wierd shit

[cwsox]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/magazine...gewanted=print&

position=top

 

March 9, 2003

 

Is the Pope Catholic...Enough?

 

By CHRISTOPHER NOXON

 

The first sign that something unusual was going on up the hill was the

appearance of a fleet of brand-new Volkswagen bugs, lined up on a muddy bluff

like a row of oversize Easter eggs. It was a local handyman who spotted them

while he was out on a walk through this little valley in the mountains

northwest of Los Angeles, near Malibu. Neighbors had already been talking

about the 16-acre property on the valley's south slope, and soon word spread

that a church group called Holy Family had purchased the site with plans to

break ground for a 9,300-square-foot Mission-style church complex.

 

Among the neighbors who wondered about the new arrival was my father, a

recently retired documentary filmmaker who joined the local homeowners

association when he moved to the area two years ago. This latest project,

however, wasn't the usual commercial complex or instant enclave of luxury

homes that tended to attract the association's attention. It was a church,

that much was clear, but it didn't sound at all like your garden-variety

community parish. A representative for the property owner explained that the

church was Catholic, but it wasn't affiliated with the Roman Catholic

archdiocese. While the church building was relatively large, the congregation

was quite small, with about 70 members. And though religious practices and

rituals would be familiar to Catholics, there was one big difference: Sunday

Mass, it was reported, would be conducted entirely in Latin.

 

Lest anyone get the impression that this band of spiritual seekers might

disperse if the collection baskets were to run dry, a church representative

assured the neighbors that the church was supported by an unnamed individual

congregant with ''tremendous financial viability.''

 

Would that explain the VW bugs? The handyman recalls posing the question at

an early community meeting. He was told that the congregant financing the

church ''had given them as gifts to his nieces and nephews,'' he says. ''I

remember thinking, 'That's some generous uncle.'''

 

 

The person behind the unusually well-endowed chapel turned out to be the

actor Mel Gibson, star of ''Mad Max,'' ''Lethal Weapon'' and ''Braveheart.''

The church is operated by a nonprofit corporation; according to public

financial records, Gibson is its director, chief executive officer and sole

benefactor, making more than $2.8 million in contributions over the past

three years.

 

The fact that Gibson is building a church in the hills near Los Angeles

should come as no huge surprise. Gibson's Catholicism has never been a

secret, and in fact gives him a sort of reverse-exoticism in a town where

other stars dabble in Buddhism, kabala and Scientology. An avowed family man

still on his first marriage, with seven children to show for it, Gibson

smokes, raises cattle, publicly shuns plastic surgery and seems wholly

unmoved by most of the liberal-left causes favored by industry peers.

Recently, however, something beyond the impulse to entertain has been showing

up in Gibson's work. Last year he played a former minister who rediscovers

religion amid an alien invasion in ''Signs'' and a reverent Catholic

lieutenant colonel in the war drama ''We Were Soldiers.'' In these films, but

especially in a new movie, a monumentally risky project called ''The

Passion,'' which he co-wrote and is currently directing in and around Rome,

Gibson appears increasingly driven to express a theology only hinted at in

his previous work. That theology is a strain of Catholicism rooted in the

dictates of a 16th-century papal council and nurtured by a splinter group of

conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected

conservatives -- including a seminary dropout and rabble-rousing theologist

who also happens to be Mel Gibson's father.

 

Gibson is the star practitioner of this movement, which is known as Catholic

traditionalism. Seeking to maintain the faith as it was understood before the

landmark Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, traditionalists view modern

reforms as the work of either foolish liberals or hellbent heretics. They

generally operate outside the authority or oversight of the official church,

often maintaining their own chapels, schools, seminaries and clerical orders.

Central to the movement is the Tridentine Mass, the Latin rite that was

codified by the Council of Trent in the 16th century and remained in place

until the Second Vatican Council deemed that Mass should be held in the

popular language of each country. Latin, however, is just the beginning --

traditionalists refrain from eating meat on Fridays, and traditionalist women

wear headdresses in church. The movement seeks to revive an orthodoxy

uncorrupted by the theological and social changes of the last 300 years or

so.

 

Michael W. Cuneo, a sociology professor at Fordham University who reported on

right-wing Catholic dissent in his 1997 book, ''The Smoke of Satan,'' wrote

that traditionalists ''would like nothing more than to be transported back to

Louis XIV's France or Franco's Spain, where Catholicism enjoyed an unrivaled

presidency over cultural life and other religions existed entirely at its

beneficence.''

 

While traditionalists agree on the broad outlines of correct religious

practice, the movement is hardly united. Its brief history is the story of a

movement branching off into ever-smaller submovements. Today there are

approximately 600 traditionalist chapels, representing a number of

theological streams, including the more Vatican-friendly Society of Saint

Pius X, the more strident Society of Saint Pius V, the militantly traditional

Mount St. Michael's community and the Apostles of Infinite Love, a monastic

community in Quebec led by a onetime Catholic brother who claims to be the

incarnation of the one true pope. All told, there are an estimated 100,000

traditionalists in the United States.

 

Gibson's church may be the most comfortably endowed traditionalist house of

worship in the country, but in other respects it is quite typical. Most of

the congregation met while attending services held by a traditionalist

priest, whose church in the San Gabriel Valley was eventually taken over by

the Society of Saint Pius X. A group of congregants, including the Gibson

family, left in protest. They gained approval from Los Angeles County to

build their own church early last year after agreeing to a set of operating

guidelines -- covering such issues as parking, lighting, signage and hours of

services -- with the regional planning commission and neighbors (including my

father).

 

When I called the church elder who was Holy Family's representative at the

county meetings, he agreed to an interview and accepted my request to attend

a service, on the conditions that I not identify him or any member of the

congregation beyond Mel Gibson, and that I withhold details that might invite

the interest of fans or paparazzi. He also asked that I refrain from speaking

to the priest, the congregants or anyone else during my visit. He told me

that anyone seen speaking to me ''will not be welcome back at our church

again.''

 

After all the warnings, I was a little surprised to find Sunday Mass at Holy

Family an almost entirely ordinary experience. The service itself was

remarkably similar to what I remember from parochial school -- that is, until

a homily delivered near the end of the two-hour Mass. The priest read a

parable from St. Matthew about a farmer whose fields are raided in the night

by an enemy who spreads a noxious weed in his wheat. The evil in the story,

the priest said, is ''the modern church,'' whose wickedness will be dealt

with on Judgment Day.

 

''The wiping out of our opposition must wait until harvest time,'' he

concluded. It suddenly became clear why Gibson isn't worshiping with his

fellow Catholic Martin Sheen down at Our Lady of Malibu.

 

Gibson is widely known in traditionalist circles, and he has made no secret

of his religious affiliation. ''I go to an all-pre-Vatican II Latin Mass,''

he told USA Today in an interview two years ago. ''There was a lot of talk,

particularly in the 60's, of 'Wow, we've got to change with the times.' But

the Creator instituted something very specific, and we can't just go change

it.'' More recently, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale reported that Gibson

made a ''scathing attack against the Vatican,'' calling it a ''wolf in

sheep's clothing.''

 

While many traditionalists can't abide some of Gibson's career choices -- the

onscreen baring of his bottom is a particular source of concern -- most are

content to overlook his occasional wild streak. ''Gibson should get the

tsk-tsk award for lowering his impressive acting talent on occasion,'' wrote

a priest known as Father Moderator on the Internet posting board Traditio.

Nonetheless, the priest continued, Gibson ''never ceases to project his

traditional Catholic faith to the public. Who else in such a prominent

position ever does?''

 

Mel Gibson is also known in traditionalist circles as the most famous son of

Hutton Gibson, a well-known author and activist who has railed against the

Vatican for more than 30 years. His books on the topic include ''Is the Pope

Catholic?'' and ''The Enemy Is Here.'' (Precisely where is indicated by a map

on the dust jacket -- it's a cartoon of Italy, drawn by one of his 49

grandchildren). Gibson père also publishes a quarterly newsletter called

''The War Is Now!,'' which includes all manner of verbal volleys against a

pope he calls ''Garrulous Karolus, the Koran Kisser.''

 

Now living in suburban Houston, Hutton Gibson invited me for a weekend visit

after an initial phone conversation. When I arrived, he was wrapping up an

interview with a syndicated radio program. Hutton Gibson is 84 but seemed a

good deal younger (which he credited to his abstinence from drinking, daily

doses of vitamins and ''never going near a doctor''). He is energized by an

abiding love of corny jokes and lively debate, and he peppered a commentary

on the scandals facing the Catholic Church with jokes about Texans, the Irish

and, inevitably, the pope.

 

He said he speaks to his son frequently and knows all about Mel's chapel in

the hills. ''Mel wasn't raised in the new church, and he wouldn't go for it

anymore than I would,'' he said. ''I've got to say that my whole family is

with me -- all 10 of them.''

 

While his rhetoric showed no signs of mellowing, the elder Gibson had plenty

of reasons to be satisfied. For one, he is a newlywed. His doting bride,

Joye, is a statuesque Oregonian who playfully addressed him as ''Mr. G.''

Surrounded by ceramic knickknacks and photos of his grandchildren, he seemed

entirely at ease with himself and the world.

 

Which made it all the odder when he launched into one of his complex

conspiracy theories. On our first night together, he nursed a mug of

sassafras tea while leading a four-hour tutorial on so-called sedevacantism,

which holds that all the popes going back to John XXIII in the 1950's have

been illegitimate -- ''anti-popes,'' he called them. As Hutton explained it,

the conservative cardinal Giuseppe Siri was probably passed over for pope in

1958 in favor of a more reform-minded candidate. Hutton said Cardinal Siri

was duly elected, but was forced to step aside by conspirators inside and

outside the church. These shadowy enemies might have threatened ''to

atom-bomb the Vatican City,'' he said. In another conversation, he told me

that the Second Vatican Council was ''a Masonic plot backed by the Jews.''

 

The intrigue got only murkier and more menacing from there. The next day

after church, over a plate of roast beef at a buffet joint off the highway,

conversation turned to the events of Sept. 11. Hutton flatly rejected that Al

Qaeda hijackers had anything to do with the attacks. ''Anybody can put out a

passenger list,'' he said.

 

So what happened? ''They were crashed by remote control,'' he replied.

 

He moved on to the Holocaust, dismissing historical accounts that six million

Jews were exterminated. ''Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates

the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,'' he said. ''It

takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million?''

 

Across the table, Joye suddenly looked up from her plate. She was dressed in

a stylish outfit for church, wearing a leather patchwork blazer and a felt

beret in place of the traditional headdress. She had kept quiet most of the

day, so it was a surprise when she cheerfully piped in. ''There weren't even

that many Jews in all of Europe,'' she said.

 

''Anyway, there were more after the war than before,'' Hutton added.

 

The entire catastrophe was manufactured, said Hutton, as part of an

arrangement between Hitler and ''financiers'' to move Jews out of Germany.

Hitler ''had this deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they

would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to

fight the Arabs,'' he said.

 

Whether any of this has rubbed off on Hutton's son Mel is an open question. A

church elder at Holy Family says that while the two share the same foundation

of faith, Mel Gibson parts company with his father on many points. ''He

doesn't go along with a lot of what his dad says,'' he says. And beyond

claiming to have seen the plans for Holy Family and attended services with

the congregation, Hutton Gibson has no apparent connection to his son's

church in California.

 

Still, Mel Gibson has shown some of his father's flair for conspiracy

scenarios. In a 1995 Playboy interview, he related a sketchy theory that

various presidential assassinations and assassination attempts have been acts

of retribution for economic reforms that challenged the powers-that-be.

''There's something to do with the Federal Reserve that Lincoln did, Kennedy

did and Reagan tried,'' he said. ''I can't remember what it was. My dad told

me about it. Everyone who did this particular thing that would have fixed the

economy got undone. Anyway, I'll end up dead if I keep talking.''

 

Perhaps nothing Gibson has done will serve as a more public announcement of

his faith and worldview than the project he's now completing in Rome. ''The

Passion'' is a graphic depiction of the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus

Christ, based on biblical accounts and the writings of two mystic nuns.

Gibson is returning to the director's chair for the first time since

''Braveheart'' in 1995, but he will not appear on-screen. There will not, in

fact, be any big stars. Nor will there be subtitles, which might prove a

challenge for many moviegoers, since the actors will speak only Aramaic and

Latin. Gibson has said that he hopes to depict Christ's ordeal using ''filmic

storytelling'' techniques that will make the understanding of dialogue

unnecessary.

 

The idea came to him a decade ago, he announced at a news conference last

September, and he is soldiering on now without the backing of a studio or a

U.S. distributor. ''Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two

dead languages,'' he said. ''They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe

I'm a genius.''

 

In Hollywood, the astonishment many felt upon hearing about the project has

been heightened by reports that his production company is paying the film's

estimated $25 million cost itself. Making a movie that has anything at all to

do with religion is risky enough -- remember ''The Last Temptation of

Christ''? But spending your own money to help pay for it?

 

''It's a very gutsy thing to do -- I certainly wouldn't do it,'' says the

veteran producer Alan Ladd Jr., who chose Gibson to star in and direct

''Braveheart.'' ''But he wouldn't do it if he couldn't it pull off, at least

in his own mind. He's obviously satisfying some deep personal need in

himself.''

 

Only Gibson knows the precise nature of that personal need, and he declined

numerous requests for an interview, limiting his public comments to a January

appearance on the Fox news program ''The O'Reilly Factor,'' in which he

complained about inquiries regarding his faith and suggested that any

reporter asking such questions might be part of a plot to undermine his

message of salvation. ''I think he's been sent,'' he told Bill O'Reilly.

''When you touch this subject, it does have a lot of enemies.''

 

Many traditionalists, meanwhile, hope the graphic approach Gibson is taking

-- production stills show the star, James Caviezel, beaten to a pulp and

drenched in blood, fresh from a flagellation -- will serve as a big-budget

dramatization of key points of traditionalist theology. After waging a quiet

war against what they see as the Vatican's overly accommodating theology,

traditionalists suddenly find themselves equipped with a most unfamiliar

weapon: star power. ''I'm delighted he's getting more involved,'' says Bishop

Daniel Dolan, founder of more than 30 Latin Mass churches and one of the most

influential traditionalists in the country. ''To put the weight of his

Hollywood celebrity behind the truth that the whole modern church structure

is rotten to the core is excellent. I welcome it.''

 

A friend of the Gibson family has his own ideas about how traditionalist

thought is informing ''The Passion.'' Gary Giuffre, a founder of the

traditionalist St. Jude Chapel in Texas, says Gibson told him about his plans

for ''The Passion'' on a recent visit. ''It will graphically portray the

intense suffering of Christ, perhaps as no film has done before.'' Most

important, he says, the film will lay the blame for the death of Christ where

it belongs -- which some traditionalists believe means the Jewish authorities

who presided over his trial and delivered him to the Romans to be crucified.

 

In his conversation with Bill O'Reilly (who prefaced the interview by

disclosing that Gibson's production company has optioned the rights to

O'Reilly's mystery novel), Gibson was asked whether his account might

particularly upset Jews. ''It may,'' he said. ''It's not meant to. I think

it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible. But

when you look at the reasons why Christ came, why he was crucified -- he died

for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind. So that, really, anyone who

transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own

culpability.''

 

Christopher Noxon is a writer living in Los Angeles.

[Heads22]

Thats...too...long...

[baggio202]

i can see why these churches are springing up...i left the catholic church a long time ago...a lot of people feel they sold out their beliefs for money...i went to catholic mass 2 years ago for the christening of my niece...it must have been atleast 15 years since i stepped foot in a catholic church... this is what it has become...you go to a catholic mass now its no longer about salvation and being closer to god..its about how the evil republicans have cut so many government programs that they have put a huge burden on the catholic church to pick up all the funding for these charities and because of that every parrishioner must give 37.50 this week for each member of his or her family for the church to meet its financial obligations...thats all the preist talked about...1/2 hour was devoted to the history of the catholic church in northern dupage county and how its financial responsibilities have grown..the other half hour was blasting the republicans..then , and im serious, he asked for 37.50 from each parishioner...

 

is it any wonder there are catholics who long for the old days???...i joined the conservative baptists after leaving the catholic church..im sureif i was in mel gibson's place some reporter would have done the same to me...the conservative baptists broke away from the american baptist church in the 60's because they felt the church was compromising its principles...the big split came over women ministers...the conservative baptists believe the man heads the family...so in the family of the church a man must be a minister...my church takes a pre- modernization look to it just like gibson's

 

id need to here gibson side of this before i could really comment..i do know mel has stated that he asked this reporter not to talk to his father because his father has alzhiemers and the reporter not only didnt honor that request but failed to acknowledge it in this article..which leads me to believe his motives arnt pure..

 

as a displaced catholic i can relate to mel...if he feels he is closer to god in what most of us consider a wierd religion then more power to him..whatever floats your boat

[Soxfest]

Money IS the root of all evil

[SI1020]

The love of money is the root of all evil. Try living without it. As far as the article goes, it's interesting but I'm sure it's meant to cast Gibson in a bad light. The fathers comments I take with a grain of salt. I find the comment in the sermon about the "modern church" to be disturbing. I've wrestled with religion seriously since my teens. The problem with religion, ANY religion is that once you've convinced yourself you've found God's truth how do you deal with people who don't believe as you do? The result is sometimes not pretty, as any cursory study of history will reveal. I was brought up in the Catholic faith. My grandparents were kind and devout people. I've fallen away and come back more times than I can count. I am well aware of all the historical and modern criticisms of the Church that come from members and non members alike. I grew up in a part of Chicago that was predominately Jewish at the time. I'm not an expert on Judaism, but I never met a Jewish person that would deny his or her identity regardless of whether or not that person practiced the Jewish faith seriously. There is a cultural component to being Jewish. I'm of the opinion that being Catholic is similar. Culturally I will always be a northern urban Catholic whether or not I practice the faith as rigorously as some think I should. These are difficult scary times and many people long for clarity and decisiveness in their religious faith. It appears to many that their particular religion may have sold out to modernity in order to "fit" in. That is why Mel Gibson has chosen more traditional Catholicism. The fastest growing Christian faiths are those that demand much of their flock in terms of belief and action. Fundementalists and faiths like the Church of the Latter Day Saints grow by leaps and bounds while more traditional Christain faiths lose members every year. Every one has to decide for himself or herself. This is a highly personal choice and one of the most basic rights of an American citizen.

[cwsox]

no reaction to Gibson's father calling the election of John 23rd a Masonic plot backed by Jews? Or denying the al queda involvement in September 11th? Or Mel's wierd take on the Lincoln assassination?

 

Oh well.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

no reaction to Gibson's father calling the election of John 23rd a Masonic plot backed by Jews?  Or denying the al queda involvement in September 11th?  Or Mel's wierd take on the Lincoln assassination?

 

Oh well.

They are such goddamn whackjobs, I thought Mel and his dad did a good job of making asses out of themselves...I didn't feel the need to clarify the point.

[SI1020]

Should have been more emphatic about those comments. I'm cynical about the press and I'm not sure about the elder Gibson's mental state. Yes the Jewish holocaust happened. I don't know why Jewish people seem to be everybodys favorite whipping boy.

[SI1020]

Had to reread that part cw about the "federal reserve" connection in American Presidential assassinations or in the case of Reagan, an attempt. When I was young and foolish I used to be susceptible to conspiracy theories of various stripes. Most of them collapse under the weight of the available evidence. I also have done a lot of "research" oriented work and I do not pass on bulls*** to folks I do work for. Thorough and accurate work does not always make for good copy. You can say outlandish things like LBJ was part of the "hit" on Kennedy or Jews conspired to elect John XXIII so church dogma could be watered down. When you examine things closely you see that most "theories" such as these are outlandish fantasies. Concerning Mel Gibson, it just appears to me that most Hollywooders are filled with self absorption and self importance. I think a lot of them, despite the money, fame, fortune, etc are very insecure and feel a constant need to be on stage one way or another.

[baggio202]

no reaction to Gibson's father calling the election of John 23rd a Masonic plot backed by Jews?  Or denying the al queda involvement in September 11th?  Or Mel's wierd take on the Lincoln assassination?

 

Oh well.

his dad has friggen alzheimers...doesnt that count for anything???..the article also says mel and his father do not agree on a lot of things..and since his dad is in houston and mel out in LALA land and from the tone of the article im guessing they had a serious falling out

 

this article was totally uncalled for...its not right to pry into the family of anyone..no matter how famous they are...and mel asked this reporter specifically not to bother his father because he is sick...this was wrong...

 

where is the tolerance for freedom of religion here???..its seems like we only tolerate freedom "from" religion

[baggio202]

I don't know why Jewish people seem to be everybodys favorite whipping boy.

funny you mention that...congressman moran (D) from viginia just blamed the jews for the upcoming war on iraq....not a direct quote but he said that the jews were the power behind this war and jewish leaders in this country could stop it if they want to..he said it this past weekend and has been apoligizing for it ever since..