To see or not to see

3/6/04 2:19 AM 3 out of 28

I do not have to see the film to know that I do not want to see it and wish that others would boycott it as well.

This is what Andrew Greeley has to say in today's Chicago Sun Times:

"The Passion of the Christ" is a celebration of the bloody suffering of Jesus, a fundamentalist interpretation by a man who rejects the Vatican Council. It is not, contrary to claims, a literal interpretation of St. John's Gospel but is based on the "revelations" of a 19th century mystic. It is a film about torture, legitimated because it is the torture of Jesus. "Passion" is a glorification of sado-masochism.

And this is part of a column by Charles Krauthammer in today's Washington Post:

Because of that peculiarity, the crucifixion is not just a story; it is a story with its own story -- a history of centuries of relentless, and at times savage, persecution of Jews in Christian lands. This history is what moved Vatican II, in a noble act of theological reflection, to decree in 1965 that the Passion of Christ should henceforth be understood with great care so as to unteach the lesson that had been taught for almost two millennia: that the Jews were Christ killers. . . .

The Vatican did that for good reason. The blood libel that this story affixed upon the Jewish people had led to countless Christian massacres of Jews and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre -- 6 million Jews systematically murdered in six years -- in the heart, alas, of a Christian continent. It is no accident Vatican II occurred just two decades after the Holocaust, indeed in its shadow.

Which is what makes Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" such a singular act of interreligious aggression. He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching and, using every possible technique of cinematic exaggeration, gives us the pre-Vatican II story of the villainous Jews.

I REST MY CASE.

3/6/04 2:50 PM 7 out of 28

I am quite capable of speaking for myself -- and have done so in my posts on other topics. In this case, Lynda posed the question right after I had read the two reviews from which I included passages, and they perfectly expressed what I wanted to write. As for the authors, Andrew Greeley is not a "renegade priest" but a priest in good standing of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is a highly respected sociologist with academic appointments both at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. I doubt that I have ever agreed with one of Charles Krauthammer's columns. Ideologically we are 180 degrees apart. However, this time I had to make an exception, possibly because he wasn't commenting on the political scene. Let's try to stay away from ad hominem attacks :-)

3/7/04 1:56 PM 12 out of 28

You wrote, "I was interested in seeing a movie about Jesus from a Catholic prespective." Let me emphasize "*A* Catholic perspective." Gibson does not represent mainstream Roman Catholicism. His perspective is traditionalist, pre-Vatican Two. This is one of the reasons so many Catholic scholars have been very critical of the film. Gibson attends a privately funded church that is not associated with any diocese. His father is an outspoken adherent of the  “sedevacantist “ movement, a small Catholic splinter group whose followers believe that all popes since the death of Pius XII are invalid and the "See of Peter" is currently vacant. He is also a revisionist -- holocaust denier. It would be inappropriate to conflate father and son. However, Gibson has not distanced himself ideologically from his father, and if he really wanted to be considered a Roman Catholic he'd attend a church that can be found in the Los Angeles Catholic Directory.

3/8/04 1:28 AM 14 out of 28

False witness?

A couple of links to back up my claims concerning Gibson's traditionalist chapel (personal comment: I know and love Latin).

http://cerkva.com/to/messages/718.html

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/gibson.asp

The scholars' group to which I referred were NOT working with a stolen script! The were formed as an advisory group a year ago by interfaith officials at the US Bishops Conference and ADL (Anti Defamation League). Catholic scholars, all highly regarded, included Professors Eugene Fisher, Phillip Cunningham, Mary Boys, Lawrence Frizzell, and John Pawlikowski. There were also four Jewish scholars. When the committee expressed concern at the script, Gibson's lawyer accused them of having used a stolen script! THIS was calumni!

3/8/04 9:11 AM 18 out of 28

Nothing you wrote invalidates my argument that Gibson's Passion should NOT be viewed as representing the official (Roman) Catholic perspective. It violates most of the "Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion" published by the US Catholic Conference in 1988. Here is the URL:

http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/documents/catholic/Passion_Plays.htm

For example:

d) Jews should not be portrayed as avaricious (e.g., in Temple money-changer scenes); blood thirsty (e.g., in certain depiction's of Jesus' appearances before the Temple priesthood or before Pilate); or implacable enemies of Christ (e.g., by changing the small "crowd" at the governor's palace into a teeming mob). Such depictions, with their obvious "collective guilt" implications, eliminate those parts of the gospels that show that the secrecy surrounding Jesus' "trial" was motivated by the large following he had in Jerusalem and that the Jewish populace, far from wishing his death, would have opposed it had they known and, in fact, mourned his death by Roman execution (cf. Lk 23:27).

................

b) First, it must be understood that the gospel authors did not intend to write "history" in our modern sense, but rather "sacred history" (i.e., offering "the honest truth about Jesus") (Notes IV, 29 A) in light of revelation. To attempt to utilize the four passion narratives literally by picking one passage from one gospel and the next from another gospel, and so forth, is to risk violating the integrity of the texts themselves, just as, for example, it violates the sense of Genesis 1 to reduce the magnificence of its vision of the Creation to a scientific theorem.

......................

b) The Role of Pilate. Certain of the gospels, especially the two latest ones, Matthew and John, seem on the surface to portray Pilate as a vacillating administrator who himself found "no fault" with Jesus and sought, though in a weak way, to free him. Other data from the gospels and secular sources contemporary with the events portray Pilate as a ruthless tyrant. We know from these latter sources that Pilate ordered crucified hundreds of Jews without proper trial under Roman law, and that in the year 36 Pilate was recalled to Rome to give an account.

Finally:

Conclusion

The Notes emphasize that because the Church and the Jewish people are "linked together at the very level of their identity," an accurate, sensitive, and positive appreciation of Jews and Judaism "should not occupy an occasional or marginal place in Christian teaching," but be considered "essential" to Christian proclamation (I, 2; cf. I,8).

3/8/04 10:34 AM 20 out of 28

Thank you, dnovak! I understand and respect your position. You viewed the film from a Catholic perspective. All of us have to understand that depending on their background people will see different films. This is what I wrote to one of my other discussion groups to try an explain my determination not to see the film:

"But personally I still wouldn't want to view the film, partly because I become physically ill in the presence of brutality but primarily because I still remember sitting next to Rabbi Klenicki during the Oberammergau performance and watching him turn white and shiver, shiver, shiver . . .. I got up and found a blanket for him, but there was no way I could take away the pain of centuries of persecution, of blood libel accusations, of Holy Week massacres, of all the dreadful things we Christians have done to Jews in the name of the One who came to teach unconditional love."

3/8/04 6:00 PM 24 out of 28

HMMMMM???? What is this ""'fessing up here, as you have elsewhere"? I explained my background in the introductory bio for everyone to see, and I've been sending people to my website that explains clearly why I have been haunted by the specter of the Shoah since I was about nine or ten. I am not exactly hiding behind a screen name of anonymity. I didn't want to repeat too much information that is available in my other webpages.

I consider the discovery of the Holocaust the defining experience of my life -- the horror at feeling that the lives of my entire generation of "Aryans" had been bought by the lives of people slaughtered because our parents remained silent in the face of evil. As you have presumably read, as I started to investigate the reasons for that incomprehensible failure to speak out, and for antisemitism in general, the trail led straight to the Church, straight to a pervasive culture of anti-Judaism, straight to sermons and pictures -- LOTS of pictures -- and devotional literature and passion plays. Political antisemitism may have been a 20th century phenomenon but it grew out of soil that had set Gentile against Jew since long even before the Crusades, and if something could be done about it, then the root cause had to be unmasked and attacked.

Finally, since Pope John XXIII, the institutional Church has begun to admit its collective guilt. I wept when I saw our current Pope do penance and pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

The film disregards over half a century of redemptive dialogue between Christians and Jews; it returns to a bygone era in which THE Jews were charged with deicide, and Christians thought it their religious duty to wreak vengeance in murderous pogroms, especially during Holy Week. It is no accident that anti-Judaism/antisemitism has been called "the longest hate." It began in ancient times. Christians adopted and spread it. It infected Islam. It has to stop.

Fear of Antisemitism

3/5/04 5:38 PM 11 out of 37

Yakovbenavraham, thank you for mentioning my little webpage. I joined this dialogue group because I have been deeply concerned about the possibility that for some viewers Gibson's film will fan latent (or open) antisemitism. Since I began to investigate the issue I discovered that one of Gibson's sources is an anti-Jewish 19th century devotional written by Clemens Brentano, a German Romantic poet, according to the meditations of Katharina Emmerick (Emmerich), a visionary and stigmatic, an Augustinian nun and invalid, whose convent had been closed by Napoleon. This book subsequently served as inspiration to producers of passion plays. As far as Oberammergau is concerned, major changes to de-antisemitize the script and production did not occur until the Year 2000 millennial performace. I was on the Christian-Jewish committee that worked with the author of the script and am the official translator of the text into English. I had hoped that maybe, finally, the hydra of the anti-Judaism-passion play syzygy had been decapitated. But no such luck: Mel Gibson produced his Passion, and not only revived the whole controversy but is providing a new platform for the Brentano-Emmerick volume that is now being sold on the internet in a fresh edition as "Sourcebook for Gibson's Passion."

This is what I wrote in one of the pieces in my website:

"I came to understand how for centuries Christians had been whipped into a Jew-hating, Christ-avenging, murderous frenzy by watching the crucifixion re-enacted in passion plays. Eventually, after I started my academic career in the United States, I even discovered that in 1934 Hitler had praised the Oberammergau Passion Play as a valuable tool to help eradicate Jews and Judaism. I came to the conclusion that passion plays should never be presented without placing the genre of passion play into historical context and paying careful attention to the potential dangers of including elements that can pit Christians against Jews. In addition, the audience should always be reminded that passion plays are plays -- dramatic presentations that reflect the interpretation of playwrights, producers, and actors; no passion play can depict what “actually happened.” This is the reason I was so disturbed by the Pope’s reported endorsement (later denied by the Vatican) of Gibson’s film by saying “It is as it was.” No one can know how it was! There are as many interpretations of the events as there are people reading or hearing the gospels, and is not possible to dramatize the gospel story without major extra-biblical additions."

3/6/04 4:44 PM 14 out of 37

This is one of the reasons I am so concerned about vast numbers of people seeing the film without proper preparation. I live in a part of the country where Jews are viewed as appropriate target for Christians' missionary zeal. A few years ago one or several of the local churches decided to have Jesus videos distributed to practically every household in town, just hanging the "gift" on door knobs and leaving it on porches. Some time later members of the team came to visit, asking people if they had viewed the video. The timing was around High Holy Days (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur). When the team dropped by my house I asked if their organization had permission from Jews or other non-Christians to pass out the tapes. After all, some non-Christian parents might object to their children watching the video. "Are you Jewish?" they asked. When I said, "no," they continued to tell me how much better it was for Jewish children to view the tape against their parents' wishes and maybe eventually accept Christ than to go to hell with their parents! Now those same churches are filling buses with people to see the film. Throughout the country, the Passion is considered a great evangelizing tool and tickets are selling in batches of thousands. The fear is justified.

3/6/04 6:44 PM 16 out of 37

How about "all of the preceding"! Yes, it's about the long tragic history of Christian persecution of Jews during Holy Week. Yes, it's about 20th century attempts to commit genocide. And, yes, it's about arrogant Christian supersessionism. And this isn't the whole list. There is more . . .

3/6/04 11:35 PM 19 out of 37

I don't understand most of your response. Let me try to deal with what I do understand:

You write "There is scant evidence 'of a long tragic history...during Holy Week.'" There is plenty of evidence. Read Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews. New York: Macmillan, 1964.

Supersessionism refers to the Christian assumption that because the Jews rejected Christ the covenant relationship of YHWH with the People Israel has been tranferred to Christians. In other words, it is argued that Christians replaced Jews in the divine plan of salvation as God's chosen people and Jews should convert to Christianity. For Catholics, Pope John XXIII finally eliminated from the Good Friday liturgy the reference to "perfidious Jews" and greeted the first Jewish delegation to the Vatican with "I am Joseph, your brother." Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council followed. While Nostra Aetate doesn't go far enough it certainly opens the door to developing a totally revised relationship of Christians and Jews based on dialogue and mutual respect. Mainline Protestants, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), are now also going on record in opposition of supersessionism.

3/8/04 1:01 PM 22 out of 37

This is a general comment.

There are at least four Jewish participants in this dialogue group. This presents a superb opportunity for Christians, especially Christians who admire Gibson's film, to become familiar with reasons why Jews might not be as enthusiastic. After all, by definition "dialogue" (in contrast to debate) is is a method that allows partners to listen respectfully to one another and learn from one another.

Is the relative silence of our Jewish group members a sign that the Christian majority is sending not-so-subtle messages that in themselves are perceived as signs of being unwilling to listen? No one, for example, has addressed (or even wondered about) Eliava's legitimate concern over the "hijacking" of "How is this night different from all other nights?" This question is the first of four questions supposed to be asked by a child during the Pesach seder and is a way of involving children in the service.

3/8/04 3:18 PM   25 out of 37

"Replacement theology" is indeed another term for the older "Supersessionism." In this perspective, Christianity is seen as the perfected form of Judaism. Of course, if we accept the legitimacy of the principle of a new religious model replacing the earlier model we as Christians shouldn't be surprised that Muslims temd to consider Islam the best and final version of the Abrahamic OS -- the Prophet Muhammad fulfilling the promise of Prophet Isa (Jesus) . . .

3/8/04 8:24 PM 29 out of 37

I am sorry, I should have clarified. I meant to write that no one specifically asked Eliava why she felt the way she did, not that she was wrong to consider the phrase hijacked. I couldn't answer for her, though it seems to me that posing the question so totally out of context would have the very opposite effect to establishing the Jewishness of Mary especially in the fist century CE.

3/9/04 1:09 AM 30 out of 37

I had to leave to go to class when I tried to respond to beliefminer. I cannot imagine the question establishing a woman's Jewishness at a time (Second Temple) when the question was expected to be asked by a SON of his FATHER in the context of a special Pesach MEAL after the boy had a chance to observe how different that particular meal was from ordinary meals.

3/9/04 2:37 PM 34 out of 37

I asked another correspondent of mine, a rabbi who had commented negatively on that same passage. He wrote back that he wasn't offended, just that he considered the passage "hokey." I didn't ask him if he meant "hokey" in the sense of "insincerely emotional" or "artificial, stilted, contrived, or affected."

Images of the Passion

3/5/04 1:32 PM 11 out of 24

I read your comment yesterday and was sufficiently concerned to write a detailed reflection that's far too long for this dialogue group. I posted it on the Web in one of my pages.

I am deeply troubled by the fact that most Christians don't realize that Gibson's film is NOT faithful to scripture, but based largely on THE DOLOROUS PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, supposedly by Anna Katharina Emmerick(Emmerich), an early 19th century German stigmatic visionary nun, but in fact written and published nine years after Emmerick's death by the Romantic poet Clemens Brentano who had spent 5 years at Emmerick's bedside, taking notes of her demeanor and meditations. After reading a long recent study by Peter Groth, a German historian, of the case of Emmerick I am convinced that she suffered from serious physical and mental illnesses. This book and others of the same ilk were instrumental in shaping the anti-Jewish imagination of passion plays and the entire Austrian/German popular Catholic culture that facilitated the rise of 20th century political antisemitism and in that sense made the Holocaust possible. I consider the book toxic, and am very disturbed not only that parts of it are now given new life in Gibson's film but that the whole book is being re-distributed as "Gibson's inspiration" to have yet another chance to poison people's imagination.

Here is my take on this:

http://ecumene.org/SHOAH/Mel_Gibson%27s_Passion_Shafer3.html

I have also set up an entire page to deal with Gibson's Passion:

http://ecumene.org/SHOAH/Mel_Gibson's_Passion.htm

I have been silent in this dialogue group thus far because I don't want to hurt fellow members who love the film and admire Gibson.

3/10/04 3:07 PM 17 out of 24

I would not be particularly concerned whether Gibson is "faithful to Scripture" if the claim were not being made by his supporters. Anyone who has seen the film will have to admit that it represents an amalgamation of gospel material combined with non-scriptural sources, such as the visions of two mystics, Anna Katharina Emmerick (Anne Catherine Emmerich) and Maria de Agreda.

I am a liberal Catholic who is convinced that the Second Vatican Council represents a critical moment in church history, a call to renew the church based on reading the signs of the times. I believe that God is Love. Among my favorite theologians are Nicolas of Cusa, Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, Bernard Haring, and David Tracy. I view the church as a living, growing, emergent, global community with one primary purpose -- to transform the world in and through the rationally informed practice of unconditional love. Unconditional love is expressed in part through respect for those who are different, concern for people's civil and human rights, resistance to injustice everywhere, support for freedom of inquiry (including theological inquiry), and so forth.

Remember Luke 9:50 "You should not stop him: For whoever is not against me, is for me."

3/15/04 10:11 PM 21 out of 24

I do not claim to review the film as a work of art. THAT I couldn’t do without having seen it, probably more than once. I am concerned with the GENRE of passion play, and the role of that genre in history. I have carefully studied at least a dozen reviews of the film by critics AND have read at least that many scholarly articles dealing with passion plays in general and the script of this version in particular. Surely I am as qualified to discuss The Passion as a physician is to diagnose a disease from which he has not personally suffered or an unmarried, childless family therapist is to give advice concerning marriage and children. In addition, I don’t have to view the film to be appalled by the blatant commercialism in which the gospel story is being exploited to peddle religious trinkets for profit.

3/16/04 12:18 AM 23 out of 24

Of course, I read the review. I read it in First Things -- and I don't happen to agree with the interpretation of the authors. They are, for example, not at all critical of Gibson's use of the Brentano-Emmerick (Emmerich) material. The very aspects of the film the authors praise I consider most troubling -- the appeal to viewers' emotions and preconscious reactions through the use of powerful imagery, imagery that is largely based on the contortions and deformations of late medieval piety.

3/16/04 2:28 PM 24 out of 24

"'Be not afraid': see the movie." Has it occurred to you that I might be even more critical of the film than I am now if I were to have seen it? If I were to have experienced the distortions of the Christian message by a mingling of facts and pious fabrications? If I were not only to read messages such as yours but actually see the way the audience is affected/manipulated?

Please, consider Professor Mahlon Smith's magisterial critique of Gibson's film: http://religion.rutgers.edu/jseminar/passion.html