Posted on 11/03/2003 8:27:06 AM PST by Brian S
November 3, 2003
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
When a private viewing of Mel Gibson's ''The Passion of Christ'' was completed at a Washington hotel 10 days ago, my wife and I along with a dozen other invited guests were emotionally frozen into several minutes of silence. The question is whether public presentation of the film four months hence shall be welcomed by tumultuous demonstrations outside the theaters.
Hollywood actor Gibson, who spent more than $25 million of personal funds to produce ''The Passion,'' has finally found a distributor to begin its showing Feb. 25 -- Ash Wednesday. A campaign by some Jewish leaders to radically edit the film or, alternatively, prevent its exhibition appears to have failed. This opens the door to religious conflict if the critics turn their criticism into public protest.
That is not because of the content of ''The Passion.'' As a journalist who has actually seen what the producers call ''a rough cut'' of the movie and not just read about it, I can report it is free of the anti-Semitism that its detractors claim. The Anti-Defamation League and its allies began attacking the movie on the basis of reading a shooting script without having actually seen the film. The ADL carries a heavy burden in stirring religious strife about a piece of entertainment that, apart from its artistic value, is of deep religious significance for believing Christians.
The agitation peaked in early August when New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind told a rally: ''This film is dangerous for Jews all over the world. I am concerned that it would lead to violence against Jews.''
Hikind had not viewed the film. After an ADL representative viewed a rough cut, longtime ADL director Abraham Foxman on Aug. 11 declared the movie ''will fuel hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism.'' Foxman called on Gibson to change his film so that it would be ''free of any anti-Semitic message.''
This renews the dispute over the Jewish role in the crucifixion of Christ, the source of past Jewish persecution.
''The Passion'' depicts in two hours the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life. To watch him beaten, scourged and crucified so graphically is a shattering experience for believing Christians and surely for many non-Christians as well. It makes previous movie versions of the crucifixion look like Hollywood fluff. Gibson wants to avoid an ''R'' rating, but violence is not what bothers Foxman.
Foxman and other critics complain that the Jewish high priest Caiphas and a Jewish mob are demanding Christ's execution, but that is straight from the Gospels.
Father C. John McCloskey, director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, told me: ''If you find the Scriptures anti-Semitic, you'll find this film anti-Semitic.''
Complaints by liberal Bible scholars that ''The Passion'' is not faithful to Scripture are rejected by the Vatican. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who heads the Congregation for the Clergy, called the film ''a triumph of art and faith,'' adding: ''Mel Gibson not only closely follows the narrative of the Gospels, giving the viewer a new appreciation for those biblical passages, but his artistic choices also make the film faithful to the meaning of the Gospels.''
As for inciting anti-Semitism, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos contended ''the film does nothing of the sort.'' This Vatican official is denying that Gibson violates the 1965 papal document Nostra Aetate, which states: ''What happened in [Christ's] passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.''
No such libel is committed by ''The Passion,'' where the mob's Jewish identity is not specified. As a Catholic convert, I was taught we are all sinners who share in guilt for the crucifixion.
At the heart of the dispute over ''The Passion'' is freedom of expression. Liberals who defended the right to exhibit Martin Scorsese's ''The Last Temptation of Christ,'' which deeply offended orthodox Christians, now demand censorship of ''The Passion of Christ.'' As a result, Abe Foxman and his allies have risked stirring religious tensions over a work of art.
than you should have no trouble answering the question asked.
What question? Everything you have asserted is wrong and has been disproved already. My goal was to demonstrate your complete lack of knowledge of Catholicism, which I did when you stubbornly hung on to you incorrect belief that the Vatican claims to be the Voice of Jesus. It doesn't. Your knowledge of Catholicism is too lacking to engage in this debate.
There you have it folks. This is what a ignorant bigot this guy is....
Are you a jesuit?, you sure argue like one. Is or is not the truth of the matter exactly as I stated? Kindly show me a source that suggests that Hitler officially repudiated his Catholocism, or vice versa. Before you toss around another phrase like "ignorant bigot" around with such disdane.
LOL, I provided you a direct quote in which he renounced all of Christianity, you bozo. All Catholics are Christians. Please stop, you are making my sides hurt.
BTW, the entire Church was completely reorganized by Vatican I in 1870. You should look into it. They spent a great deal of time redefining Papal Infallibility, so I think that it would be of great interest to a Catholic scholar such as yourself, LOL.
Except the one you are complaining about of course, which came up again in the 20th century when the involved pope was up for canonization.
May I take it you are now acknowledging that a) it happened at least once in the 19th century and b) it happened, and it was indeed a structural part of the churches anti-jewish doctrines, and are now pinning your feeble hopes for this argument on discrediting my timeline?
And I haven't. Your questions have been asked many times. Your accusations have been sprung often. You think you are onto something new, and it makes you feel witty and investigative. The answers for your questions and your accusations are well-documented.
Anybody can get in their cups and say anything they please, it takes more than a passing remark to remove you from the catholic roles. And I provided you with dozens of quotes from political speeches in which he embraced the church. Hitler was born, baptized, and died a catholic unless you have an official renouncement to show me.--which, of course, you don't.
My knowledge of the event is limited to a bad movie, so I wisely hold my opinion on the subject. You should learn to do the same. I take no issue unless I am certain of what I am talking about. My point is that you indicated that this was a widespread problem taking place frequently in the late 18th Century. One regrettable incident is not evidence of widespread antisemetism, and yes, your timeline sucks. The modern Church began to exist in 1870.
...
And I haven't. Your questions have been asked many times. Your accusations have been sprung often. You think you are onto something new, and it makes you feel witty and investigative. The answers for your questions and your accusations are well-documented.
So...what is the answer to the question? Were the Pope's excommunications of lutheren doctrine & the wars on Luther's followers and the anabaptists revelation, or doctrine? In what manner does this constitute keeping infallibility out of politics?
Let's not be backsliding on our progress now. At least one "regrettable" incident of kidnapping, plus a large set of structures built to house the kidnapped children in previous centuries.
and yes, your timeline sucks. The modern Church began to exist in 1870.
And cut all it's ties with the past off, including the one that caused the kidnapper pope to refer to the jews as "dogs"? And repudiated all the previous encyclicals and excommunications?
Not at all, as long as it is done in accordance with God's Word. What I meant here is that God is allowed to take innocent life because He created it. We are not. The Bible is very clear that, in certain prescribed circumstances, life can be taken. But we must follow God's plan and not our own. We must not deviate from it - for instance, to execute someone because they are a different race than we are and we don't like it, ala Hitler.
Being "a real stretch" didn't prevent the Popes from issuing vile encyclicals against jews, and sparking pogroms from the pulpit during Holy Week.
So what? Because a Pope said it, does that change the fact that it is a perversion of Biblical teaching? Does that mean that the "Christian thing to do" is engage in a pogrom because the Pope said so? Joe Lieberman defends partial-birth abortion. Does that make it an Orthodox Jewish teaching? Of course not.
No one who is an orthodox jew who wishes to walk in the path of righteousness of his fathers and their fathers before them, since time out of mind, can be saved, by the lights of the church.
I don't understand what you mean here by "lights of the church." Do you mean that one who is not a Christian cannot be saved? If so, that is true. Being a Christian has nothing to do with your ethnicity. Anyone, Jew or Gentile, can believe and be saved. It is about belief in Jesus, the sacrifice for our sins. The covenant is open to all nations and cultures.
As far as Jews being "second-class" citizens, that is clearly not true in America. Nor would it be true in a truly Christian nation either. You are free to believe what you want (or you should be) as far as our government is concerned. People are not converted to Christ by government decree.
Maybe, but I doubt it. I do know, however that Ayn Rand was a drunken whore who sold materialism packaged for quasi-intellectual hedonists. Objectivism: the opiate of the ass’s.
Why yes, it was a cheap shot…
This is just idiotic. The internet is full of Anti-Christian quotes from Hitler. I suppose everytime he said something that shoots down you biggotry, its because Hitler was "drunk," right? You were aware, I'm sure that the man didn't drink, right? You're so fond of your searches. Do one. The facts are that Hitler did not practice as a Catholic, and it is impossible to life the life of Hitler and be a Catholic. The two are mutually exclusive. Now, there are politicians today who call themselves Catholics for political reasons. Might win them some votes. Doesn't make them Catholic. Hitler never spoke about his own Catholicism, lived in sin with a woman to whom he was not married, and eventually comitted suicide. Forgetting the Holocaust for a moment, all of those actions are consistent with personal excommunication, for which there is precedent.
First you complain because I've got no source. Now you complain because I spend a lot of time I could put to better uses chasing down sources, you, self-acknowledged expert on this subject that you are, can't be bothered about. Make up your mind.
Papal Infallability was redifined in 1870. Go to your favorite website Catholic Encyclopedia and tell us about it.
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