What Religious Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
|
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
Who Killed Jesus?
Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” has been the subject of constant accusations of anti-Semitism. In my opinion those who are goaded to anti-Semitism by the movie already had such proclivities before entering the theater. Ironically we are being warned of the incitement to homicide of Jews by the very people who have assured us for decades that there is no correlation between provocative and immoral motion picture images and subsequent behavior. The point of the movie is that the horrible scourging and crucifixion and death of Jesus were the price that the Christ paid for our sins. Many critics of Gibson seemingly cannot understand this concept let alone be sympathetic to it
Oddly the shrieks of anti-Semitism began long before anyone had seen the picture and have continued unremittingly ever after. By now millions of people have seen the motion picture and so far there are no reports of pogroms. No one came out of the theater with murderous intent towards Jews and Romans. Most viewers of the movie left the theater somber and subdued by the reality that the intense violence visited on Jesus was the result of their sins. Interestingly both Mel Gibson and James Caviezel, who portrayed Christ in the movie, have had to have security details assigned to protect them. It is paradoxical that those who exemplify the gentle Jesus whose message was love are the ones who need protection instead of Jews.
Apart from a few extra-biblical excursions and minor historical inaccuracies (e.g., the nails more probably went through the wrists rather than the hands) the account is fairly faithful to the four gospel accounts of the passion and death of Jesus. Perhaps the objection to the picture is precisely that the critics consider the gospels themselves as anti-Semitic and would rather not have a talented cinematic artist bring these pages to life. Since it is more politically correct to oppose anti-Semitism than the holy writ of millions of Christians it is possible that the anti-Semitism charge is raised as a diversion drawing attention away from the real target of the objectors, their dislike of Christianity and its scriptures. Secularists are afforded a free shot at Christianity under the guise of a movie review.
The howling about this movie is not without hypocrisy. Secularist critics want us to appreciate that the "Piss Christ," a figurine of Jesus on the Cross in a jar of urine, as art; that a portrait of the Madonna with elephant dung smeared on it and female genitalia surrounding the face is artistic freedom of expression that must be respected. Yet the same critics tell us “The Passion” is an insult to decency.
Secularists feel more comfortable with a hippy Jesus hippy as in “Godspell” or a lustful and gay one as in Terrence McNally’s “Corpus Christi” or wimpy one pining over Mary Magdalene as in “The Last Temptation of Christ”. Only people who take Jesus seriously are dangerous. Some would consider resurgence in piety on the part of Christian fundamentalists and other yahoos of like persuasion as potentially harmful. They might upset the hedonistic society that is being so carefully constructed along the lines of acceptance of homosexual marriage, no-fault divorce, contraception, abortion, pornography, and relaxation of laws against illegal narcotics. Some of these yahoos who take Jesus seriously and constitute the “homegrown Taliban,” as Frank Rich of the New York Times calls them, might actually repent of these practices and support legislation to outlaw liberal narcissism. They could become snakes in the secularist paradise.
The appearance of Gibson’s motion picture and the hue and cry about anti-Semitism presents a teachable moment for our own attitude toward the Jews. The teaching is summarized in the document Nostra aetate of the Second Vatican Council and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Church opposes every form of anti-Semitism and discrimination as anti-Christian and an affront to persons made to the image and likeness of God. Jesus as well as his mother, his apostles, and the early preachers of Christianity were Jews. Christianity is based on the revelation given to the Israelites, God’s covenanted people. Christian scriptures state the Gentiles are the wild shoot grafted unto the well-cultivated olive tree representing the Jews that was planted by God. Furthermore Paul teaches that the Cross has reconciled both Jews and Gentiles. Jesus based much of his teaching on the Old Testament and his method of teaching was that of the Jewish rabbis.
The Church teaches that not all Jews at the time of Jesus were responsible for his death. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were prominent Jews who were secret disciples of Jesus. The Jewish authorities disagreed profoundly on how to deal with Jesus and both at the eve of the passion many had faith in Jesus and after Pentecost St. James told St. Paul that there were thousands of Jews, devout keepers of the law, who believed in Jesus. Jesus from the cross and Peter in his Pentecost sermon forgave the Jews because they acted in ignorance. The words “His blood be on us and on our children” cannot justify hostility to contemporary Jews because this was merely a formula for ratifying a judicial decision. The Second Vatican Council summarizes this in the following words:
. . [N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.
Somehow I have a problem with the whole notion of ethnic guilt. If some of my forebears were vandals, rapists, or grave robbers on what grounds do I bear their guilt and deserve punishment?
The Church and the saints within the Church have constantly asserted that every sinner is the source of Christ’s suffering. Once again, Vatican II teaches:
We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him.
Who killed Jesus? If you have ever sinned, you did.
(Printed April, 2004)
St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
