Catholic Criticism of Mel Gibson

A lot of Catholics are going to see Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion," but why? Would this movie be getting anywhere close to the same attention if it were made by someone else - anyone else? Probably not. What's so interesting about Gibson's theology?

Elinor Dashwood writes:

The thing is incredible. Everybody is panting to give him seven bucks and sit at his feet to learn about the Passion. What is so exasperating about it is that this eagerness is transparently attributable to Mel Gibson's star status. If Fr. Nicholas Gruner had obtained funding and produced a movie about the death of Christ, we'd all be holding him off with the mucky end of a barge pole and loudly asserting that we don't do business with people who resist the legitimate authority of the Holy See. But Mel Gibson isn't a scruffy weirdo. ... He's famous! He's gorgeous! He's rich! What these star-struck types don't so commonly acknowledge is that He's a schismatic! One serious Catholic after another has succumbed to shivery gratification because Somebody Totally Cool is willing to admit to being a Catholic. And what makes the joke on them particularly bitter is that he isn't a Catholic at all. Catholics belong to churches which are subject to the authority of Rome, not to half-baked fly-by-night outfits which dress up in Catholic vestments and perform Catholic rituals, but whose emblem and rule of existence is Non Serviam.

Those are all very good points. Perhaps that is one reason why Gibson has marketed his movie to much towards evangelicals - they don't care that he is a schismatic (or they approve of that). Catholics, however, are another matter entirely... why are they so anxious to see the support the movie?

Read More:

• Roman Catholicism
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• News and Commentary on Mel Gibson's The Passion