Well that didn't take long. Less than one week following the announcement that Australia would host the next World Youth Day, the arguments begin.
Posted on 08/25/2005 10:29:33 AM PDT by NYer
Some of the most vehement critics of Mel Gibson's blockbuster film "The Passion of the Christ" are trying to rain on Mel Gibson's parade.
As NewsMax.com reported August 6, Mel Gibson has been asked by Australia's Archbishop George Pell to recreate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the streets of Sydney during Pope Benedict XVI's visit there in 2008 - should that city be selected to host World Youth Day.
According to reports the crucifixion re-enactment - similar to scenes from Gibson's hugely successful film "The Passion of the Christ" - would begin with the Last Supper staged at Sydney's landmark Opera House at sunset, and would end with the crucifixion of Christ at St. Mary's Cathedral.
Pell's invitation to Mel Gibson has apparently enraged disgruntled dissident Catholics and others who were not so happy that Gibson produced the blockbuster film "The Passion of the Christ."
Many of these same critic are now staging a campaign against Gibson in Australia to stop him from creating a re-enactment of the crucifixion.
Warning that his group would drop plans to hold their annual conference in Sydney in 2007 if Gibson's parade goes ahead, Professor John Pawlikowski, president of the International Council of Christians and Jews said the invitation to Gibson is a serious issue for Christian-Jewish relations.
Pawlikowski claimed Gibson is contributing to the "the ever escalating crisis regarding Vatican II within contemporary Catholicism."
According to Australia's Age, Professor Pawlikowski, professor of social ethics at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a leading critic of Gibson's "The Passion" wrote in an e-mail published on the independent website Online Catholics that Cardinal Pell will be giving "affirmation as a Catholic hero before a global audience" to a person [Gibson] who "totally dissents" from the teaching of Vatican II.
His complaint was echoed by Sister of Sion Dr. Marianne Dacy, secretary of the Australian Council of Christians and Jews, who told Online Catholics there were "deep anxieties" in the local interfaith dialogue community.
"Mel Gibson cannot be allowed to be part of this Sydney event. It will be a severe body blow to the progress that has slowly been made in Christian-Jewish relations," Dr. Dacy said.
Mel Gibson, who grew up in Australia, has not said whether he would honor Cardinal Pell's request.
I have no problem with this except to say that it seems like a bizarre request.
Well that didn't take long. Less than one week following the announcement that Australia would host the next World Youth Day, the arguments begin.
Oxymoron-of the-day
I wonder what the angle for this anti-Christian protest going to be? Since the "Passion-Plays-are-notoriously-anti-Semitic-and-will-cause-mass-beatings-in-the-streets" was had no credibility after the Gibson's Film release, they'll have to find a new outrage.
Why would anyone want to watch an enactment of torture?
Are you a believer? If so, it seems a silly question to ask. If not, then I suppose an answer would be that to those of us who are believers in Christ, His sacrifice means more than can be expressed in words. You could ask the same of why anyone looks at photographs of friends no longer with around, or something along those lines.
Sorry, credibility has never mattered. Remember the Dem maxim: it's the seriousness of the charge that matters. Pilate asked "what is truth," and the left answers that it is whatever they want it to be. And the media support them, and the rest of the world believes what the media tell them.
I'm not a Christian, if that is what you mean. I still don't understand why you would want to watch torture. I understand looking at pictures of my grandparents while they were living, but surely not while they were dying or being tortured.
And still, no one can give an answer which doesn't require faith, and is accepted upon by all.
If they don't like it, they don't need to attend. If a recreation of an historical event is upsetting to people, I question how equiped they are do deal with reality.
Yes, that's what I meant. Hopefully I can explain it clearly. You look at pictures of your grandparets while they were alive because it helps you remember them and you generally feel better (though you may feel pangs of loss) after looking at them, yes? Ok, and of course they are pictures of them while they were alive (not tortured and dying).
It works along the same lines, but see, the difference is, when those of us who believe that Christ died for our sins, that He took every evil, every hurt, every sin of mankind upon Himself; that He made His suffering the payment for our salvation, when we look upon what He went through it can reinforce and humble us as to just what He endured out of sheer, perfect, yet undeserved love.
Of course we remember the Scriptures concerning the Sermon on the Mount, and the raising of Jairus' daughter, the miracles of loaves and fishes, etc. but those things all pale in comparison to the fact that after all that, after all the teaching, after He showed us how to live through His Word, He went that extra step and made Himself the sacrifice to, in God's eyes, right every wrong we had committed so that not only would we know how to live, but so we could actually go and live. He lived his Word when He said, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He offers Himself for us. Freely, willingly, selflessly.
Without Christ's Passion, without His undying love even unto the humiliation and pain He suffered, there is no hope. None.
Why watch a movie about a glorious battle in history where the good guys die to do what is right? To watch them suffer and die but get the job done? It crushes us to see them dying, but it lifts our spirits to see ordniary men called to do extraordinary things. Even as we watch them die, our hearts are lifted up.
Now how much more for the believer to see a depiction of the Lord Himself paying the price for us? We don't deserve this perfect love, but He gives it anyway.
It is the very idea that the Most High God would bring Himself so low as to become one of us and submit to the horrors He did submit to that give us reason to hope. Our minds can paint a picture of it, but nothing earthly is as vivid as seeing it depicted before your eyes.
In a nutshell, that is what it means to me. If it makes no sense, I understand, but that's how it is for me.
OK, I guess I understand how you feel, but at least I would have undeniable proof of what my grandparents did, and I would be able to show people.
Heck, they still spout that argument. It doesn't matter if there's truth or not, it's the allegation that matters.
That's been a 'stumbling block and foolishness' right from the beginning and not totally subject to rational explanation, according to St. Paul:
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
That is because you dont believe that he had to go through that pain and suffering for the atonement of our sins, and as God on Earth-it is the foundation of our faith as we believe he is our Messiah, and you, not a Christian, with no malice, are still waiting or dont believe at all
Why the church would after vatican II try to sanitize the Passion and rewrite the Holy words of St Jerome to appease those who dare call Catholics Anti semitic because those that took part and handed our Lord over for crucifixion dont like their place in history is sad and a desecration to his name and God on Earth.
Gee whiz, I bet Mel agrees with this teaching of Vatican II:
In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.
Dei Verbum
Maybe the good professor is referring to the teachings of the 'spirit' of Vatican II. Whoever that unnamed 'spirit' might be.
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29
I don't need to see special effects to understand the real "Passion" of Christ.
Ummmm, it's not a stumbling block to me, as my reply should show.
So your point is you won't take something on faith?
???
You are correct in your first paragraph, and I don't understand the second paragraph.
Who said anyone needed it? Don't twist my words.
My faith only goes as far as a belief in one God, for all things.
Ummm, ok. There IS only one God; Triune, yes, but one God nonetheless.
I do not understand Triune
Triune = Trinity
Try here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm
Hope it helps.
Right. But you are one of those called. To whom Christ crucified is the power and wisdom of God. (v 24)
My belief stops at the one God. It would seem that a belief in the Trinity is dependent on one's belief in the bible.
Mmmm, okay. Here's part of what those verses mean to me. Paul proclaims Christ crucified. To those seeking wisdom, Greeks using logic and rationality as the highest standard of judgement, this appears to be foolishness. To those who are called Christ crucified is the power and wisdom of God. The foolishness of God exceeds the wisdom of man.
Even pale images of this event such as Gibson's movie have an attraction that can't be explained on a solely rational level. The event itself and the images of it are, indeed, horrific. On a rational level, a normal person would not want to look at even cinematic illusions of torture and death. Or even think about it, or meditate on it. Or proclaim it to the world. St. Paul would probably agree with you completely, it doesn't make sense on purely rational level. It certainly took several unusual events to make Paul see things differently than he did when he was zealous for persecuting Christians.
This is not accurate. The Bible does not teach the Holy Trinity directly, although there are passages in it that validate that belief. The Church formed the concept of the Trinity over the course of several centuries, and in fact some trinitarian disputes persist to this day (Filioque).
You may not, but than again, you're not everyone are you?
OK...still not quite sure of what you are saying, but I gotta go for now.
Well, it seemed like that to me, after reading the article on the web. I will have to put myself among those that do not believe in it.
Father Pawlikowski's bio:
http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/AuthorBiosPhotos/JPawlikoswskiBio.htm
Truth should be something that actually happened, which in this case, it has not. There were no incidents of Christians going out beating up Jews.
In fact, in the movie, it is pretty obvious that it was both the politics of the Romans and the politics of the Jewish leaders that combined to end in the death of Jesus. If you have ever done the Stations of the Cross (don't know if you're Catholic or not), you'll know that they usually depict with Romans soldiers flogging Jesus, standing by the side and watching him fall, etc.
Mel Gibson's movie found both good Jews and good Romans, however, who objected to this being done to an innocent man; and the same is true in the Stations. Veronica, who comes forward to wipe the face of Jesus, is a Jew, moved to pity by this torture. Simon of Cyrene is a Jew, forced to carry the Cross by the Romans.
Hence, the liberals are not telling the truth, and there is no question about it. But for them, truth is what they say it is and what serves their ideology, objective reality be damned.
You don't have to see the face of Christ to believe, but certainly it helps us emotionall;y to see a representation of it. Even Protestant homes have such depictions on the wall, although the Bible does not give us a clue about his actual appearance.
If anyone really knew anything about history, the persecution of the Jews started with the Pharisies and Jews descriminating and punishing the "Jew Christians" as they were called and were later totally Excommunicated from all of Jewish life, as they at that time still worshipped in temples and the like.
St Stephen in 43AD being murdered at the hands of the Jews, Paul the Apostle was arrested in Jereselum by the Jews, turned over to the Romans who later executed him in Rome, and then the final break came when the Romans burnt and destroyed the Temple in 70AD, the Phrasies excommunicated all "Jew Christians" from being and living out the life of a Jew, and all "heretics" and a curse was prayed at the begining of every synagogue service on these "Jew Christians" from that point on.
That was when the "Jew Christians" realized they needed to start their own church, as up to that period that was never the real intention.
So , not to ever condone violence or hatred, this anti-semitic behavior is due to the actions of the Jews of the 1 through 3rd centuries who took pride in pointing out to the Romans where these "Christians" were so they could be turned over and killed.
I find the Stations of the Cross a far more emotional experience than the Gibson movie. I know I am in a minority here, but I didn't feel anything spiritual in the movie. Parts of it seemed comical - eg, Christ's pratfalls.
I bought the DVD expecting a deeply spiritual experience. I was totally disappointed.
If Pontius Pilate, A Roman could find no cause or reason to kill this innocent man, and "wiped his hands clean" of this mans blood, yes, Jesus was meant to die for all of mankinds sins, but it was his own who betrayed him (Was Judas not a Jew, and was it not the Phrasies (Jewish high priests) who paid Judas silver for turning him over? Rome was just the instrument for these high priests to get Jesus out of the way as they were rich and had the power and did not want it disrupted by anyone, and he was not their idea of what a "messiah" was to be.
Lets all get real and not try to be PC, the Bible is the Bible and you cant change history. I think by the Jewish people to continue to deny ANY involvement in the death of Our Lord just makes others get upset and angry
There's nothing "PC" about this. Gibson does not blame the Romans and absolve the Jews; he simply puts on screen what is recorded in the Gospels and what is part of Catholic art and iconography.
It's the libs who are trying to make it sound anti-Semitic. It wasn't, he was very accurate, and they have nothing to wail about. But that doesn't stop them.
Oh, here we go again. The ones blocking and damaging this progress are the ill-motivated, ill-informed so-called critics and opponents.
Not to stray too far but did either of you watch the live interview last night on EWTN Live, hosted by Fr. Mitch Pacwa with a forensic pathologist and authority on crucifixions?
Cool pics!
No I didnt NY'er
If you remember living down here on LI-we get overridden by Telicare which overides all of the great EWTN shows and replaces them with "God squad", "Our Muslim Neighbors", and various Latino Catholic shows, and then goes back to EWTN programming sometime around 10PM where sometimes with Gods grace I get to see Father Corapi who I would follow till either poles on the planet.
I agree-why bring up the Jewish Christian angle-it is the radical Jews and liberal Catholics who are the problem
Everyone else understands the roles we all played in History
Heck we as Christians have various parts of our history where we strayed and so did the Jews, for them to claim absolute impurity as it pertains to this actually justs hurts those Jewish radicals groups like Foxman who was saved by a Catholic family during WWII
Hatred and intolerance gets you no where, heck I am the first to admit when I make a mistake whether at work or at home.
Just the Way of the Cross, correct?
Didn't they do that in Toronto?
Ah, thanks, more can be found here:
www.red-december.net/madhatter/
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