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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (20280)	12/17/2003 6:52:27 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793624

Infighting at the Vatican goes over my head. But I was pleased to see that the Pope has approved Mel Gibson's movie about the death of Christ. opinionjournal.com I think I can tell you in a nutshell the reason for the controversy over Gibson's film. It's become widely accepted among academics that the Gospels don't actually portray political reality at the time, and that the Romans were actually responsible for the execution of Christ, because they believed him to be a political danger to the Roman state. I am not going to get dragged into that, but will simply point out that Gibson's version is faithful to the Gospels. When we talk about "blood libel," and Jews, the reason Jews have been blamed for 2000 years for the death of Christ is John 27:25, when a crowd of Jews tells Pilate, "His blood be on our heads and on the heads of our children." The Catholic Church, during Vatican II, expressly disavowed any belief that this was intended to be a taint on all Jews, for all time. According to the Gospels, some Jews - the Sanhedrin - wanted the Romans to execute Christ because they believed he was a false prophet and a troublemaker. Pilate didn't want to (his wife said she had a bad dream and asked him not to), but eventually he did it anyway, to avoid an uprising. I've learned a lot about Judaism, Catholicism, and Roman history following this controversy, and expect to learn more. But I agree with the Pope, what I've seen so far of Gibson's movie is faithful to the Catholic ceremony of the Stations of the Cross. As for what actually happened in history, who knows? The record is mighty sketchy.