David Ancell / Saturday March 13, 2004
This will probably get me in trouble, but go here and scroll down to One priest’s reflection on “The Passion of the Christ”. This post is not meant to cast Fr. Val as a professional offendee. Do not take it as such. I will argue against the points made in his article.
My reading of the article suggest two points of contention with the movie:
1. Mel Gibson chose scenes that appear in only one of the Gospel that make the Jews look bad. Namely, he chose to represent Pilate as having scourged Jesus in order to save him. Despite the fact that it appears in only one Gospel, who is to say that this isn’t the way it happened? Regardless of the actual historical events, it is well known that Pilate was very uneasy about the execution of Jesus. Some sick minds have interpreted it to hold the Jews responsible for the crucifixion. However, we can’t spend our lives worrying about what sick minds will do because they will do something wrong because they have sick minds. Most Christians are well aware that we are responsible for the crucifixion and went into the movie with that mindset.
2. Fr. Val mentions a scene of the cross being formed in the Jewish temple. I didn’t see this, but it is perfectly appropriate. Jesus Christ’s Passion and Death are the perfect sacrifice offered to atone for our sins. What went on in the Jewish Temple — sacrifice to atone for sins. It is for this reason that viewing the crafting of the cross in the Temple is not “as inflammatory as some false assertion that the ovens of the Dachau concentration camp were fabricated in the underground of Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica, under the supervision of Pope Pius XII!” The murder of the Jews was not atonement for our sins but the work of a very evil man.
Did anyone notice that the line “his blood be on us and our children” was left out of the movie? This was deliberately done because the line has often been used as a rationalization of anti-Semitism. Gibson was quite sensitive to these concerns. If any group of people looked like a band of jerks, it was the Romans. However, I hear very few people suggesting that the film may stir up anti-Romanism. Better yet, since I am a Roman Catholic, maybe the film will stir up hatred against me.
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