2004-02-25

Passion

I'm sorry. I have no desire to see "The Passion of the Christ." None.

This is the thing: I was raised Catholic. Received 4 of the 7 Sacraments in the parish where the now-infamous John Geoghan once served. No matter what I may think of the Church these days, Catholicism is a huge part of who I am.

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Okay.

I'm not going to see it, because I just have this aversion to anything that provokes this kind of Barbara Walters-esque, tv news magazine "concern." Furrowed brows and hyperbole all around. Is it too violent? Is it anti-Semitic? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I worked in a movie theater the summer that "The Last Temptation of Christ" came out, and I didn't go see that, either.

Understand that I have never been particularly squeamish, and it goes without saying that it takes quite a lot to offend me, but in this instance I guess I don't quite get why people need to see for themselves exactly what happened to Jesus Christ. Like Mel Gibson has done us all this enormous favor by making his film as "realistic" as possible, literally driving the point across to those of us who haven't walked out of any Holy Week service with a sense of awe. And it's like, thanks Mel, but I get it. I get it at the end of the Mass on Holy Thursday, when the altar is stripped, the candles are extinguished, and the church goes into mourning. That's all I need to see, to believe.

lisamcc at 11:00 p.m.

1 comments so far
scottski
2004-02-26 11:12:20
hmmm... i doubt if people are actually going to see what really happened to Jesus. after all, this film is a fiction of a myth... not to say there's no fact in some infinitessimal way, but it's all interpretation. it's Mel Gibson, not Fellini, who's got this thing going. i was raised Christian (meaning, i was dropped off at the church door 'til i was twelve), but a lifetime of experience tells me that one religious group doesn't have all the answers. plus, im sick of this whole more "martyr-than-thou", you-must-believe-what-i-believe attitude. oy. cue the weeping and wailing and intolerance. way to go, Mel ol' boy!
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