Yet I still saw a report the other day about a fan site where the members were just beginning to ask, “What’s with him?” Why is there this reluctance to call something by its right name? It’s not as if Gibson was issuing a cry for help. On the contrary, what he is issuing is the distilled violence, cruelty, and bigotry—and sexual hypocrisy—that stretches from the Crusades through the Inquisition to the “concordats” between the church and Hitler and Mussolini. Yet he’s still reporting for work. When will Hollywood, and the wider society, finally decide to shun and spurn him utterly, both for what he is and for what he represents?
It is nice to know that even when he is sick Hitchens can fight bigotry with more bigotry.
Mel Gibson is an idiot whose mind has been polluted–not with the Catholic faith, but with the Rad Trad extremism coupled with Hollywood narcissism. I have to come clean because I did more than defend his movie in print. I did so because it did not seem to me that there was anything in the movie that is not in the gospels or in the Stations of the Cross. I see no reason to change that assessment, but Gibson sure does spoil the whole experience. . . it least he does for me. Unfortunately, antisemitism is the soft, white underbelly of the Rad Trad movement.
The ironic thing is that the only one who is likely to salvage his sorry carcass is his Protestant wife, Robyn, whom he dumped for a chick half his age because he did not have a “spiritual connection” with his wife of nearly 30 years (according to him on one of the tapes), and whom he thinks is going to hell, because she is not a Catholic, like him.
Hitchens is an opportunist, even when he is on death’s doorstep. Gibson throws him a banana peel and he feels obliged to put his foot on it.
Pray for both of these knuckleheads.
Mary Victrix 
The older I get, the more angry I become of the people who live ‘double lives’ … those who on the one-hand claim to be so devoted to their faith and yet who live licentious lives on the side. They do more damage to our Faith than all the lukewarm people combined who ADMIT to their lukewarmness. Yet, the older I get, the more forgiving I have become of such people. We’re all hypocrites, after all. We’re all human. I used to wonder why we had to pray for perseverance. I don’t wonder anymore. One moment we can feel so inspired, so sure of this faith of ours, so dedicated to serving our Lord and living the life of a saint. And then, in an instant, doubts overwhelm us and we grow tired and weary and wonder if we can sustain this any longer … and if it’s worth it. Whether we truly are just fools. Life becomes monotonous and lonely. In the case of Gibson, a good-looking man, living in Hollywood, sin surrounds him each day (more than it does the average shmuck). His fame and winning smile provide him with LOTS of sexual temptations, I’m sure, plus the money to afford more substance abuses and materialism than most of us … so it must be easy to ‘fall’. What does he need to do to save his soul probably? He needs to leave Hollywood, no doubt. He needs to run like the Dickens, quite honestly. But, he won’t. It’s everything he knows.
There was a book a few years ago written by a fundamentalist author called, “God Uses Cracked Pots” … pun, of course, in that God uses crack-pots. I never read the book but I’ve often contemplated the title. Many composers/artists from the past eras that we look back on with such fondness since they composed music or painted pictures depicting the Faith with such brilliance, lived no less of licentious lives than Gibson does. Passionate people (an adjective describing most musicians, artists and actors) cannot turn their passions on and off. It’s their gift and their curse. Why does God gift people in this way only to let that gift be their ultimate demise? I don’t know.
Our very lives depend on a merciful God. So, how do we continue to promote a movie like, “The Passion” whilst knowing that Gibson is drowning in his flesh-eating ‘passions’ of a different sort? It’s humbling to do so, that’s for sure! But, I wonder if the people who knew most of us 30 years ago and see us now say, “Ha! What a joke. How can we listen to anything SHE/HE says?” If we don’t pray for perseverance, we could fall just like Gibson, I don’t doubt. We could live double-lives and without the Paparazzi on us, we could shamefully get away with it more easily… “There but for the Grace of God go I”…..
Though he’s a Rad Trad extremist, as you say, others might consider most of us to be the same. sigh. My humble 2-cents as I battle my own demons. Praying for all of the knuckleheads….some just more ‘famous’ than others.
I had just come back from my prayer walk. During this time somewhat early in the morning, 7am, my Rosary is said for the general public and then specific issues and requests. On returning home thinking that my morning devotion was at an end, time for a quick breakfast. Then this particular blog comes up. Mel Gibson, wow what a sinner. Reminds of this tramp, whore, working gale I once read about.
Then my egotistical narcissistic world view reacted. I just look the other way, for a moment. You are NOT like them! Pride! Ya, crucify him! Then all those prayers for that moment were answered from around the world dating back 2,000 yrs. Yes, you see. I hope. Yes, I have this Special Relationship. Describing it would be difficult. My special relationship is nothing in comparison to the so-called USA-UK mutual self-interest relations. Mine is, more secure. The relationship grows everyday, in many ways. This relationship is with God. As Father Michael Scanlan describes it, “It’s complicated.” But it is also very secure. I myself could not destroy what is mine by gift. Even the power to accept it was a gift. Even when I just look the other way.
Well, as for Mel Gibson, young fresh tarts and movies. Mel is everything you say he is: great movies, great acting. Probably even more so, because we noticed. Probably even more so, because we just look the other way. “I once was lost and now I am found. I once was blind, but now can see.” ( I believe that was a Marx Brothers Film quote, naw.) At particular times, I see better than other times. At other times, I just look the other way. The pot has not a sustainable right against the craftsmanship of its creator. Nor against HIS timing. Pray for us all on this Feast Day of St. Mary Magdelene “The Penitent.”
Now, you see how pious sounding a sinner like me can make himself be perceived. I assure you it comes from deep inside. This “it” is God the Holy Spirit trying to exert more influence. I pray for His success, even when I look the other way!
This whole Mel Gibson thingy is totally diabolic. Just listen to one of the taped phone conversations. The devil will do all that he can to turn people away from God.
Darlene,
Yes, it’s completely diabolical. I think that’s why the devil takes people who are doing something ‘radical’ for Christ and then has their work totally compromised by tempting them into this double-life. So, Gibson on the one hand, produces this masterpiece of “The Passion” but it gets completely compromised by Gibson’s double-life … the Rad Trad Catholic on the one side, and the adulterous, alcoholic, anti-semitic nutcase on the other. I also think of priests like Fr. Maciel from the Legionnaires … and many other priests who on the one side have made HUGE strides for Christ but then have had it all obliterated and mocked due to their ‘double lives’ … fathering children, hiring escorts, etc.
It’s completely diabolical and I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that our job is to somehow … SOMEHOW … not allow ourselves to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not to stop watching “The Passion” … not to stop supporting the Legionnaires. God does His work through these ‘cracked pots’ (broken people) but the devil takes our focus off of God’s work and places it instead on his messes.
On a personal note, I have found myself in a very negative state as of late. In my recent prayer, I have been trying to find God’s GOODNESS instead of always just seeing the devil’s sewage. It is so hard to do but I think this post shows just that.
For whatever reason, God chose Gibson to put his neck on the line for “The Passion”. Gibson was already a broken man … already struggling with alcoholism, infidelity, anger issues, etc. Why him??? Well, God’s ways are surely not my ways.
Bravo Jen! We must pray for him. The devil will do all that he can to destroy lives including Mel Gibson. He (satan) will use anyone or anything to push people away from God. The devil wants to destroy souls. Pray! Pray! Pray! Lets thank God for a wonderful movie that HE provided for us. The Passion!
“Mel Gibson is an idiot whose mind has been polluted–not with the Catholic faith, but with the Rad Trad extremism coupled with Hollywood narcissism.”
Exactly.
Mel Gibson is a human person with faults and hang ups just like all of us. We need to pray for this man. He needs our prayers more then anything. Calling him all sorts of mean names is not going to help no one. He is a suffering soul going through some very bad times. Surely you must see that! Surely you must see that he is being used by the Devil to ruin souls. This is not the works of Mel Gibson. This is the work of something bigger. Destroy and conquer!
When I went to see The Passion of the Christ, I expected to see a gory presentation of Our Lord’s suffering, which, of course, I did, but I had no intuition that I would also see a movie that was so Marian.
In this regard, the movie was more like Ven. Mary of Agreda’s Mystical City of God, than it was like the Dolorous Passion of Bl. Catherine Emmerich. I considered it to be an imaginative presentation of the doctrine of the Coredemption.
I was completely blown away by Gibson’s movie. I thought it was the most Marian piece of popular art that was ever made. I guess I still do.
Perhaps the making of the movie was a moment of grace for Mel Gibson. It is a shame.
I have had a hard time with this. I told myself Gibson, under the influence of alcohol, just spewed the stuff he had heard over and over again from his father, and that The Passion of the Christ was not made by an anti-Semite. I have been kidding myself.
We will not be making my booklet on the movie available any longer. It may take a few days for the MaryMediatrix.com bookstore to get updated, but it certainly will be.
I wouldn’t be too upset over liking Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. It was an inspired movie, and I believe this still. God took a medium, infused it with grace, and put forth one of the most fantastic recreations of His Passion our generation has seen. It is not the man, a lowly sinner, who should get credit for this work. In much the same way that Mozart should get little credit for his “Requiem”, divinely inspired, or his “Exultate Jubilate”…How can God transform the art from the filth of the earth? Go rewatch “The Passion” and find out.