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.
I cannot imagine a bigger display of MORAL DECAY, than for ANY of God's Shepards to sit with their thumbs up their butts while jewish mothers and children are being murdered in such creative ways as by tying their legs together while they are giving birth. If the world didn't collapse under the weight of that, it isn't in any such peril now.
The Gospel of John is the second-most quoted Gospel after Matthew, by anti-jewish bigots. It most definitely has been fueling anti-jewish sentiment and pogroms, since about 414ad. The doctrine of salvation through the crucifixion and resurrection features promenenly the rejection of jesus by his own people. That is an integral part of the Passion. It is also a fundamental claim of the Passion that you if you know OF jesus, and do not accept his has savior, you are condemned.
Yes or no? Are you saved if you know of jesus and do not accept him as savior?-- as orthodox jews cannot, if they wish to hold fast to the beliefs of their fathers in the essential unity and ineffability of God?
You said an in an earlier post that You and I guess other Jewish people you know are bitter?
I am not jewish, and I have not observed that my jewish friends are particularly bitter. I think they should be, but I haven't observed it.
that to me is playing the victim, because there is not one group of people in this world past and present that has not been afflicted by the evils of men, my opinion is there is no-one who suffered worse than Jesus Christ's crucifixcion and if he can forgive the world for what they had done to him than we also can learn to forgive that is truly THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE
A good parent does not forive an act of trespass until sufficient genuine contrition is observed. Painting big daubs of Jesus's Moral Whiteout over a steaming pustule of marginally repentant guilt is not my idea of a responsible christian act.
In the interests of consistency, then, you also condemn all Protestant, Mormon, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist leaders who did not condemn Hitler from "Mein Kampf" on, right?
Right. Having signed a Concordat to refrain from attempting to [get rid of Hitler], in return for, amongst other things, financial support for the church, several years earlier.
You mean the 1933 agreement under which the Vatican got out of politics in Germany in exchange for the right for the Church to operate at all in Germany?
It is unclear when the holocaust started. No one's claim that any particular landmark in time is the start is anything but wind. So, in your opinion, If I look, I won't be able to find pictures of catholic clergy toadying up to Hitler during the Wanasee conference? After Kristalnacht? Is it also your opinion that any act to encourage Hitler's programs directly before the holocaust have no bearing on the question?
I'm sure you could find pictures of individual members of the Catholic clergy doing all sorts of terrible things on a lot of occasions. This does not mean the Pius XII is responsible for the Holocaust.
Because "diplomats and heads of state" are not the Shepards of God's kindom on earth, and the self-appointed spokesmen for God's moral word. Would you be in favor of letting a serial killer go if he argued that there are other serial killers out there?
So any Catholic official who met with Hitler at any time is the moral equivalent of a serial killer? Please.
Your anti-Catholic agenda is as sad as it is obvious. In the face of Naziism, all sorts of people and organizations chose to cooperate rather than be destroyed, before and after the Holocaust. But when presented with evidence that Pius XII and the Catholic Church saved hundreds of thousands of Jews, all you can say is that they did not do enough. When presented with evidence that the Nazi's were themselves anti-Catholic, you say that Catholics "contributed" to anti-Semitism.
Hindsight is 20/20. One of the few leaders in the 1930's who saw the threat of Hitler was Pius XII, both before and after he became pope. That he helped save so many of those who were not even in his flock is worthy of admiration, not condemnation.
I've had enough of your hate and bigotry. I will pray for you.
None of this answers the specific chages brought in the references I gave you. The ferocity of the nazi reaction is not a measure of the specificity or tellingness of PIUS's remonstrances, which were, as changed, markedly non-specific as to measured catholic response, as compared to what he might have done or said. If you think otherwise, than kindly post your reference to PIUS XII's specific instructions to German catholic prelates, say, to send their birth and marriage records to Timbuctoo, or the nearest fireplace, instead of the SS. Said which, of course, would have been a violation of the Concordat's terms that the catholic germans stay out of politics.
None of this answers the specific chages brought in the references I gave you. The ferocity of the nazi reaction is not a measure of the specificity or tellingness of PIUS's remonstrances, which were, as changed, markedly non-specific as to measured catholic response, as compared to what he might have done or said. If you think otherwise, than kindly post your reference to PIUS XII's specific instructions to German catholic prelates, say, to send their birth and marriage records to Timbuctoo, or the nearest fireplace, instead of the SS. Said which, of course, would have been a violation of the Concordat's terms that the catholic germans stay out of politics.
But the Concordat was in fact a largely pragmatic and morally-defensible diplomatic measure to protect Catholics within Germany and to ensure the continuity and freedom of the German Catholic Church.
By taking Nazi money in return for an explicit promise to abstain from political activities in Germany.
From the vantage point of German Jews, it was morally defensible as well, since it was signed in July 1933, well before Hitler had begun to enact any of his anti-Semitic legislation or decrees. The widely recognized start of the Holocaust, Kristallnacht, didn't occur until 5 years later in November 1938.
March 22, 1933 - Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central Germany, Sachsenhausen near Berlin in northern Germany, and Ravensbrück for women. March 24, 1933 - German Parliament passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers. See also - The Rise of Hitler - from Unknown to Dictator of Germany April 1, 1933 - Nazis stage boycott of Jewish shops and businesses. April 11, 1933 - Nazis issue a decree defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan...especially if one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith." April 26, 1933 - The Gestapo is born, created by Hermann Göring in the German state of Prussia. May 10, 1933 - Burning of books in Berlin and throughout Germany. July 14, 1933 - Nazi Party is declared the only legal party in Germany; Also, Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship. In July - Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects. In Sept - Nazis establish Reich Chamber of Culture, then exclude Jews from the Arts. Sept 29, 1933 - Nazis prohibit Jews from owning land. Oct 4, 1933 - Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors. Nov 24, 1933 - Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps. 1934 Jan 24, 1934 - Jews are banned from the German Labor Front. May 17, 1934 - Jews not allowed national health insurance. June 30, 1934 - The Night of Long Knives occurs as Hitler, Göring and Himmler conduct a purge of the SA (storm trooper) leadership. July 20, 1934 - The SS (Schutzstaffel) is made an independent organization from the SA. July 22, 1934 - Jews are prohibited from getting legal qualifications.
Numerous respected historians including the Germans Heinz Hurten, Ludwig Volk, and Konrad Repgen, and the American Stewart Stehlin have marshaled considerable historical evidence in defense of the Concordat and of Pacellis role in negotiating it. Unfortunately, their work has gone largely uncited and undiscussed by most of the Popes most vociferous critics.
Than, by all means, please discuss them. How did an explicit agreement for the church to shut up about the jews help the jews?
The Concordat issue doesn't support the claims of anti-Catholics. Any others?
I'll repeat myself one more time. The Concordat was, amongst other things, an agreement for the catholic church to receive money from nazi's and shut up about political questions. Do you or Carroll, or anyone else think this somehow might have encouraged the Catholic party in germany to continue in existence? The centrists might very well have been feeble by the time of the Concordat, but if you believe that the forbidding catholic political action in germany by agreement is some sort of invigorating spur to the centrist catholic party, I'd like to hear your reasoning.
The Concordat issue doesn't support the claims of anti-Catholics.
In the eyes of catholic apologists.
I have mentioned the lutherens many times here, and as for the rest. Yes, I should also find them wanting, much as I agree that serial killers should be prosecuted, and children should be punished for stealing candy.
...Your hatred has driven you mad. You need help.
Seek help.
Listen to your self man! You have lost your mind! seek help!!!
You post lies, they are exposed and yet you persist, seek help!!!
Romans, of course--contrary to anything Matthew or John might have said. They were an occupying army with a keen interest in suppressing possible messiahs who might lead revolts. And they no doubt liked it very much when a vichy goverment like the Sanhedren deflected they ire of the populace away from the Romans. Jewish tradition does not support the Cross, it supports stoning. The cross was a roman invention of jurisprudence.
I'll repeat myself--an accurate quote does not a devastating argument make. Flapping your wings like a chicken with it's head cut off does not change this simple fact of rhetoric and logic.
You post lies, they are exposed and yet you persist, seek help!!!
Really? Have I misrepresented Matthew's words? Have I misrepresented the Docrine of Salvation? In what manner? Be specific.
Really? Carroll, Goldhagen and Zuccotti have been exposed as "anti-catholic hacks. That will come as quite a surprise to the NY Times and the Yale review of books. I don't suppose you have a slew of nationally reputable sources for this, other than from pro-catholic journals?
Romans, of course--contrary to anything Matthew or John might have said. They were an occupying army with a keen interest in suppressing possible messiahs who might lead revolts. And they no doubt liked it very much when a vichy goverment like the Sanhedren deflected they ire of the populace away from the Romans. Jewish tradition does not support the Cross, it supports stoning. The cross was a roman invention of jurisprudence.
I'm confident we can disregard Matthew, John, Luke and Mark and conclude that Jesus died in a car accident.
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