Posted on 08/11/2003 7:11:59 PM PDT by ultima ratio
Christ Crucified
An update on the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s film— Passion
Mark Alessio
In July of 2003, Mel Gibson traveled throughout the country giving special screenings of a rough-cut of his new film, Passion, to select small audiences. A screening in Colorado Springs for a group of prominent evangelical leaders won Passion the unqualified support of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Ted Haggard, president of the NAE described the film as "a beautiful, wonderful account of the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ....consistent with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
The attendees for a special screening in Washington, DC included Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti, internet columnist Matt Drudge, novelist William Peter Blatty (author of The Exorcist) columnists Peggy Noonan, Cal Thomas and Kate O’Beirne, onetime labor secretary nominee Linda Chavez, and a number of politicians including White House staffer David Kuo, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. MPAA President Valenti commented: "This is a compelling piece of art. I just called Kirk Douglas and told him that this is the movie to beat." Matt Drudge, speaking to Pat Buchanan on MSNBC’s Buchanan & the Press, offered his reactions (as a Jewish viewer) to the film: “This is the ultimate film. It's magical. Best picture I have seen in quite some time, and even people like Jack Valenti were in the audience in tears at this screening.”
While in Washington, Mel Gibson visited the U.S. Bishop’s headquarters, where he spoke with the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops’ (USCCB) General Secretary Msgr. William P. Fay. According to Msgr. Fay, Gibson stopped by to make it clear that he held no animosity towards the USCCB over reports that the Conference had joined the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in condemning Passion after a stolen copy of an early draft of the script for Passion had been reviewed by a committee of five Jewish and four Catholic “scholars” and deemed “anti-Semitic.” When Gibson threatened to sue both the ADL and the USCCB over the matter, the USCCB apologized to him. “We regret the situation has occurred,” said USCCB General Counsel Mark Chopko, “and offer our apologies. I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the [bishops’ conference] will review it.”
MEET THE SCHOLARS
Most of the complaints about supposed “anti-Semitism” in Passion are based upon the findings of a group of scholars calling themselves the “Ad Hoc Scholars Group.” These are the nine individuals mentioned above who gained access to a stolen script for Passion. Four of these people are Catholic. A brief look at these Catholics will suffice to tell us why the ADL should put so much stock in their “scholarship”:
1) Dr. Mary C. Boys, SNJM Skinner & McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York.
Dr. Boys, one of the Catholics in the Group, is a signer of the 2002 document, “A Sacred Obligation: Rethinking Christian Faith in Relation to Judaism and the Jewish People” (a statement by the Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations). This ‘Statement’ begins with the declaration that, “since its inception in 1969, the Christian Scholars Group has been seeking to develop more adequate Christian theologies of the church’s relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people.” A few simple statements from this document reveal the treacherous agenda of this “Christian Scholars Group”):
- “For centuries Christians claimed that their covenant with God replaced or superseded the Jewish covenant. We renounce this claim.”
- “Jesus of Nazareth lived and died as a faithful Jew.”
- “With their recent realization that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is eternal, Christians can now recognize in the Jewish tradition the redemptive power of God at work. If Jews, who do not share our faith in Christ, are in a saving covenant with God, then Christians need new ways of understanding the universal significance of Christ.”
- “Christians should not target Jews for conversion.”
- “We affirm the importance of the land of Israel for the life of the Jewish people.”
It is ironic that this document is entitled “A Sacred Obligation,” for the stated intent of this “Christian Scholars Group” is an outright rejection of the only “sacred obligation” that really matters, the clear mandate of the Incarnate God Himself to “teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Mt. 28:19-20).” Notice also how His redemptive death is subordinated to the fact that He “died as a faithful Jew.” Note also the politicization of a theological matter with the introduction of present-day Israel into the equation. I have dwelt a bit on this document because other members of the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee” also attached their signatures to it.
It is clear that Dr. Boys does not believe the books of the New Testament to be inspired texts. In an article entitled Theology’s "Sacred Obligation": A Reply to Cardinal Dulles (from America, Oct. 14, 2002), Dr. Boys, along with Dr. Philip A. Cunningham and Dr. John Pawlikowski (who are also members of the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee”) makes the following observations:
"Thus, we are troubled by Cardinal Dulles’ assertion that the Letter to the Hebrews offers 'the most formal statement of the status of the Sinai Covenant under Christianity.' Without further analysis, he quotes Hebrews: The 'first covenant is "obsolete" and "ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:13).' Christ '"abolishes the first [covenant] in order to establish the second" (Heb. 10:9).' Cardinal Dulles implies that Catholics believe that God’s covenant with the people of Israel is obsolete.
"In contrast, we argue that official Catholic teaching today has, in the 1993 PBC [Pontifical Biblical Commission] formulation, 'gone its own way' and 'set aside' the opinion of the author of Hebrews about Israel’s covenant. As 'Reflections' notes, Pope John Paul II has on many occasions declared that Jews are 'the people of God of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God,' 'the present-day people of the covenant concluded with Moses,' and 'partners in a covenant of eternal love which was never revoked.'"
We cannot but notice with disdain the phrase “the opinion of the author of Hebrews about Israel’s covenant.” So, the truths preserved in the New Testament are mere opinions? It appears that three out of the four Catholic scholars who make-up the “Ad Hoc Commission” which condemned the stolen Passion script believe that the texts of the New Testament are not inspired by the Holy Ghost, but are merely human ramblings packed with erroneous opinions.
Sister Boys is quoted in The Jewish Week as saying about Mel Gibson: “As a member of the Catholic Church, I regard [his] thinking as bizarre and dangerous, and suggest that Jews judge them similarly. We seem to have at best fringe Catholics [if not heretical] with...a tragically twisted understanding of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. It is compounded by the arrogance great wealth makes possible in producing a film that will reopen wounds of history.” And just what is this “bizarre and dangerous” thinking? – it embraces a love for the pre-conciliar Church, a love for the Latin Mass, a commitment to authentic doctrine and a belief in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. As a “Catholic,” Sister Boys finds such ideas abhorrent!
2) Dr. Philip A. Cunningham, Executive Director, Adjunct Professor of Theology, Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
In an online discussion posted by The Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies, Dr. Cunningham, another Catholic on the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee,” made these observations:
To this day Rabbinic Judaism continues that covenantal living, perceiving its requirements and gifts and dynamics with the aid of the texts of the Talmud and other rabbinic writings. In this approach, Christianity entered into the covenantal way-of-being with God because of the life of a specific son of the Covenant, whom the Church perceives as the Crucified and Raised One living in its midst. It patterns its grasp of the requirements and gifts and dynamics of covenantal living on the example of Jesus Christ.
Christianity cannot tell its story without reference to Jews. This is because it was through one particular Jew that the Church's life with the covenanting God of Israel came about. On the other hand, I wonder if it is really true, or must always be true, that Judaism does not need to refer to Christianity to tell its story. The story of the Christian oppression of Jews until very recently has affected both communities, and both have defined some of their religious ideas in response to the other's claims. Can the whole story of the Jewish religious experience really be told without reference to this admittedly negative Christian influence? More positively, there is also the question of Judaism's obligation to be a light to the nations, a duty Christians have as well.
Note that, according to Cunningham, Jesus Christ is “one particular Jew .... a specific son of the Covenant,” but that the Church only “perceives [Him] as the Crucified and Raised One living in its midst.” The surety and conviction are given to Our Lord’s Jewish identity, while His Divinity is merely a “perception” on the part of Christians. A very, very odd mode of expression for a Catholic, one would think. Also, Cunningham asks the question, Can the whole story of the Jewish religious experience really be told without reference to this admittedly negative Christian influence? Again, an odd question coming from a professed Catholic. Cunningham speaks of a negative Christian influence. If he must speak of any “Christian influence” on Judaism at all, should he not rather point out that the Jewish religious experience will find its fulfillment and completion only in Catholicism – i.e., in the fact that the prophecies and types of the Old Testament were and are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother and His Church?
Dr. Cunningham is also a signer, along with Dr. Mary Boys and Dr. John Pawlikowski, of Theology’s "Sacred Obligation": A Reply to Cardinal Dulles, cited above, in which the inspired Letter to the Hebrews is referred to as nothing but erroneous opinion. We should not be surprised, then, to find Dr. Cunningham’s name listed in an October, 2001 panel discussion at the Newton Free Library in Massachusetts along with that of David I. Kertzer, author of “The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism.” The Newton Library describes this book as “a groundbreaking historical study based on documents previously locked in the Vatican’s secret archives which graphically shows how the Catholic Church helped make the Holocaust possible.”
In an article from The Jewish Week, Cunningham is quoted a saying: “It is impossible to do a film based strictly on the Gospels because they disagree with one another on some essential details. Was Jesus crucified on Passover or on the day of preparation? Was there a morning hearing before Temple authorities or not?” Strange, is it not, that two millennia of inspired Catholic theologians and historians should have failed to note such obstacles to a “strict” representation of the events chronicled by the Evangelists!
Cunningham also says that, should Gibson’s film fail to correspond to the recent revisionist Scriptural exegeses coming out of Rome, “I would anticipate a clear and explicit criticism of it from the Catholic magisterium throughout the world. It would also certainly demand a strong response from all Christians committed to Jewish-Christian rapprochement.”
Just what is this “recent revisionist Scriptural exegeses coming out of Rome?“ It has been codified in the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s (PBC) document, authorized by Cardinal Ratzinger, entitled The Jewish People and the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Bible. The main thrust of this scandalous document was summarized by papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls: "The expectancy of the Messiah was in the Old Testament and if the Old Testament keeps its value, then it keeps that as a value, too. It says you cannot just say all the Jews are wrong and we are right. It means it would be wrong for a Catholic to wait for the (first coming of the) Messiah, but not for a Jew."
3) Dr. John T. Pawlikowski, OSM Prof. of Social Ethics, Catholic-Jewish Studies Director, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. A Servite, Fr. Pawlikowski is also a member of the Bishops' Advisory Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations and since 1980 a member by presidential appointment of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Concerning Passion, Father Pawlikowski is quoted in The Jewish Week as saying that he is “naturally quite upset at the prospect of this film. ... Those who might see the film without much or any background in recent biblical interpretation will be terribly misled.” Naturally upset? Perhaps Father is unusually prone to anxiety. And just what sort of “recent biblical interpretation” does he deem necessary in order to properly ‘get’ the story of the Passion? It should come as no surprise to readers at this point. Let us first recall that Pawlikowski is a signer, along with Sister Boys and Dr. Cunningham, of Theology’s "Sacred Obligation": A Reply to Cardinal Dulles. Therefore, he believes that the New Testament is fraught with human error and opinion. It seems, then, that Fr. Pawlikowski is afraid that people who accept the Gospel accounts as inspired and factual will be “terribly misled.”
In a 2002 book review of David I. Kertzer’s “The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism,” written for The National Catholic Reporter, Fr. Pawlikowski makes these revealing observations:
"Nor does he [Kertzer] fully understand the theology of the church that is present within the document [i.e., We Remember: Reflections on the Shoah, a 1998 document presented by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews]. While Cassidy's interpretation of "We Remember" does not fully answer Kertzer's or my criticisms, it certainly does move us in the direction of a closer connection between traditional Catholic and modern forms of anti-Semitism.
"The main thrust of The Popes Against the Jews is the argument that the profound inability of the popes and other Vatican leaders to deal with the challenge of political and cultural modernity in Europe led to an active campaign, often employing classic Christian anti-Semitic themes and activities, against the Jews who were seen as significant proponents of modernism and liberalism, often referred to as Freemasonry. Here Kertzer is on solid ground in my judgment, even if one might disagree with this or that particular point.
"Catholicism's 100 years war with modernity, led by the popes whose administrations Kertzer examines in this volume, came to an end only at the Second Vatican Council....The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called for total honesty in dealing with church history in such matters. Kertzer's volume should help the church confront its shadow side more profoundly than it has. Only in this way can it retain moral integrity today."
How many readers are aware that there are traditional Catholic forms of anti-Semitism? Or classic Christian anti-Semitic themes and activities against the Jews? Remember, this is a priest writing this drivel. We could hope, of course, that in a society sinking ever more quickly into the pits of spiritual, moral and physical self-destruction, a Catholic priest would be impassioned about the Sacraments, about announcing the glorious news that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and offers forgiveness of sins to ALL who ask it with sincerity. We could hope that a Catholic priest would steer anyone within the sound of his voice towards Our Lady, that she may present suffering men and women to her Son. We could even desire that a Catholic priest proclaim the Catholic Church as the Ark of Salvation, and invite all to nourish themselves under her maternal care.
But, Fr. Pawlikowski seems more intent on helping the Church confront its shadow side more profoundly than it has. Shades of Harry Potter! When priests start using phrases such as traditional Catholic forms of anti-Semitism or classic Christian anti-Semitic themes and activities against the Jews, things are in a bad way indeed.
4) Rev. Dr. Lawrence E. Frizzell, Director, Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Seton Hall University, East Orange, NJ.
An “IRC (Information Resource Center) Alert,” dated January/February 2003, appears on the U.S. Embassy homepage, a website maintained by the Office of the Public Affairs in Islamabad. A list of articles on “Environmental Issues” is presented, including one entitled Inter-Religious Dialogue in Global Perspective by Lawrence E. Frizzell (Seton Hall School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Winter/Spring 2002, Vol. 111). The synopsis for this article contains the following statements:
"In past ages, there has been a propensity for each culture or religion to assume that it embodied the best in every aspect of the human order. There is no longer excuse for such narrowness spawned of ignorance to dominate the thinking of educated people....An honest exchange of ideas, wherein each party is willing to listen, is the model which should replace the tendencies of the strong to impose their will on others."
Frizzell believes it to be a “narrowness spawned of ignorance” for one religion to assume that it “embodied the best in every aspect of the human order.” This is a very interesting thing for a Catholic priest to say in light of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (On the Feast of Christ the King), delivered in the year 1925. Here, Pius XI reminded the world that the Catholic Church was “founded by Christ as a perfect society.” His impassioned descriptions of a world governed by Christ cannot fail to spark the truly Catholic imagination:
If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth .... Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ!
If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them.
Such authentic Christian sentiments are anathema to the proponents of false ecumenism, particularly to those who engage in “Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” where one party “professes” Christ (though with much embarrassment and twisting of doctrine and history), while the other has absolutely NO use for Him whatsoever.
Dr. Frizzell makes a perfect “fourth” to the Catholic contingent of the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Scholars Group.” His three associates evince a certain unmistakable contempt for the mandates of Jesus Christ, the Church He founded and the Evangelists who have left us the story of His life. They feel that they must rewrite the Scriptures, lest their friendship with Jewish opponents of the Church be put in jeopardy. Frizzell is as eager as anyone to question the integrity of the Evangelists and dismantle the perennial teachings of the Church in the name of “friendship” with those who deny the Divinity of our Redeemer. In an unpublished 1977 manuscript , he stated this concerning the “Reproaches Against the Jews” contained in the traditional Good Friday liturgy:
The Reproaches are not central to the Good Friday liturgy and can be replaced by other hymns. An alternative would be an introduction which stresses that we associate our sins and those of our generation with the failures of past generations both in the Church and in ancient Israel.
What is the new function of the Good Friday liturgy, then? It should “associate our sins” [?] and “those of our generation” [??] with the failures of past generations “both in the Church and in ancient Israel.” Apparently, contemporary Israel and modern-day Judaism are impeccable! No sins there to be sorry about.
These four “Catholic” scholars -- Boys, Cunningham, Pawlikowski and Frizzell -- presented their opinions on the stolen script of Passion (denying, of course, any knowledge that they were dealing with an unauthorized manuscript) in a document entitled Dramatizing the Death of Jesus: Issues that Have Surfaced in Media Reports about the Upcoming Film, The Passion. They therein pronounce:
Other media reports have implied that our assessment was based on personal exegetical theories or idiosyncratic views of biblical interpretation or history. This characterization is totally false. Our evaluation was founded upon magisterial teaching documents of the Catholic Church, which were extensively quoted in a four page appendix in our eighteen-page confidential evaluation. Suggestions that our criteria for evaluating the screenplay were not authoritative Catholic teaching compromise the magisterium's absolute rejection of the long-lived "Christ-killers" libel against Jews, a rejection enshrined in the Second Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate and subsequent Vatican and episcopal conference documents.
For scholars who seem eager to trumpet their doctrinal theories, these four seem convinced that the Catholic “magisterium” only became fully functional and self-aware with “Nostra Aetate and subsequent Vatican and episcopal conference documents.” As can only be expected, they also take the opportunity in their document to bash the mystic, Ven. Catherine Anne Emmerich, from whose writings, along with those of Ven. Maria of Agreda, Gibson drew inspiration (one can only wonder with what hysteria the anti-Gibson scholars welcomed the news, reported by Zenit on July 29, 2003, that “the Church's recent recognition of a miracle has opened the doors to beatification for Anna Katharina Emmerick, a stigmatist and mystic whose written experience of Christ's life affects Christians today”!). But, of course, the target of choice for our “Catholic” scholars remains the Gospels themselves:
One cannot assume that by simply conforming to the New Testament that antisemitism will not be promoted. After all, for centuries sermons and passion plays based on the New Testament have incited Christian animosity and violence toward Jews. This history prompted Pope John Paul II to pray publicly for God's forgiveness for such Christian wrongdoing.
How today’s “theologians” love to grovel! Considering that this document is entitled Dramatizing the Death of Jesus, there is nothing in it which gives any iota of an appreciation of this salvific death. There is no sense of the awesome wonder of God becoming Man and suffering His Passion out of Divine love for suffering humanity. There is no sense of gratitude for this Supreme Sacrifice. There is no passion (no pun intended) in their words when they speak of Suffering of our Redeemer. After a series of unimportant questions based on Gospel events and their possible depiction on film are set forth, the document closes thusly, with yet another reminder of how stupid and brutish were all those poor Catholics who had the misfortune to live before the New Springtime of the Second Vatican Council:
"These and other such questions must be asked to assess whether any dramatic presentation of the death of Jesus conforms to official Catholic teaching. They are all based upon numerous official documents, most specifically, the U.S. Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion (1988). These documents are not private or personal exegetical theories, but official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. In this era, when ancient Christian antisemitic motifs are being recirculated widely because of international conflicts, any Christian producer of a dramatic presentation of the death of Jesus has a considerable moral responsibility."
Yes, our “scholars” are very concerned about “official” Church teaching, if only those of a recent, non-infallible vintage, yet they are curiously unconcerned about the Person of Jesus Christ, His teachings, commands and redemptive death on Calvary. As for the Church whose “official” teachings they claim to adhere to? It appears that the only sentiment they, as well as their Jewish colleagues, can muster for her is a type of barely-restrained contempt for the breeding ground of such “ancient Christian antisemitic motifs.”
PILATE & HEROD TOGETHER AGAIN
The May 30, 2003 edition of Zenit News states the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee” was assembled by Dr. Eugene Fisher, Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and
Rabbi Eugene Korn, National Director of Interfaith Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League and Adjunct Professor of Jewish Thought at Seton Hall University. What great insight into the truths of Sacred Scripture marks these two men? Here is the “Catholic” Eugene Fisher on the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism:
If you put off the moment that Jews will come to recognize Jesus as the Messiah until the end of time, then we don’t need to work or pray for the conversion of Jews to Christianity. God already has the salvation of Jews figured out, and they accepted it on Sinai, so they are OK.
Jews are already with the Father. We do not have a mission to the Jews, but only a mission with the Jews to the world. The Catholic Church will never again sanction an organization devoted to the conversion of the Jews. That is over, on doctrinal, biblical and pastoral grounds. Finito.
And what of Rabbi Eugene Korn? In a presentation entitled One God, Many Faiths: A Jewish Theology of Covenantal Pluralism (Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, Boston College, March 13, 2003), the ADL’s Korn had the effrontery to compare the Catholic Church to paganism, Marxism, Enlightenment rationalism and Islam:
"Thus, 'extra ecclesium nulla salus.' (There is no salvation outside the Church.) The Church transformed the particular covenant into a universal mission, and entrance into the church became a prerequisite for acceptance, validity, dignity and salvation. The Catholic Church was not the only body that strove to universalize. Plato’s ghost also haunted Enlightenment rationalists, Marxists and dominates today’s traditional Islamic believers. All strove or strive to bring the world into their ideological or theological orbit and assert their universal Truth."
It is very, very interesting to find two men, one a “Catholic,” the other a Jew, both condemning the very words of Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me (Jn. 14:6) .... Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Mt. 28:19).” In some ways, is this not a modern recapitulation of another “friendship,” one that is mentioned in the Gospels, one that also was founded upon a denial of the claims of Christ?
"And the chief priests and the scribes stood by, earnestly accusing Him. And Herod with his army set Him at naught and mocked Him, putting on Him a white garment: and sent Him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate were made friends, that same day: for before they were enemies one to another." (Lk. 23:10-12)
Is it any wonder that these two “experts” are responsible for selecting the five Jewish and four “Catholic” members of the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee” – or should we say “anti-Church” committee?
Space does not permit a look at the five Jewish members of the anti-Gibson “Ad Hoc Committee,” but they are likewise deeply involved in that false “Christian-Jewish” ecumenism which seeks to undermine the Truth of Jesus Christ as Savior, while growing fat on an unending campaign to disgrace the doctrinal patrimony of Roman Catholicism. Suffice it to say that one of these Jewish scholars, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, author of the Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, describes herself as a "Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant seminary in the buckle of the Bible Belt." The Vanderbilt University Divinity School website states the Levine “conjoins historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to exposing and expunging anti-Jewish, sexist, and heterosexist theologies.”
In a 2001 article in Moment, a magazine described as “a conversation on Jewish culture, politics and religion,” we read that Dr. Levine conducts a rather melodramatic ritual for her students:
"Meanwhile in Nashville, Tenn., Levine, afflicted with the resoluteness of a Jewish mother as well as that of a scholar, once a year stands her young son, in kippah [yarmulke] and tzitzit [the fringes or tassels worn on traditional or ceremonial garments by Jewish males], at the front of the classroom before her seminary students. 'Don’t ever say anything that would hurt this child,' she tells the future pastors, 'and don’t ever say anything that would cause a member of your congregation to hurt this child.'"
If a Christian scholar stood before a classroom full of rabbinical students holding a Crucifix and saying, “our sins caused the suffering of the Living God,” it would probably be splashed on the front-pages as an “intolerance attack” equal in fury to the one inflicted at Pearl Harbor. Just what should Levine’s students avoid saying that can “hurt this child?” Should they refuse to quote from the Gospels? Deny the divinity of Jesus Christ? Forget about the Supreme Sacrifice of Calvary? All of the above?
Another one of the “Ad Hoc Committee” Jewish scholars is Dr. Paula Fredriksen, whose book Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity is predicated on the assumption that the Gospels are unreliable source material for the life of Jesus and that the early disciples merely imagined that they saw the Resurrected Christ in their midst. “We already knew,” writes Fredriksen in The New Republic, “that Gibson's efforts to be ‘as truthful as possible’ (his own words in the Times) would be frustrated by the best sources that he had to draw on, namely, the Gospels themselves.”
In addition, Dr. Fredriksen definitely wins the “Paranoia Award” for this statement concerning Passion: “When violence breaks out, Mel Gibson will have a much higher authority than professors and bishops to answer to." In one fell swoop, Fredriksen paints Christians as violent brutes and predicts anti-Jewish riots because of Passion, while moving Gibson’s “hate-crime trial” from the musings of the terrestrial media to the Celestial Court itself! But could we hope to expect more from a “scholar” who has dedicated so much of her life to the “study” of Jesus Christ, yet whose heart has never been moved to believe in Him?
“THE TRUTH WILL OUT!”
As stated above, the USCCB (threatened with a lawsuit) did apologize to Mel Gibson for the “situation” – i.e., for the unwarranted condemnation of his film, a condemnation begun even before the project finished shooting! The “Ad Hoc Scholars Committee” declared that it was their understanding “from the outset of our review of the script that our report did not represent an official statement of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, nor was it ever represented as such.”
Not surprisingly, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) remains unrepentant. The July 22, 2003 edition of New York Newsday noted that “The Catholic Conference backed down. But the ADL denied any illegality and has stood by its criticisms.” Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, and one of the first to jump on the Gibson-bashing bandwagon, said of the story of the Passion: "This is a story for which millions of people throughout history paid with their lives. They were burned at the stake, killed in pogroms and the Inquisition, and it was also these ideas that served as the foundation of the Holocaust." Heir also suggests that Gibson could have helped his own cause had he only issued a public statement to the effect of: “You know, in view of comments that have been made [by his father, Hutton Gibson], I believe the Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies visited upon humankind.” One can almost hear the echo of an ancient voice saying: “Burn incense to Caesar and the gods, Christian, and all will well!”
As noted above, there is one obvious and crucial element missing in all the analyses and observations made by the “Ad Hoc Scholars.” This is, quite simply, any sense of awe and mystery in the face of God becoming Man and dying for a sinful humanity, as well as any sense of affection, of gratitude, of humility before this Supreme act of Divine Love. Instead, all the minutiae and detail of the Passion narrative have become “problems.” And thus, the Gospels must be twisted, doubted and all but ignored, lest anyone become upset with the simple Truth. The greatest event that Creation has ever witnessed, or will ever witness, the Sacrifice of God Incarnate for his undeserving creatures, is not spoken of as though it were a real, and critical, event – nothing less than the turning-point of all history – but as a literary scenario to be interpreted and staged, not unlike “The Merchant of Venice.” True, one could not expect more from the Jewish members of the “Ad Hoc Scholars Group.” To them, Christ is a curiosity at best, and an enemy at worst. But it is regrettable to see where the sympathies of the “Catholic” scholars truly lie.
It is obvious that the attacks on Passion are insincere ones. All the critiques of the film made thus far cannot be critiques of this particular film – for the critics have yet to SEE the film! No, all the assaults hurled at Mel Gibson and Passion are not-too-thinly disguised assaults on the Gospels, the Saints who wrote them, and the Church which venerates them. The enemies of Truth are vigilant, and they are not given to squandering opportunities. The announcement of a film about the Passion of Christ was too good an opportunity for these people to pass up. Hence, the continual, malevolent attacks of the past year. Paul Lauer, Mel Gibson's publicist, has let us know that Gibson and his people are not unaware of the true nature of the attacks on his film. "Are some people going to make the argument for anti-Semitism,” asks Lauer. "Maybe. But to do that, they would have to call the New Testament Gospels anti-Semitic, which as you know, some people do.”
In addition, the attacks against Mel Gibson and Passion are attacks against Traditional Catholicism, against the pre-conciliar “Church Militant.” So many of the critiques of Passion, with their incessant references to the Second Vatican Council and the alleged “hate crimes” of the Church of our forefathers, read like desperate propaganda, like tracts whose ultimate aim is to prevent or, at least, discourage, any possible resurgence of a true Catholic sensibility among those still calling themselves “Catholic” today. In every article which mentions Gibson’s Traditional Catholicism, the facts are deliberately distorted to paint Traditionalists as an unstable, perhaps dangerous, “lunatic fringe.” This is no coincidence.
These “reviews” of a yet-to-be-released film are nothing more than a series of self-serving attempts to browbeat Gibson and any Catholics who may agree with him into compromising his Catholic convictions. In fact, in an article published by Dr. Paula Fredriksen in The New Republic, the “Ad Hoc Scholar” readily admits that it is the Catholicism of Gibson’s project that irks her so :
That script [i.e. the stolen draft]—and, on the evidence, the film—presents neither a true rendition of the Gospel stories nor a historically accurate account of what could have happened in Jerusalem, on Passover, when Pilate was prefect and Caiaphas was high priest. Instead Gibson will apparently release what Christopher Noxon, in his article for the Times, had correctly described already in March: "a big-budget dramatization of key points of traditionalist theology." The true historical framing of Gibson's script is neither early first century Judea (where Jesus of Nazareth died) nor the late first-century Mediterranean diaspora (where the evangelists composed their Gospels). It is post-medieval Roman Catholic Europe. Fulco [i.e., Fr. William Fulco SJ, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and Gibson's advisor for the film] could have spared himself a lot of trouble and just put the entire script into Latin. Not pagan Roman Latin, but Christian Roman Latin. For that is the true language of Gibson's story.
The truth will out! The implication here is that a Traditionalist Catholic is incapable of telling an accurate account of the life and death of Jesus Christ because such a person will base that account on a belief in the inerrancy of the Gospels and on Catholic Scriptural exegesis -- i.e., on his own Catholicity! Such outright contempt for the Church and her patrimony of scriptural and doctrinal teachings does not seem to faze Fredriksen’s “Catholic” counterparts in the least.
Incidentally, just how far does Dr. Fredriksen’s contempt for the Catholic dimension of Passion go? She wrote:
"Finally, details of the film as reviewed by the insider-fan on June 26 conform exactly, alas, to what we had seen in the script. Satan inciting the executioners at their task; "a vicious riot of frenzied hatred between Romans and Jews with the Savior (en route to Golgotha) on the ground in the middle of it getting it from both sides"; the post-crucifixion Mary-and-Jesus pieta--no such scenes exist in the Gospels. But they are all in the screenplay that we saw."
One of the details which – alas! as the scholar laments – troubles Fredriksen is the “post-crucifixion Mary-and-Jesus pieta.” Even the depiction of the Sorrowful Mother and the dead Savior are too “Christian Roman,” too Catholic, for this expert of the “Ad Hoc Scholars Committee!” One would hope that a scholar of Christian themes would appreciate the difference between Catholic “tradition” and the errors of “sola scriptura.” But, no – I mean, alas! – even Our Blessed Mother must be the subject of this individual’s rancor.
I will close with an important, but very politically-incorrect point. We hear much about the heinous crime of “Holocaust-denial.” Such a phrase is even applied to those who, although not denying the event, still maintain that, as a historical subject, it is open to continual critical study. Without making any judgments on the matter, it must be remarked that this mindset, in effect, carries a historical event into the realm of “dogma,” where the “Holocaust-denier” is the modern-day, secular equivalent of the doctrinal heretic. In fact, the ADL website features a section entitled Holocaust Denial: An Online Guide to Exposing and Combating Anti-Semitic Propaganda. Here, we read the following:
"The denier strategy is simple and familiar. They distort, even fabricate, history and then broadcast their creations. They have learned from Hitler that 'a lie is believed because of the insolent inflexibility with which it is propagated.' Smith and his cohorts are engaged in what historian Deborah Lipstadt has termed an 'assault on truth and memory.'"
So, apparently there is a “denier strategy.” It is an assault on truth and memory by those who would presume to distort, even fabricate, history and then broadcast their creations. Is this not what both Catholic and Jewish “scholars” are doing through their false teachings that the Gospels are not the inspired Word of God? They demand that faithful Catholics reject the accounts of the life and death of Jesus Christ preserved in the Gospels, in favor of new and agenda-riddled interpretations of such. It is forbidden to question the historical particulars of the “Holocaust.” Yet it is perfectly acceptable to question the very basis of our faith in Jesus Christ and His Church? What is wrong with this picture?
In his book, The Kingship of Christ According to the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas (1931), Rev. Denis Fahey (a man much maligned by the “ecumaniacs”) made this critical observation on the very nature of human history:
"We Catholics know that Our Lord Crucified and Risen from the dead is the center of the world, center and culmination-point, too, for in Him and through Him, humanity is linked with God. The hillock of Calvary is really and truly (if the metaphor may be allowed) the watershed of the world’s history. The human race moves on down to Calvary and from Calvary onwards, dividing at the foot of the Cross, according as men accept or reject the Divinity of Him Who died there on the first Good Friday."
If there can be “Holocaust-deniers”, then why can there not be also “Christ-deniers?” So, let us ask the Jewish scholars of the “Ad Hoc Committee”: If you were planning to produce a film about the “Holocaust,” would you allow an avowed “Holocaust-denier” to have any input into the script? Would you seek his advice and consult with him? No doubt, the reply would be a resounding “No!” And yet you demand that a Catholic artist submit his labor of love, his personal homage to the Savior and Redeemer of the World, to the consultations and critiques of those who would deny the Divinity and Resurrection of Jesus Christ? The word for this is hypocrisy.
As for the Catholic scholars: If your doubts concerning the authenticity of the Gospel accounts are so strong, then how can you be sure any depiction of the Passion, even one approved by you, is correct?” Why are you so embarrassed by Jesus Christ and the simple truth of His unique mediation between God the Father and His creatures? Is it any wonder that these Catholic and Jewish scholars get along so well, and that groups like the ADL are suddenly so quick to refer to Catholic experts on the subject, when the strong suit of such “Catholic” scholars appears to be a deep-seated need for self-flagellation and a real sense of self-loathing for their Catholic identity and history? Is not the single, greatest act of charity and friendship we can show towards our Jewish neighbors simply to share with them the gift of Truth – the glorious Truth of the Redemption won for us by Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen? Is this, or is it not, the greatest news in all creation?
No doubt, as Passion nears its premier, we will continue to hear of the pressing concerns of such Catholic and Jewish academics. Their credentials, of course, will be shouted from the housetops, in the hopes of stifling the objections of us plain folk. Hopefully, this article will give Remnant readers an idea of who these scholars really are, their unwholesome agenda (namely, an assault upon the inspired writings of the Evangelists and upon the doctrinal integrity of the pre-conciliar Church) .... and what they truly represent. May Our Lord and His Blessed Mother move their hearts, and all hearts, to welcome and adore the Truth that is Jesus Christ, and may Mel Gibson’s Passion become, in the end, a worthy instrument for this noble end.
If by this she means that it is impossible for write history if we must view the facts from sveral different reporters, then that means that no history can tell the truth. Of course, I am being ironical. But what else does SHE do when she writes a book but to work to produce a coherent view by using all available sources?
If you aren't careful, my religion is going to start accusing you of killing our lord too. And the blood of our lord is going to be on your children too.
Minor point of information: SHU is in South Orange, NJ.
Ha Ha Ha....That says a lot about our Bishops. They were scared to action by a lie and they never even FIRST took the time to speak with Mel Gibson before denouncing his film.
If such things as Teaching, Ruling and Sanctifying, intrude upon the polticial obsessions of the USCCB, they do so only infrequently.
Nearly every news item about this unfortunate group reminds me what a tragic modern error it was to create such bureaucratic structures as the USCCB.
An increase in "collegiality" has led to a decrease in Bishops neglecting their duties and acting in a manly and militant fashion.
Consensus has disolved committment and issuing documents substitutes for virility and zeal in defending the Faith.
Abortion is anti-Semitic. Is the ADL anti-Semitic?
May Our Lord and His Blessed Mother move their hearts, and all hearts, to welcome and adore the Truth that is Jesus Christ, and may Mel Gibson's Passion become, in the end, a worthy instrument for this noble end.AMEN BUMP
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