Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Draws New Attacks and Support

NewsMax.com ^ | 6/25/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

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Without having seen the movie, Anti-Defamation League of America continues to insist that Mel Gibson's "The Passion" could be "replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism."

ADL admitted Tuesday that its complaint was based on a study of an early version of the screenplay. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has apologized to Gibson for making similar attacks based on the stolen draft, which later underwent many revisions.

ADL stated that director and co-writer Gibson and his colleagues "must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as 'The Passion' could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews."

Gibson earlier stated: "To be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic. Nor do I hate anybody - certainly not the Jews."

ADL spokesman Myrna Shinbaum said the group issued its first official public statement on the subject Tuesday in response to repeated inquiries from the media.

'We Haven't Seen It,' but ...

"When these kind of issues are raised and we feel concern, we speak out even before the film has been made," she said. "We haven't seen it yet, so we can't speak to the film itself.

Catholic League president William Donohue today issued a response to ADL:

"In its news release of June 24, the ADL seriously misrepresented the position of the Catholic bishops regarding ‘The Passion.’ It said that it had ‘joined with the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in April, 2003 to assemble Jewish and Catholic scholars to evaluate an early version of the movie’s screenplay.’ It then said it welcomed the remarks by the Catholic scholars. But what it didn’t say is telling.

"The ADL did not say that the Catholic panel was unauthorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Nor did it say that the USCCB has since apologized to Mel Gibson for reviewing a movie it hasn’t seen. Nor did it say that the script was stolen. Nor did it say that both the ADL and the USCCB have returned the stolen screenplay to Gibson’s Icon Productions.

"One person who has seen the movie, and has translated it into Aramaic and Latin, is Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, a National Endowment for the Humanities professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University. He not only insists that the ADL has nothing to worry about — ‘there is no hint of deicide’ — he also says that the specific concerns raised by the ADL are baseless. Is there brutality in the film? Yes. Indeed, it would be historically dishonest to portray the crucifixion in a non-violent manner.

"Every Sunday Catholics recite the 1,700-year-old Nicene Creed, and every time they do they mention that Jesus was ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate.’ They do not say Jesus was killed by the Romans. Nor do they say He was killed by the Jews. They individualize the guilt. That anti-Semitic Christians have sought to blame ‘the Jews’ deserves condemnation. But fairness dictates that Gibson not be put in that camp. As he has said, ‘Neither I nor my film is anti-Semitic.’ That’s good enough for the Catholic League and, we trust, for fair-minded Americans of every religion.”

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They want him to denounce his father. For starters. It never ends.