Passionate furor

Actor Mel Gibson has created some furor with his latest project, The Passion, a movie based on the last hours of Jesus's life. The movie, which Gibson is directing, is done entirely in Latin and Aramaic with no subtitles.

Few have seen the movie, though selected clips have been shown to several people - including at the Knights of Columbus national convention held in August in Washington, D.C. But, even though few have seen the movie, many have opinions about it.

In June, after reviewing an unauthorized draft of the script on behalf of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, a group of four Catholic and five Jewish scholars wrote to Gibson asking him to make revisions because "the screenplay reviewed was replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism."

The Catholic League responded by defending Gibson and the movie while assailing the critics.

Now a few people who have seen the movie are speaking up. One Jewish group said the version it saw is still objectionable.

Card. Francis George of Chicago, after seeing a rough cut of the movie, refused to comment on it as a whole, but said he would never read the words of the Passion in the same way again.

Card. Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, also saw a rough cut of the movie and said he hoped every priest would see it. In response, Card, Walter Kasper, head of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, cautioned that Card. Castrillon was not speaking for the Vatican.

Abp. Stefan Soroka of the Ukrainian Archdiocese of Philadelphia, after going to an invitation-only screening of The Passion attended by director Mel Gibson, called it "a shallow presentation on the life of Jesus and the significance of the resurrection.... I would not recommend the movie to my friends nor to the faithful - and particularly the young - because the film, while interesting in the way some things are portrayed, particularly evil, lacks content to really engage my interest."

For now, we await a review from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office of Film and Broadcasting when the film is released. But expect more pro and con comments in the meantime.