Posted on 03/11/2003 9:21:48 AM PST by Coleus
Is the Pope Catholic...Enough?
March 9, 2003 By CHRISTOPHER NOXON
The first sign that something unusual was going on up the hill was the
appearance of a fleet of brand-new Volkswagen bugs, lined up on a muddy
bluff like a row of oversize Easter eggs. It was a local handyman who
spotted them while he was out on a walk through this little valley in the
mountains northwest of Los Angeles, near Malibu. Neighbors had already been talking about the 16-acre property on the valley's south slope, and soon
word spread that a church group called Holy Family had purchased the site
with plans to break ground for a 9,300-square-foot Mission-style church
complex. Among the neighbors who wondered about the new arrival was my
father, a recently retired documentary filmmaker who joined the local
homeowners association when he moved to the area two years ago.
This latest project, however, wasn't the usual commercial complex or
instant enclave of luxury homes that tended to attract the association's
attention. It was a church, that much was clear, but it didn't sound at all
like your garden-variety community parish. A representative for the
property owner explained that the church was Catholic, but it wasn't
affiliated with the Roman Catholic archdiocese. While the church building
was relatively large, the congregation was quite small, with about 70
members. And though religious practices and rituals would be familiar to
Catholics, there was one big difference: Sunday Mass, it was reported, would be conducted entirely in Latin.
Lest anyone get the impression that this band of spiritual seekers might
disperse if the collection baskets were to run dry, a church representative
assured the neighbors that the church was supported by an unnamed individual
congregant with ''tremendous financial viability.'' Would that explain the
VW bugs? The handyman recalls posing the question at an early community
meeting. He was told that the congregant financing the church ''had given
them as gifts to his nieces and nephews,'' he says. ''I remember thinking,
'That's some generous uncle.'''
The person behind the unusually well-endowed chapel turned out to be the
actor Mel Gibson, star of ''Mad Max,'' ''Lethal Weapon'' and ''Braveheart.''
The church is operated by a nonprofit corporation; according to public
financial records, Gibson is its director, chief executive officer and sole
benefactor, making more than $2.8 million in contributions over the past
three years. The fact that Gibson is building a church in the hills near
Los Angeles should come as no huge surprise. Gibson's Catholicism has never been a secret, and in fact gives him a sort of reverse-exoticism in a town
where other stars dabble in Buddhism, kabala and Scientology. An avowed
family man still on his first marriage, with seven children to show for it,
Gibson smokes, raises cattle, publicly shuns plastic surgery and seems
wholly unmoved by most of the liberal-left causes favored by industry peers.
Recently, however, something beyond the impulse to entertain has been
showing up in Gibson's work. Last year he played a former minister who
rediscovers religion amid an alien invasion in ''Signs'' and a reverent
Catholic lieutenant colonel in the war drama ''We Were Soldiers.'' In these
films, but especially in a new movie, a monumentally risky project called ''The Passion,'' which he co-wrote and is currently directing in and around Rome, Gibson appears increasingly driven to express a theology only hinted at in his previous work. That theology is a strain of Catholicism rooted in the dictates of a 16th-century papal council and nurtured by a splinter group of
conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected
conservatives -- including a seminary dropout and rabble-rousing theologist
who also happens to be Mel Gibson's father.
Gibson is the star practitioner of this movement, which is known as
Catholic traditionalism. Seeking to maintain the faith as it was understood
before the landmark Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, traditionalists
view modern reforms as the work of either foolish liberals or hellbent
heretics. They generally operate outside the authority or oversight of the
official church, often maintaining their own chapels, schools, seminaries
and clerical orders.
Central to the movement is the Tridentine Mass, the Latin rite that was
codified by the Council of Trent in the 16th century and remained in place
until the Second Vatican Council deemed that Mass should be held in the
popular language of each country. Latin, however, is just the beginning --
traditionalists refrain from eating meat on Fridays, and traditionalist
women wear headdresses in church. The movement seeks to revive an orthodoxy uncorrupted by the theological and social changes of the last 300 years or so.
Michael W. Cuneo, a sociology professor at Fordham University who reported on right-wing Catholic dissent in his 1997 book, ''The Smoke of Satan,''wrote that traditionalists ''would like nothing more than to be transported back to Louis XIV's France or Franco's Spain, where Catholicism enjoyed an
unrivaled presidency over cultural life and other religions existed entirely
at its beneficence.'' While traditionalists agree on the broad outlines of
correct religious practice, the movement is hardly united.
Its brief history is the story of a movement branching off into ever-smaller
submovements. Today there are approximately 600 traditionalist chapels,
representing a number of theological streams, including the more
Vatican-friendly Society of Saint Pius X, the more strident Society of Saint
Pius V, the militantly traditional Mount St. Michael's community and the
Apostles of Infinite Love, a monastic community in Quebec led by a onetime
Catholic brother who claims to be the incarnation of the one true pope.
All told, there are an estimated 100,000 traditionalists in the United
States. Gibson's church may be the most comfortably endowed traditionalist
house of worship in the country, but in other respects it is quite typical.
Most of the congregation met while attending services held by a
traditionalist priest, whose church in the San Gabriel Valley was eventually
taken over by the Society of Saint Pius X. A group of congregants,
including the Gibson family, left in protest.
They gained approval from Los Angeles County to build their own church
early last year after agreeing to a set of operating guidelines -- covering
such issues as parking, lighting, signage and hours of services -- with the
regional planning commission and neighbors (including my father).
When I called the church elder who was Holy Family's representative at the
county meetings, he agreed to an interview and accepted my request to attend
a service, on the conditions that I not identify him or any member of the
congregation beyond Mel Gibson, and that I withhold details that might
invite the interest of fans or paparazzi. He also asked that I refrain from
speaking to the priest, the congregants or anyone else during my visit. He
told me that anyone seen speaking to me ''will not be welcome back at our
church again.''
After all the warnings, I was a little surprised to find Sunday Mass at
Holy Family an almost entirely ordinary experience. The service itself was
remarkably similar to what I remember from parochial school -- that is,
until a homily delivered near the end of the two-hour Mass. The priest read
a parable from St. Matthew about a farmer whose fields are raided in the
night by an enemy who spreads a noxious weed in his wheat. The evil in the
story, the priest said, is ''the modern church,'' whose wickedness will be
dealt with on Judgment Day. ''The wiping out of our opposition must wait
until harvest time,'' he concluded.
It suddenly became clear why Gibson isn't worshiping with his fellow Catho
lic Martin Sheen down at Our Lady of Malibu. Gibson is widely known in
traditionalist circles, and he has made no secret of his religious
affiliation. ''I go to an all-pre-Vatican II Latin Mass,'' he told USA
Today in an interview two years ago. ''There was a lot of talk,
particularly in the 60's, of 'Wow, we've got to change with the times.' But
the Creator instituted something very specific, and we can't just go change
it.''
More recently, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale reported that Gibson made
a ''scathing attack against the Vatican,'' calling it a ''wolf in sheep's
clothing.'' While many traditionalists can't abide some of Gibson's career
choices -- the onscreen baring of his bottom is a particular source of
concern -- most are content to overlook his occasional wild streak.
''Gibson should get the tsk-tsk award for lowering his impressive acting
talent on occasion,'' wrote a priest known as Father Moderator on the
Internet posting board Traditio. Nonetheless, the priest continued, Gibson
''never ceases to project his traditional Catholic faith to the public. Who
else in such a prominent position ever does?''
Mel Gibson is also known in traditionalist circles as the most famous son
of Hutton Gibson, a well-known author and activist who has railed against
the Vatican for more than 30 years. His books on the topic include ''Is the Pope Catholic?'' and ''The Enemy Is Here.'' (Precisely where is indicated by a map on the dust jacket -- it's a cartoon of Italy, drawn by one of his 49 grandchildren). Gibson père also publishes a quarterly newsletter called ''The War Is Now!,'' which includes all manner of verbal volleys against a pope he calls ''Garrulous Karolus, the Koran Kisser.'' Now living in suburban Houston,
Hutton Gibson invited me for a weekend visit after an initial phone
conversation.
When I arrived, he was wrapping up an interview with a syndicated radio
program. Hutton Gibson is 84 but seemed a good deal younger (which he
credited to his abstinence from drinking, daily doses of vitamins and
''never going near a doctor''). He is energized by an abiding love of corny
jokes and lively debate, and he peppered a commentary on the scandals facing
the Catholic Church with jokes about Texans, the Irish and, inevitably, the
pope. He said he speaks to his son frequently and knows all about Mel's
chapel in the hills. ''Mel wasn't raised in the new church, and he wouldn't
go for it anymore than I would,'' he said. ''I've got to say that my whole
family is with me -- all 10 of them.'' While his rhetoric showed no signs of mellowing, the elder Gibson had plenty of reasons to be satisfied. For one, he is a newlywed. His doting bride, Joye, is a statuesque Oregonian who playfully addressed him as ''Mr. G.'' Surrounded by ceramic knickknacks and photos of his grandchildren, he seemed entirely at ease with himself and the world.
Which made it all the odder when he launched into one of his complex
conspiracy theories. On our first night together, he nursed a mug of
sassafras tea while leading a four-hour tutorial on so-called sedevacantism,
which holds that all the popes going back to John XXIII in the 1950's have
been illegitimate -- ''anti-popes,'' he called them.
As Hutton explained it, the conservative cardinal Giuseppe Siri was probably
passed over for pope in 1958 in favor of a more reform-minded candidate.
Hutton said Cardinal Siri was duly elected, but was forced to step aside by
conspirators inside and outside the church. These shadowy enemies might
have threatened ''to atom-bomb the Vatican City,'' he said. In another
conversation, he told me that the Second Vatican Council was ''a Masonic
plot backed by the Jews.'' The intrigue got only murkier and more menacing
from there.
The next day after church, over a plate of roast beef at a buffet joint off
the highway, conversation turned to the events of Sept. 11. Hutton flatly
rejected that Al Qaeda hijackers had anything to do with the attacks.
''Anybody can put out a passenger list,'' he said. So what happened?
''They were crashed by remote control,'' he replied. He moved on to the
Holocaust, dismissing historical accounts that six million Jews were
exterminated. ''Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the
crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,'' he said. ''It takes
one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million?''
Across the table, Joye suddenly looked up from her plate.
She was dressed in a stylish outfit for church, wearing a leather patchwork
blazer and a felt beret in place of the traditional headdress. She had kept
quiet most of the day, so it was a surprise when she cheerfully piped in.
''There weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe,'' she said. ''Anyway,
there were more after the war than before,'' Hutton added. The entire
catastrophe was manufactured, said Hutton, as part of an arrangement between
Hitler and ''financiers'' to move Jews out of Germany. Hitler ''had this
deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get
out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the
Arabs,'' he said.
Whether any of this has rubbed off on Hutton's son Mel is an open question.
A church elder at Holy Family says that while the two share the same
foundation of faith, Mel Gibson parts company with his father on many
points. ''He doesn't go along with a lot of what his dad says,'' he says.
And beyond claiming to have seen the plans for Holy Family and attended
services with the congregation, Hutton Gibson has no apparent connection to
his son's church in California. Still, Mel Gibson has shown some of his
father's flair for conspiracy scenarios.
In a 1995 Playboy interview, he related a sketchy theory that various
presidential assassinations and assassination attempts have been acts of
retribution for economic reforms that challenged the powers-that-be.
''There's something to do with the Federal Reserve that Lincoln did, Kennedy
did and Reagan tried,'' he said. ''I can't remember what it was. My dad
told me about it. Everyone who did this particular thing that would have
fixed the economy got undone. Anyway, I'll end up dead if I keep talking.''
Perhaps nothing Gibson has done will serve as a more public announcement of his faith and worldview than the project he's now completing in Rome. ''The Passion'' is a graphic depiction of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus
Christ, based on biblical accounts and the writings of two mystic nuns.
Gibson is returning to the director's chair for the first time since
''Braveheart'' in 1995, but he will not appear on-screen. There will not,
in fact, be any big stars. Nor will there be subtitles, which might prove a
challenge for many moviegoers, since the actors will speak only Aramaic and
Latin. Gibson has said that he hopes to depict Christ's ordeal using
''filmic storytelling'' techniques that will make the understanding of
dialogue unnecessary. The idea came to him a decade ago, he announced at a
news conference last September, and he is soldiering on now without the
backing of a studio or a U.S. distributor.
''Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages,''
he said. ''They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.''
In Hollywood, the astonishment many felt upon hearing about the project has
been heightened by reports that his production company is paying the film's
estimated $25 million cost itself. Making a movie that has anything at all
to do with religion is risky enough -- remember ''The Last Temptation of
Christ''? But spending your own money to help pay for it? ''It's a very
gutsy thing to do -- I certainly wouldn't do it,'' says the veteran producer
Alan Ladd Jr., who chose Gibson to star in and direct ''Braveheart.'' ''But
he wouldn't do it if he couldn't it pull off, at least in his own mind.
He's obviously satisfying some deep personal need in himself.''
Only Gibson knows the precise nature of that personal need, and he declined
numerous requests for an interview, limiting his public comments to a
January appearance on the Fox news program ''The O'Reilly Factor,'' in which
he complained about inquiries regarding his faith and suggested that any
reporter asking such questions might be part of a plot to undermine his
message of salvation. ''I think he's been sent,'' he told Bill O'Reilly.
''When you touch this subject, it does have a lot of enemies.'' Many
traditionalists, meanwhile, hope the graphic approach Gibson is taking --
production stills show the star, James Caviezel, beaten to a pulp and
drenched in blood, fresh from a flagellation -- will serve as a big-budget
dramatization of key points of traditionalist theology.
After waging a quiet war against what they see as the Vatican's overly
accommodating theology, traditionalists suddenly find themselves equipped
with a most unfamiliar weapon: star power. ''I'm delighted he's getting
more involved,'' says Bishop Daniel Dolan, founder of more than 30 Latin
Mass churches and one of the most influential traditionalists in the
country. ''To put the weight of his Hollywood celebrity behind the truth
that the whole modern church structure is rotten to the core is excellent.
I welcome it.''
A friend of the Gibson family has his own ideas about how traditionalist
thought is informing ''The Passion.'' Gary Giuffre, a founder of the
traditionalist St. Jude Chapel in Texas, says Gibson told him about his
plans for ''The Passion'' on a recent visit. ''It will graphically portray
the intense suffering of Christ, perhaps as no film has done before.'' Most
important, he says, the film will lay the blame for the death of Christ
where it belongs -- which some traditionalists believe means the Jewish
authorities who presided over his trial and delivered him to the Romans to
be crucified.
In his conversation with Bill O'Reilly (who prefaced the interview by
disclosing that Gibson's production company has optioned the rights to
O'Reilly's mystery novel), Gibson was asked whether his account might
particularly upset Jews. ''It may,'' he said. ''It's not meant to. I
think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as
possible. But when you look at the reasons why Christ came, why he was
crucified -- he died for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind. So
that, really, anyone who transgresses has to look at their own part or look
at their own culpability.'' Christopher Noxon is a writer living in Los
Angeles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/magazine/09GIBSON.html?ex=1048295152&ei=1&en=e04bc21f379efa5b
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.