Article published September 27, 2003
Mel Gibson film on Jesus' last hours has friends, foes
Mel Gibson, right, directs Jim Caviezel, center, and Mr. Caviezel's body double on the set of The Passion.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
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By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Most weekdays, Jennifer Giroux, mother of nine, leaves her Cincinnati house at 6 a.m. and drives her children to four different schools.
When she returns home three hours later, she gives her younger children some toys to play with and heads for the computer to oversee her Web site, www.seethepassion.
In the five weeks since Mrs. Giroux's Web site has been online, more than 4,300 people from 61 nations have added their names to a petition voicing support for Mel Gibson's movie The Passion.
"It's amazing to read the comments," Mrs. Giroux said in an interview this week.
"They're begging Mel Gibson to hold his ground, to stick to his guns. People have been rewriting the history books and we can't let them rewrite the Bible."
For a movie that will not be released until next spring, and which only a handful of people have seen, and whose characters speak only Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew, The Passion is generating an extraordinary amount of interest.
Religious leaders from around the globe have been weighing in with strongly worded statements - both pro and con - about the $30 million movie that Mr. Gibson directed, financed, and co-wrote.
Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, decried The Passion, saying it "will fuel hatred, bigotry, and anti-Semitism" because of its portrayal of Jews as "the ones responsible for the decision to crucify Jesus."
"The film is dangerous for Jews all over the world," said Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman and Jewish activist.
"I am concerned that it will lead to violence against Jews."
Sister Marcy C. Boys, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said that "Christians seeing this will naturally conclude that the Jews carry the primary responsibility for the death of Jesus."
Mr. Gibson, 47, who belongs to a conservative offshoot of the Catholic Church that does not accept the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council, contends that The Passion is faithful to biblical accounts of Jesus' last 12 hours on Earth and hopes the movie serves "to inspire, not offend."
One of his spokesmen has said that Mr. Gibson "softened" the story because of the Jewish leaders' comments, cutting out a line from the Gospel of Matthew, for example, in which the Jewish mob shouts for Jesus to be crucified and says, "Let his blood be on us and on our children."
Mr. Gibson later said, however, that he regretted the decision.
"I wanted it in," he said in the Sept. 15 New Yorker magazine.
"My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. It happened; it was said. But man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come kill me."
Relatively unknown actors were cast in the movie to keep the focus on the story itself and not let audiences get distracted by celebrity, Mr. Gibson said, but he makes an anonymous appearance by showing his hands as the ones that hammer the nails into Christ's hands, according to Mrs. Giroux.
"He said it's because of his transgressions against the Lord," she said.
Mr. Gibson initially planned to show The Passion without subtitles, believing that its message would be clear even without audiences knowing what the actors are saying.
Ultimately, he decided to add subtitles because they enabled him to highlight sympathetic Jews in the mob who otherwise would go unnoticed, the actor told the New Yorker.
Mr. Gibson has been traveling around the country, showing short previews of the movie to gatherings of religious groups that he believes will be supportive, including the Knights of Columbus, Regnum Christi, the Southern Baptist Convention, Focus on the Family, and the National Association of Evangelicals.
A select few people have been invited to see an early version of the entire film, which still is in the editing process.
Support for The Passion has come from a diverse array of religious leaders, including a top Vatican official, Jewish movie critic Michael Medved, the head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a Southern Baptist leader, and the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Vatican official in charge of the Congregation for the Clergy, called The Passion "a triumph of art and faith. ... I am confident that it will change for the better everyone who sees it, both Christians and non-Christians alike."
Ted Haggard, NAE president, said it is "a beautiful, wonderful account of the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ. It is consistent with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
Dr. Thomas McGovern, a Ft. Wayne, Ind., physician and an authority on crucifixion, said Mr. Gibson showed a clip of the film and spoke at a meeting of Regnum Christi, a conservative Catholic organization, in Chicago two months ago.
"It's incredibly, emotionally gripping," Dr. McGovern said of the preview.
"From the little bit I saw - the ground-level view of the scourging, the flashback of Mary picking up the child Jesus interspersed with his falling while carrying the cross, the Pharisees throwing 30 silver coins back to Judas and they scatter across the temple floor - it's just stunning."
He said the violent scenes may make the movie unsuitable for younger viewers, but he believes The Passion's accurate recounting of the Bible will have a strong evangelistic impact on audiences.
"I think that's why so many people are vehemently against it," Dr. McGovern said.
"When people asked Mel Gibson what they can do to help promote the movie, he just pulled out his rosary, indicating to pray."
Mrs. Giroux, the petition organizer and founder of www.seethepassion.com, also believes there is more to the The Passion controversy than meets the eye.
"The battle has become bigger than Mel Gibson, and even bigger than the movie itself," she said.
"It is a defining moment in the culture war for the future of our country, our civilization, and the world."
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