silly question to ask. If not, then I suppose an answer would be that to those of us who are believers in Christ, His sacrifice means more than can be expressed in words. You could ask the same of why anyone looks at photographs of friends no longer with around, or something along those lines.
Sorry, credibility has never mattered. Remember the Dem maxim: it's the seriousness of the charge that matters. Pilate asked "what is truth," and the left answers that it is whatever they want it to be. And the media support them, and the rest of the world believes what the media tell them.
I'm not a Christian, if that is what you mean. I still don't understand why you would want to watch torture. I understand looking at pictures of my grandparents while they were living, but surely not while they were dying or being tortured.
And still, no one can give an answer which doesn't require faith, and is accepted upon by all.
If they don't like it, they don't need to attend. If a recreation of an historical event is upsetting to people, I question how equiped they are do deal with reality.
Yes, that's what I meant. Hopefully I can explain it clearly. You look at pictures of your grandparets while they were alive because it helps you remember them and you generally feel better (though you may feel pangs of loss) after looking at them, yes? Ok, and of course they are pictures of them while they were alive (not tortured and dying).
It works along the same lines, but see, the difference is, when those of us who believe that Christ died for our sins, that He took every evil, every hurt, every sin of mankind upon Himself; that He made His suffering the payment for our salvation, when we look upon what He went through it can reinforce and humble us as to just what He endured out of sheer, perfect, yet undeserved love.
Of course we remember the Scriptures concerning the Sermon on the Mount, and the raising of Jairus' daughter, the miracles of loaves and fishes, etc. but those things all pale in comparison to the fact that after all that, after all the teaching, after He showed us how to live through His Word, He went that extra step and made Himself the sacrifice to, in God's eyes, right every wrong we had committed so that not only would we know how to live, but so we could actually go and live. He lived his Word when He said, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He offers Himself for us. Freely, willingly, selflessly.
Without Christ's Passion, without His undying love even unto the humiliation and pain He suffered, there is no hope. None.
Why watch a movie about a glorious battle in history where the good guys die to do what is right? To watch them suffer and die but get the job done? It crushes us to see them dying, but it lifts our spirits to see ordniary men called to do extraordinary things. Even as we watch them die, our hearts are lifted up.
Now how much more for the believer to see a depiction of the Lord Himself paying the price for us? We don't deserve this perfect love, but He gives it anyway.
It is the very idea that the Most High God would bring Himself so low as to become one of us and submit to the horrors He did submit to that give us reason to hope. Our minds can paint a picture of it, but nothing earthly is as vivid as seeing it depicted before your eyes.
In a nutshell, that is what it means to me. If it makes no sense, I understand, but that's how it is for me.
OK, I guess I understand how you feel, but at least I would have undeniable proof of what my grandparents did, and I would be able to show people.
Heck, they still spout that argument. It doesn't matter if there's truth or not, it's the allegation that matters.
That's been a 'stumbling block and foolishness' right from the beginning and not totally subject to rational explanation, according to St. Paul:
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
That is because you dont believe that he had to go through that pain and suffering for the atonement of our sins, and as God on Earth-it is the foundation of our faith as we believe he is our Messiah, and you, not a Christian, with no malice, are still waiting or dont believe at all
Why the church would after vatican II try to sanitize the Passion and rewrite the Holy words of St Jerome to appease those who dare call Catholics Anti semitic because those that took part and handed our Lord over for crucifixion dont like their place in history is sad and a desecration to his name and God on Earth.
Gee whiz, I bet Mel agrees with this teaching of Vatican II:
In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.
Dei Verbum
Maybe the good professor is referring to the teachings of the 'spirit' of Vatican II. Whoever that unnamed 'spirit' might be.
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29
I don't need to see special effects to understand the real "Passion" of Christ.
Ummmm, it's not a stumbling block to me, as my reply should show.
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