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.
...and the Pope did not officially discountenance it, in accord with the Protocols he engineered between the Holy See and Hitler, until xmas, 1942. No matter how many minor documents of little official presence, one might produce (and your allies here have produced a blizzard of them, in the hopes of papering over this central fact.).
Face it, even IF your quotes exist (links to them would be a nice change),
This will be the last time I'll do your homework for you lazy sots. Most people who participate in these arguments read at least enough of their opponents' argument to assess it before responding. http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=1013682%2C261http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=1013682%2C261#150
Too late for what? I think the war dragged on for a few more years. BTW, have you come up with any creditable sources for your fantasies yet? Face it, even IF your quotes exist (links to them would be a nice change),
This will be the last time I'll do your homework for you lazy sots. Most people who participate in these arguments read at least enough of their opponents' argument to assess it before responding.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1013682/posts?q=1&&page=101#150
Do you have some evidence that Bill Clinton wasn't, or isn't a christian? Do you drum every parisoner in your church out when they behave sinfully?
Am I to take it that your adverse opinion of a christian's behavior is the criteria for tossing them out of the church? Not exactly a detailed science, is it?
And since you have, shall we say, "moved away" from your "Pius the Silent" slur,
It is not a slur--it is an promenent historical fact that he engineered an agreement in the Accords to shut up. It might have been a clever way to save more jews--but you can't prove that, and I doubt it--but it most definitely wasn't a loud way to help the jews. A principled public stand, with the full formal weight of the church behind it, from the earliest moment, in a Germany chock full of practicing catholics, including catholic soldiers, doesn't sound so stupid to me.
can we now take it that you admit the numbers posted (around 800,000) are true?
Some scholars have reservations about exactly how many of those can be directly laid at PIUS's feet. It is pretty easy to give PIUS credit for most anything any catholic ever did for a jew. And the effort for his canonization has muddied the waters about this. But, sure, I'll give the point to you. 800,000 out of 6,000,000. All of whom perished, or survived, with the aid of catholic stealth.
PIUS was a good man who saved many jewish lives. I have assented to this so frequently on this thread my fingers are growing numb from it. That, however, is not the end of the story, despite my deponents' fervent desire that it be so.
"Worked in concert" means worked altogether toward the same goal. When some high officials of the church are helping to load boxcars heading for Auschwitz, and some are busy collating and stapling documents to help the SS track down jews, And some are signing away the rights of the moderate catholic centrist party in germany to exist, it is pretty hard for you to believably claim that "they were all working in concert", now isn't it?
I have here frequently acknowledged that the catholic church helped save a fraction of the jews it worked hard for 1400 years to put at risk. And I now do so once again, secure in the knowledge that there will be no responsible reciprocal response from catholicism's defenders cruising on automatic.
"we are all Semites spiritually" and ought to hold the Jewish people in high regard accordingly. Rabbi Lapide relates that shortly after his election, Pius reaffirmed: "It is impossible for a Catholic to be an anti-Semite; spiritually all of us are Semites."
Yes, the catholic church and it's august officers have always kissy-faced the jews, for all of the last 1400 years of the churches oppressive laws and rabble-rousing propaganda against the jews. Much as any officer of the inquisition would have sincerely said he tortured the bodies of the apostates for love of their souls.
"In 1941 when asked about proposed anti-Jewish laws in Vichy France, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews."
I've no doubt PIUS was a good man who saved lots of jews out of heartfelt need. I equally have no doubt, and the churches current and ancient documents, leave no room for doubt, that jews are not worthy, for fundamental doctrinal reasons, of the same moral regard as christians, and that PIUS XII was an accurate reflection of that fundamental, deeply incalcated and fatally expressed moral error in catholic doctrine that deeply contributed to the Holocaust.
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blhitler19.htm
http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/blhitler25.htm
Kristalnacht is widely taken to be the beginning of holocaust, many of the camps were operating long before the Wanasee Conference, or Kristalncht, and jews were being arrested for the sole crime of being jews, and sent to the camps promptly following Kristalnacht.
Apparently so. The 18th century runs from 1700 to 1799.
Oh, because he was the Shepard of God's Kingdom during the Holocaust, perhaps? The one man, if any, most chosen to call to question the immorality of vast institutions in the western world?
Bringing new meaning to the term "damning with faint praise".
The fact is, unlike the "officers of the inquisition", the support for the Jews in Mit was not contingent on their conversion, so your slap is, as usual, worthless.
I've no doubt PIUS was a good man who saved lots of jews out of heartfelt need.
Of COURSE you have doubt. You expressed it in post 28:
If you have that much trouble maintaining consistency in one thread, why should we believe anything you say?
As an aside, you continue to refer to the "accords" that Pius signed with Hitler as proof of his covert anti-semitism. It would have been difficult for him to sign the Concordant, however, considering he was not yet Pope.
It is also the same fluff the church has been putting out for 1400 years, while at the same time inventing forced ghetto-ization, yellow star armbands, and kidnapping jewish children to be raised catholic. "Mit" is generalized opposition to anti-semitism. It is NOT an unqualified excommunication of those who engaged in the holocaust. Like PIUS XII said--opposition to anti-semitism does NOT mean there can't be anti-jewish laws. The church is presently quite careful to draw a distinction between anti-jewish sentiment, which it owns up to, and anti-semitic sentiment, which it does not own up to. Hence, you can be opposed to anti-semitism, and still support anti-jewish laws--like those that made the holocaust legal, for example.
As an aside, I continue to refer to the accords, since he was the Pope's secretary, emmisary to the the talks, and principle architect of that document.
Of COURSE you have doubt. You expressed it in post 28:
Like most popes, he was a kindly disposed person, and the jewish problem vexed him to tears, and into saving a handful here and there If you have that much trouble maintaining consistency in one thread, why should we believe anything you say?
I've got news for you. When you save about one person in 10 who is slated to die, in no small measure, due to your institution's ancient actions and current inactions, you have saved a handful. Is this your evidence? Huh.
I see you keep coming back to the "1400 years" mantra. Since you cannot find anything specific to damn Pius with, you are forced to contiually dredge up the Church's past to beat him over the head with.
It doesn't say much for your argument.
Mit" is generalized opposition to anti-semitism. It is NOT an unqualified excommunication of those who engaged in the holocaust.
So why write it at all? The Vatican was already on the "right side" of the war, they didn't need it to brush up their credentials.
And you keep complaining that Nazis weren't excommunicated. What could that have possibly gained? You seem to be real big on useless pontificating. You must love the U.N.
As an aside, I continue to refer to the accords, since he was the Pope's secretary, emmisary to the the talks, and principle architect of that document
Here is what you said:
"despite having signed the concords with Pius the Silent"
If you get that simple fact wrong, or, worse yet, purposely misstate it to buttress your case, what else of all the unsourced bilge is wrong?
I've got news for you. When you save about one person in 10 who is slated to die, in no small measure, due to your institution's ancient actions and current inactions, you have saved a handful. Is this your evidence? Huh.
So now we have departed from "lots" back to merely "a handful"? Evidence? Yes, those are your words.
As you bounce around your allegations, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
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.
