Scholars concerned about film’s fallout

Mel Gibson’s upcoming film “The Passion” is being questioned by scholars who worry that the film -- which they have not yet seen -- might fan religious animosity and misunderstanding. The movie, which depicts the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus, features actors speaking only in Latin and Aramaic.

The controversy swirling around Gibson, his film and even his personal religious beliefs is built largely on conjecture. It is based on the few comments Gibson has made about the movie, which he claims will be historically accurate. It is also based on a magazine article about a church the actor is building in Agoura Hills. The article quotes his father, who claims that the Holocaust never happened and that the World Trade Center was destroyed by remote control.

The actor’s father, Hutton Gibson, is a member of the traditionalist Catholic movement, which operates outside the Roman Catholic Church and embraces a 16th century form of the religion that celebrates Tridentine (Latin) Mass and denies the legitimacy of all popes and church reforms since the start of the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65. (That council, among other things, eliminated the belief that Jews, collectively, were responsible for the death of Jesus, and directed the church to seek reconciliation.)

The younger Gibson’s church, which will not be open to the public, is reportedly also a traditionalist Catholic house of worship. (It is not affiliated with the archdiocese of Los Angeles.) According to tax and other public documents, Mel Gibson is president and CEO of the nonprofit foundation that funds the church, and he is the foundation’s sole contributor.

Is the younger Gibson a chip off the old block? And should anyone care?

No one did seem to care until scholars connected the dots between his new church, his new film, to be released in 2004, and his father’s unorthodox beliefs.

Roman Catholic and Jewish scholars have expressed concern, even alarm. Catholics fear Gibson might use his star power and clout to promote traditionalist views in his new movie. Jews worry that it may promote anti-Semitic feelings.

“What we have here is a rich filmmaker whose beliefs may counter what the teaching of the church has been for the last 50 years,” says Sister Mary Boys, professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. “He can get his views into the media and has far more power in that sense than what the church has.”

Boys says Jews and Catholics are concerned, for example, that Gibson’s film may “blame the Jews for the death of Jesus,” something the Second Vatican Council expressly forbids.

Rabbi Eugene Korn, director of Interfaith Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League in New York, says, “Historically, Passion plays have been very dangerous productions in terms of Christian attitudes toward Jews. Many dramatic presentations of the Passion contained anti-Semitic elements ... that led to the charge of deicide and responsibility of Jews for the crucifixion. Not only Jews who lived then, but Jews for all time.”

So when an article in the March 9 New York Times magazine described the theology of Gibson’s father and linked it to the actor and his new movie, “it caused great alarm,” Korn says. Eugene Fisher, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sent a letter to Gibson’s Icon production company requesting that a panel of Christian and Jewish scholars be given the opportunity to review the script before the film is released. He has not received a response.

Gibson returned to the United States from Italy a few days ago, after wrapping “The Passion,” which he directed and co-wrote but does not appear in. He was “surprised and upset” to learn that his film and his theology are under such scrutiny, says Alan Nierob, Gibson’s publicist.

Gibson declined to be interviewed for this article, but Nierob said he is preparing a statement for the press.

Gibson, who reportedly financed the project with $25 million of his own, has been reluctant to answer questions about “The Passion.” When he has spoken about it publicly, his remarks have been somewhat cryptic. In a March appearance on Eternal Word Television Network, he said, “This is not a Christian versus Jewish thing. ‘[Jesus] came into the world and it knew him not.’ Looking at Christ’s crucifixion, I look first at my own culpability in that.”

In Gibson’s absence, Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, National Endowment for the Humanities professor of ancient Mediterranean studies at Loyola Marymount University in L.A., defends him. A respected scholar, Fulco specializes in archeology and ancient languages and translated the script into Aramaic and Latin.

When the translation was finished, Fulco traveled to the set in Rome. He says that while there, he saw no indications of anti-Semitism.

He also points out that the lead actress is Jewish: Maia Morgenstern of Romania is well known in Yiddish theater there.

Fulco says he has seen hours of footage and finds nothing to fault. About Gibson’s preference for ultra-conservative Catholicism, he says: “The church is a large tree in which many colorful birds make their nest.”

Fulco says he has written Fisher and Korn that “there is no hint of deicide, and the Jewish community portrayed in the film consists of people both sympathetic to Jesus and hostile to him, just as the Roman community is portrayed. Indeed, if anyone does not come off well in this film, it is the Roman community and governing establishment.... I might add that I know Mel Gibson very well from our hours together....I would be aghast at any suggestion that Mel is anti-Semitic.”

Korn says he will wait “a suitable amount of time” for Gibson to respond to the request for a panel of scholars to read the script. “If he doesn’t respond, the controversy will certainly heat up. We are all very vigilant about things like this.”