Mel Gibson has famously described himself as “an old-fashioned Catholic” who refuses to attend any Masses except the traditional ones. You know, the kind Jesus celebrated, which the church faithfully preserved up to Vatican II. The Latin Mass, for God’s sake! The “Old Rite” that comes to us direct from the hands of Our Lord.
Gibson has spoken at gatherings of the American religious right to attack women’s access to abortions, the use of contraceptives, and gay and lesbian rights. In 2003, he spoke to a religious-right gathering in Colorado about his film “The Passion of the Christ,” stating, “The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic.”
Unfortunately, in between his stints of directing traffic for the Holy Ghost and appearing on Mother Angelica’s Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) to chat with Raymond Arroyo about the “beauty in the violence” of Jesus’s passion, Gibson got himself arrested driving while intoxicated. With an open bottle of tequila on the car seat beside him. While shouting anti-Semitic slurs at the arresting officer and, allegedly, insulting a female officer by calling her “sugar tits.”
But remember: Gibson’s “an old-fashioned Catholic” who finds “beauty in the violence” of Jesus’s scourging, crowning with thorns, and crucifixion. Until his wife filed for divorce, he used to have an old-fashioned Catholic family raised the old-fashioned Catholic way.
And now this: Gibson (“an old-fashioned Catholic” to whom the Holy Ghost dictates film scripts) shouts at his ex-girlfriend that she’s a whore, a bitch in heat, who needs to be raped by a “pack of n----rs.” This girlfriend is the same one who claims Gibson wanted her to have sex without condoms because, you know, he’s an old-fashioned Catholic who doesn’t believe in using contraception with the girlfriend he clamped onto after his sacramentally married Catholic wife divorced him.
When “The Passion of the Christ” came out, I remember getting emails from Catholic acquaintances and friends around the country, who told me I absolutely had to see this beautiful film. It had made them weep. It had made them fall to their knees and praise God.
The emails made me want to puke. Even with the glowing recommendations, I refused to see the movie, and still haven’t. Because I suspect it will definitely cause me to lose my dinner instead of making me glorify God and the “beauty” of the violence inflicted on the wretched of the earth with whom Jesus stood in solidarity as he died the death of a common criminal.
From all I’ve read about the film and all the images I’ve seen online, here’s my optic on it (admittedly, one that would be better informed if I had actually seen the film in question): it’s all about glorifying violence. In particular, about glorifying male violence. It turns Jesus into a macho man who redeems us by the sheer force of his macho endurance of the violence inflicted on him by other macho men.
It’s not about redemption or the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed, in other words. It’s not about those matters, because both require that we imagine our world in alternative terms that put the first last, lift up the lowly and cast down the mighty, feed the hungry while sending the rich away empty.
And now this: Gibson (“an old-fashioned Catholic” to whom the Holy Ghost dictates film scripts) shouts at his ex-girlfriend that she’s a whore, a bitch in heat, who needs to be raped by a “pack of n----rs.” This girlfriend is the same one who claims Gibson wanted her to have sex without condoms because, you know, he’s an old-fashioned Catholic who doesn’t believe in using contraception with the girlfriend he clamped onto after his sacramentally married Catholic wife divorced him.
When “The Passion of the Christ” came out, I remember getting emails from Catholic acquaintances and friends around the country, who told me I absolutely had to see this beautiful film. It had made them weep. It had made them fall to their knees and praise God.
The emails made me want to puke. Even with the glowing recommendations, I refused to see the movie, and still haven’t. Because I suspect it will definitely cause me to lose my dinner instead of making me glorify God and the “beauty” of the violence inflicted on the wretched of the earth with whom Jesus stood in solidarity as he died the death of a common criminal.
From all I’ve read about the film and all the images I’ve seen online, here’s my optic on it (admittedly, one that would be better informed if I had actually seen the film in question): it’s all about glorifying violence. In particular, about glorifying male violence. It turns Jesus into a macho man who redeems us by the sheer force of his macho endurance of the violence inflicted on him by other macho men.
It’s not about redemption or the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed, in other words. It’s not about those matters, because both require that we imagine our world in alternative terms that put the first last, lift up the lowly and cast down the mighty, feed the hungry while sending the rich away empty.
Gibson’s understanding of the passion of Christ is about assuring that the reign of macho men over everyone else in the world, particularly women and gay men, remains firmly in place, with a divine stamp of approval. It’s about assuring that women will always be there to be the spectators to and objects of male violence, and that they’ll always be there to pick up the pieces when male violence spills over into the life of the male inflicting violence on others.
As it always does: Gibson’s descent into alcohol-spiked verbal and physical violence, into rants about Jews and women and people of color, is entirely predictable. It’s what always happens when violent men are permitted to continue inflicting violence on others with impunity.
And it’s about what happens when violent men seek to use divine authority as a cover for their infliction of violence on others.
Gibson’s story is karmic, in other words. It proves something we forget at our peril: namely, that karma is a bitch. And She makes house calls.
Even to the houses of “old-fashioned Catholics” who block women’s access to abortion, try to outlaw contraception, and bash gays and lesbians. While knocking “whores” about, calling women “sugar tits,” and ranting about “gangs of n----rs” and crafty Jews who control Hollywood.
Eternal shame on the Eternal Word Network for ever allowing this “Catholic” fraud a forum to spread his malicious lies about what being a faithful Catholic really means in the world today.
Addendum: HuffPo is reporting right now that more of Gibson's racist and sexist rants will be released in the near future. We haven't heard the whole thing yet, according to this source.
As it always does: Gibson’s descent into alcohol-spiked verbal and physical violence, into rants about Jews and women and people of color, is entirely predictable. It’s what always happens when violent men are permitted to continue inflicting violence on others with impunity.
And it’s about what happens when violent men seek to use divine authority as a cover for their infliction of violence on others.
Gibson’s story is karmic, in other words. It proves something we forget at our peril: namely, that karma is a bitch. And She makes house calls.
Even to the houses of “old-fashioned Catholics” who block women’s access to abortion, try to outlaw contraception, and bash gays and lesbians. While knocking “whores” about, calling women “sugar tits,” and ranting about “gangs of n----rs” and crafty Jews who control Hollywood.
Eternal shame on the Eternal Word Network for ever allowing this “Catholic” fraud a forum to spread his malicious lies about what being a faithful Catholic really means in the world today.
Addendum: HuffPo is reporting right now that more of Gibson's racist and sexist rants will be released in the near future. We haven't heard the whole thing yet, according to this source.
