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Comments on the Vatican's comments on Gibson's Passion · Dec 11, 12:48 PM

There is occasional house-talk about Mel Gibson’s Passion, eventually asking the archtypical question, “Isn’t Mel part of some schismatic radical traditionalist (google: radtrad catholic) sect that rejects Vatican II, the new mass, recent popes, and still blames the Jews for the death of Jesus?”

…

Ugh: after some grunt work, I believe the truth goes something like this: yes, Gibson is part of a schismatic church (but so are the Eastern Orthodox churches, which JP2 has called the light of the East). As so the film’s antisemitism, I’d rather wait to see it myself than try to guess, but it seems that everyone Gibson has screened the movie to really likes it. Here’s a excerpt I found on Church of the Masses,

Q: Does “The Passion” blame anyone for what happened to Christ?

Father Di Noia: That’s a very interesting, and very difficult question. Suppose you pose it to someone who was unfamiliar with the Gospel passion narratives until seeing this film.

“Who is to blame for what happened to Jesus?” you ask. The other person pauses for a moment to think about this, and then responds: “Well, they all are, aren’t they?” This answer seems exactly right to me.

Looking at “The Passion” strictly from a dramatic point of view, what happens in the film is that each of the main characters contributes in some way to Jesus’ fate: Judas betrays him; the Sanhedrin accuses him; the disciples abandon him; Peter denies knowing him; Herod toys with him; Pilate allows him to be condemned; the crowd mocks him; the Roman soldiers scourge, brutalize and finally crucify him; and the devil, somehow, is behind the whole action.

Of all the main characters in the story, perhaps only Mary is really blameless. Gibson’s film captures this feature of the Passion narratives very well. No one person and group of persons acting independently of the others is to blame: They all are.
[ link ]

Read the whole thing, and then read the previous story" about how the “Ain’t It Cool News“http://www.aintitcool.com/ movie geeks reacted to The Passion.

I’ve just wasted half an hour on Google, blegh.

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