Mel Gibson, dad back church

Pittsburgh Live ^ | January 25, 2006 | Richard Gazarick

[NYer]

Hutton Gibson has been making a three-hour drive each week for the past year from his home in Summersville, W.Va., to rural Westmoreland County, a round trip of more than 300 miles, just to attend Sunday Mass.

Now, the 87-year-old Gibson plans to have his own church in Mt. Pleasant Township.

The church is St. Michael the Archangel Chapel, now located in a ranch-style brick home along Route 982 South between the villages of Lycippus and Weltytown.

Gibson is no ordinary parishioner.

Gibson is the father of actor-director Mel Gibson and a follower of an ultraconservative branch of Catholicism that rejects the liturgical reforms adopted in the early 1960s resulting from the Second Vatican Council -- commonly referred to as Vatican II.

The worldwide movement was started by the late Marcel Lefebvre, a French bishop who broke with the Vatican and began appointing his own bishops and ordaining priests. There are no accurate figures on membership.

St. Michael's pastor is a former diocesan priest, Leonard Bealko, who is not in good standing with the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, according to Monsignor Lawrence Persico, vicar general of the diocese.

The man behind the new church is Mel Gibson, according to John Maher, of Greensburg, a member of St. Joseph the Protector Chapel on St. Clair Way in Hempfield Township, another Catholic group that holds weekly Masses in Latin.

[NYer]

Hutton Gibson

[trisham]

It's not easy being Mel.

[Pyro7480]

There's no indication in the article that this is really going to be a SSPX chapel. The sentence, "The worldwide movement was started by the late Marcel Lefebvre, a French bishop who broke with the Vatican and began appointing his own bishops and ordaining priests. There are no accurate figures on membership," is probably how that impression was made. Though Lefebvre was a key figure in the "ultraconservative" movement, he wasn't the one who "started" it. There were priests during the 1960s who didn't want to go along with the changes, whereas Lefebvre' SSPX didn't become a separate movement until he participated in the illicit consecrations of bishops in 1988.

[Northern Yankee]

Interesting....

Karen... Victoria...your thoughts?

I've got mixed feelings.

[Antoninus]

I wonder what Stephen Speilburg's dad is up to lately?

[Salvation]

Or Michael Moore's dad?

[Salvation]

(SSPX) church??????

Then he really isn't back with the Roman Catholic Church, is he?

[Nihil Obstat]

FSSP masses here: http://fssp.com/main/uscan.html

Lexington, KY isn't too much farther than he drives now.

Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky
Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, Chaplain

St. Peter's Church
153 Barr Street
Lexington, KY
Sunday 4:00 p.m.
Monday - Saturday 7:00 a.m.

[Aquinasfan]

I can certainly sympathize with Mel and his father, but they have to accept Church authority, bland homilies and lousy liturgical music notwithstanding.

[kstewskis]

I read this article this AM...

I think that it's an assumption on this writer's part that the Gibson's are SSPX. I think they assumed they are, since they are told the church is not part of the diocese.

I read there was a church in LA that Mel attended, but left when it went SSPX.

It's no secret that they (like others) are traditional in the fact that they reject the liturgical forms of Vatican II.

: I have my doubts about the insinuations the writer of this article is making, without having all the facts.

[sassbox]

And considering that there are many indult TLM's, FSSP Masses and such available, there is no reason to go into schism over this. If Mel's dad lives too far away to attend an indult or FFSP Mass, don't you think Mel could afford to purchase a nice home for his dad in a town closer to such Masses? Seems to me the Gibsons' beef with the Church goes beyond the availability of the TLM.

[nickcarraway]

It's no secret that they (like others) are traditional in the fact that they reject the liturgical forms of Vatican II.

Liturgical forms od Vatican II? The current Mass has nothing to do with Vatican II. It was created after Vatican II, and if you read the Vatican II liturgical document, it was ignored in creating the current Mass.

[Theophane]

I have understood for some time that Hutton Gibson (I don't know about Mel and don't really want to know) holds a sedevacantist position; I know he has actually criticized the SSPX in the past and I believe he even has said that Abp Lefebvre was not himself validly consecrated a bishop because his principal consecrator was Cardinal Lienart who was (according to H. Gibson) a Freemason! I have it on good information that Hutton attended the local sedevacantist chapel here in Houston (no, I have never been there) when he lived here.

This would kind of add up with the evidence that Mel left Our Lady of the Angels in Arcadia, CA, some time after the SSPX took it over from its retiring "independent" priest.

[k omalley]

Looks like I live about one hour from Hutton Gibson and I fly to Washington DC on occasion to attend the Indult at Old St.Mary's. There really isn't anything else available which has the blessing of the Church. Unfortunately this has become prohibitively expensive with the demise of Independence Air. There is no Indult in the entire state of WVa. Our previous bishop turned down a petition. A new petition has been circulating to give to the new bishop. If this is indeed an SSPX chapel the one positive result might be that our bishop grants an Indult.

[It's me]

Who?

[Cheverus]

FYI, I was curious so I google Fr. Bealko, here is what else was on the web:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_138347.html

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/entertainment/guide/%E2%80%9Dhttp://tribune-review/s_136985.html

Apparently Fr. Bealko was validly ordained a Priest of the Diocese in 1971 and was suspended in 1985 and has since operated an "independent" Chapel.

He doesn't seem to be a member of the SSPX.

Isn't Hutton Gibson a Sedevacantist?

[B Knotts]

This has nothing to do with SSPX. Hutton Gibson is a sedevacantist, and the priest involved is "independent," which usually means sedevacantist.

[murphE]

This is NOT an SSPX church, nor is the SSPX even mentioned in the article. Why did you change the original title?