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by Robert Sungenis

Understanding the theological basis for physical suffering is foundational to Catholic theology, and the only way to grasp the brutally graphic portrayal of Jesus' passion in Mel Gibson's film. Unfortunately, few of the world's critics commenting on Gibson's film understand this truth, leading them to make such derogatory comments that the movie was "over-the-top," "exaggerated," "unhistorical," "unnecessarily gory," "fundamentalist shock therapy," "barbaric," and many other such prejudicial and reactionary characterizations.

 

Leading the media assault on Gibson were prominent Jewish leaders, such as the ADL's Abe Foxman who accused Gibson almost daily, even with pleas to the Vatican, that The Passion "has the potential to fuel anti-semitism." Foxman formed this opinion when, after he attended a screening of the movie in front of 5,000 evangelicals, he noticed them "in stunned silence, wailing or sobbing" at the tortures Christ underwent. Fearing some kind of pogroms, Foxman and his colleagues tried their best to persuade the world that the Jews had little or nothing to do with the death of Jesus, even though the Gospels are quite specific concerning the complicity of the Jewish Sanhedrin (e.g., Mt. 26:3-4).

Added to this were the liberal Catholic and Protestant theologians, steeped in their overly-rated art of historical criticism, who came grinding their axes against Gibson and traditional Catholics. If you can imagine this, their claim is that the Gospels do not give accurate portrayals of what occurred at the crucifixion, and therefore Gibson cannot use them as a foundation for the film. Tuvia Abramson, executive director for Penn State's Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, stated: "When he [Gibson] said his movie is totally accurate, I'm sorry, I don't think he has a Ph.D. in history or religion."

For Catholics, Bishop Patrick McGrath of San Jose led the list of faithless clerics in this category, declaring in the San Jose Mercury News on February 1 that:

While the primary source material of the film is attributed to the four gospels, these sacred books are not historical accounts of the historical events that they narrate. They are theological reflections upon the events that form the core of Christian faith and belief.

You can thank the theological school of the late Fr. Raymond Brown and the Pontifical Biblical Commission for that point of view. Today's Catholic clerics know little else when it comes to biblical exegesis. In fact, they don't even believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke or John wrote the Gospels ascribed to them. Rather, they posit that the Gospels are merely the culmination of a first century oral tradition that was only put to writing in the early second century by some unknown scribes. It is easy to see why they opt for this remote authorship. If the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, they naturally would contain historical errors and biases, and maybe even anti-semitism.

Next, a number of liberal theologians claimed Gibson's movie was theologically unsound because the graphic portrayal of Jesus' suffering is exaggerated and superfluous, and has little to do with Jesus' main message. According to the Dallas Morning News, "The R-rated movie is so blood-splatteringly brutal that theologians have accused Gibson of embellishing the Gospels." Dr. Schmidt, a New Testament specialist, opined, "There's no Gospel ever written that tells it quite this way. He's pulling one line from Matthew and another from John and creating propaganda in the service of the church's atonement theology."

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson of Columbia Theological Seminary said: "It's not that God is mad and Jesus takes the licks for us...Paul is much more interested in what it means to say that Jesus' death changes the structures of the universe, brings in a new creation and makes life out of death." Kip Taylor, a religion major at Texas Christian University, stated: "It doesn't make sense to me that God would need to be satisfied by sending his son to be killed. That's a vengeful God and not a God I want to worship." Dr. Sandra Schneiders, a New Testament scholar at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, added: "It's just bad theology to say God had to kill his son as a payback for sin. It makes God sound bloodthirsty." Going the extra mile, Dr. Adele Reinhartz, a New Testament scholar from Canada and author of the book Jesus of Hollywood, adds: "Mel Gibson comes down on the side that says crucifixion was a necessary part of God's plan for salvation."

Added to these were ex-priest John Dominic Crossan, professor emeritus of DePaul University and ubiquitous guest on The Discovery Channel whenever the need arises to deny the historicity of the Gospels. He claimed The Passion is taken out of context, stating: "Let's say I'm a martian...I would be saying to myself, 'what's anyone got against this guy [Jesus]." Gibson retorted: "Yeah, you're right, if you were a martian."

There was also Stephen Prothero of Boston University and Philip Cunningham, Catholic theology professor at Boston College, among many others, who, as Gary Morella summarized: "made it clear that they don't like the movie because, they say, it doesn't conform to their understanding of Christ's death. How unfortunate." Or as Jewish convert to Catholicism, Roy Schoeman sardonically put it in National Review:

Gibson's The Passion of the Christ commits a litany of unforgivable sins. It accepts the Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus at face value, rejecting the "demythologizing" reinterpretations that have become the pseudo-dogma of the past several decades, thus incurring the wrath of a bevy of doctorate-wielding modern theologians (some of whom, to the shame of the Catholic Church, are on its payroll). It incorporates scenes from the mystical visions of Catholic saints, as though they might actually have historical value and not be simply the delusional hallucinations of pious psychopaths.

The "Christian" theologians who have taken the lead in attacking the film - many of them leaders in the "Jewish-Christian" dialogue - have generally made their careers by sidestepping this dilemma by asserting either that Jesus was simply a great moral and ethical teacher, a Rabbi among Rabbis, whose later disciples conferred divine status on him (a view that is by definition non-Christian); or that Jesus introduced Christianity as a way for non-Jews to enter the Jewish covenant but never intended for Jews to become Christian, an interpretation which is contradicted throughout the Gospels.⁽¹⁾

Then there were the Internet journalists with suspiciously ethnic-sounding names like Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum, who stated, respectively:

Tempting as it may be to dismiss Mel Gibson as a glorified pain freak, dressing up a martyrdom fantasy in Aramaic and Latin, it would be more accurate, I think, to say that the filmmaker, a Catholic fundamentalist, presents his torture-racked vision of Jesus' last 12 hours on earth as a sacred form of shock therapy...The movie is blood-soaked pop theology for a doom-laden time, its effect that of a gripping yet reductive paradox: It lifts us downward.

It's a baroque lesson in Christ-like patience that demands we watch lingering scenes of skin splitting and blood coursing as Jesus is lashed with canes, then flayed with barbaric weapons of torture, then turned over and flogged some more. (The Gospels give the activity a few sentences; "'The Passion" makes the punishment its own fetish plotline.)

Then the fundamentalist Protestants got in on the act, complaining about the numerous "Catholic" scenes in the film, such as the focus on Mary, the addition of Veronica, the absence of Jesus' "brothers and sisters," the backdrop of the Stations of the Cross as Jesus made His way up the Via Delorosa, the portrayal of the Pieta at the foot of the cross. Others complained that Gibson did not depict the soldiers falling backward when Jesus said "I am," that Jesus had no clothes at the resurrection, and even that Gibson did not focus enough on the resurrection.

Hollywood was also taken aback by Gibson's film. ABS unleashed Diane Sawyer upon Gibson in an interview that attempted to put some dark cloud over Gibson's personal life, and/or some deep-rooted anti-semitic prejudice he may have had in making the film. Then CBS advertised Andy Rooney's insidious comment as to why he didn't want to see the film: "I'm not going to spend $9 just for a few laughs" Rooney declared.⁽²⁾ Since everyone from Disney to Viacom refused to accept or distribute the film, Gibson produced and distributed it himself, with his own money. This is a major assault on Hollywood. In its first week-and-a-half The Passion grossed over 200 million dollars and is on its way to breaking all the records. That so many people would see a movie spoken in Aramaic and Latin is nothing less than phenomenal. It has never happened before. But this shouldn't surprise Hollywood. The Bible, year after year, remains the #1 best-seller in the world, outpacing by leaps and bounds anything written by secular man.

Interestingly enough, the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), which would be considered a more or less liberal institution by Gibson's standards, tried to be fair in its assessment, though it was obvious they were straining to do so. Trying to play the balancing act between placating Jewish sensitivities in the midst of post-conciliar ecumenism, while teaching the raw truth of the Gospels is, indeed, a very hard task. It echoed the vacillation seen coming from the Vatican itself which, at one point reported the pope saying that Gibson's film "is at it was," and the next week his secretary said the pope made no such comment. In between those two contrary releases, Abe Foxman had visited the Vatican complaining that Gibson's film would stir up anti-semitism.

Nevertheless, for the purposes of our essay, the USCCB made at least one intriguing comment about Gibson's film, stating: "And though, for Christians, the Passion is the central event in the history of salvation, the 'how' of Christ's death is lingered on at the expense of the 'why?'" In other words, if the film does not give the theological reasons for Christ's brutal suffering, or perhaps, just assumes that most viewers already know the reasons, the graphic portrayal may lose some of its intended impact. It is a fact that most Christians have only a cursory understanding of why Jesus had to suffer such a gruesome death. Most are content to say that "Jesus suffered and died for our sins," but that is the extent of the probe. This is precisely why I chose to write this article. It will show the theological underpinning of Gibson's film.

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