Gibson's movie, which is apparently only being shown to sympathetic audiences (primarily fundamentalist Protestants, including Pat Robertson, who got a special screening) is being criticized for depicting Jews as bloodthirsty and vengeful, bent on killing Jesus:
"When we read the screenplay our sense was this wasn't really something you could fix. All the way through, the Jews are portrayed as bloodthirsty. We're really concerned that this could be one of the great crises in Christian-Jewish relations," said Sr. Mary C. Boys, a professor at New York Union Theological Seminary.
Not that Mel Gibson cares.
You see, Mel Gibson is part of a far-right fringe movement in Catholicism, partly surrounding the group, Opus Dei, whose founder rejects, through his writings, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960's. Part of those reforms included (finally) rejecting the view that Jews "caused" Jesus' death. Not surprisingly, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and his priest son, Paul Scalia, are members of Opus Dei.
Ever since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has been attempting to heal (some of) the very real damage it caused to non-Catholics, especially Jews. The Catholic Church's silence during the Holocaust is just one example of the Vatican's damaging tactics during the past 2,000 years.
Unfortunately, just like Protestants have fundamentalists (or "evangelicals," for the conservatively correct) to deal with, Catholics, too, have to worry about extremists like Mel Gibson, who, in addition to rejecting Vatican II, also rejects the Catholic Church's anti-death penalty stance.
For his part, Gibson accused his critics of obtaining an "illegal" copy of the screenplay. Of course, considering that Gibson was only showing the movie to audiences that would fall over one another in praise for the film (read: fundamentalists), reasonable people can dismiss Gibson's red herring.
"If the movie is a statement of love, as he [Gibson] says it is, why not show it to you or me?" said Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.
"There is no way on God's green earth any of those people will be invited to a screening. They have shown themselves to be dishonorable (emphasis added)" said Paul Lauer, Gibson's publicist.
Of course, Mel Gibson isn't any stranger to hating others. After giving an offensive on-screen portrayal as a gay hairdresser, the (former?) alcoholic lashed out at gay people (through an interview, of course):
"Do I sound like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them? (emphasis added)"
And (some) women find this specimen "attractive"?
UPDATE (8/6/03 06:30 UTC)
New details have emerged which suggest that Mel Gibson very well might have sought to engage in baiting Jews with his movie, The Passion.
According to Frank Rich of the New York Times, Mel Gibson, as early as January of this year, manufactured Jewish protests of his new film. The article, appropriately named "Mel Gibson's Martyrdom Complex," details several instances where Mel Gibson and his cohorts poisoned the well for anyone who was going to accuse his movie of being anti-Semitic. In other words, he attacked protestors who weren't even there, months before Jewish groups became concerned and months before the screenings.
