THE WANDERER, November 13. 2003

JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH

Gibson's Triumph

     You've heard the shouting. In a few months you'll be 
able to see the film itself: Mel Gibson's THE PASSION, an 
attempt to show what our Lord suffered simply by filming 
what the Gospels tell us and what is known of the Roman 
practice of crucifixion -- a punishment inflicted on 
common criminals. (They didn't assign community service 
in those days.)

     I was among a small audience for a recent advance 
screening in Washington. Robert Novak, who was also 
there, has already written a column about it. I can only 
concur with him.

     Since the film still awaits final editing before its 
February 25 release, we were asked not to write about it 
prematurely. It may take a different form before the 
general public sees it. But the Jewish groups can stop 
worrying that it will incite hatred and violence against 
Jews. As Bob Novak, himself a recent Catholic convert of 
Jewish extraction, wrote, if it makes anyone look bad, 
it's the mercilessly cruel Roman soldiers, who make the 
Sanhedrin appear refined and civilized by comparison.

     THE PASSION must be, in one respect, the most truly 
violent film ever made. It shows Christ's Passion so 
unsparingly that you want to yell for it to stop. Jim 
Caviezel plays Him simply and as convincingly as is 
humanly possible. There is no trace of Hollywood glamour 
or modern sentimentality about it. The violence is as 
ugly as it can be. The idea that this movie could 
possibly *inspire* violence is absurd.

     I reserve more details for my own newsletter; for 
the time being I confine myself to the chief point of 
controversy. Of course some major Jewish groups have 
already convicted Gibson and his film of anti-Semitism; 
but then, they consider the Gospels themselves 
anti-Semitic. In fact some regard Christianity as the 
source of anti-Semitism.

     The Talmud names Christ as one of the three greatest 
enemies of the Jews and consigns Him to an obscene 
perdition in Hell. We needn't and shouldn't hold this 
against all Jews today, most of whom know nothing about 
the Talmud, but it's something to bear in mind when 
Christianity is reviled. The Jews who wrote the Gospels 
and the Acts of the Apostles knew very well what they 
were up against.

     "So be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves." 
Loving our enemies means willing their salvation; it 
doesn't mean pretending that they are our friends. 
"Father, forgive them" doesn't mean "Father, excuse 
them." Only the innocent can be excused; only the guilty 
need to be forgiven. Even on the cross, Christ knew just 
what He was saying.

     Gibson's film shows that he has meditated deeply on 
the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. And it is sorrow, 
not hate, that the film expresses.

     I wish I were at liberty to say more now; but a 
lifetime of watching movies hadn't prepared me for the 
tremendous power of this one. There has never been 
anything like it.


The Smugness of Sodomy

     As Charles Peguy wrote nearly a century ago, "We 
will never know how many acts of cowardice have been 
motivated by the fear of seeming not sufficiently 
progressive." Conversely, it takes some courage to risk 
being damned as "reactionary."

     The elevation of the openly sodomite Gene Robinson 
as a bishop is already splitting the Episcopal Church and 
the international Anglican communion of which it is part. 
Two New Hampshire churches under Robinson's authority are 
seeking to be placed under the bishop of another diocese; 
Nigeria's Archbishop Peter Akinola has announced he will 
boycott all global meetings attended by the Episcopal 
Church.

     "We can no longer claim to be in the same 
communion," Akinola says. "We cannot go to them and they 
cannot come to us. We will not share communion.... We 
have come to the end of the road."

     Such bracing words, in this day and age, are as 
startling as they are encouraging. It's interesting that 
the forces of orthodoxy are now weakest in the West and 
strongest in the Third World; this seems to be the case 
in the Catholic Church as well.

     Why is this? I suppose that the West is so inured to 
decadence that it has lost the sense of crisis; whereas 
Christians elsewhere, especially in and near the Muslim 
world, know what's at stake. They still face persecution 
and produce martyrs, and God's truth is precious to them. 
Moral relativism is not an option.

     C.S. Lewis, a devout Anglican, observed that liberal 
Christianity is a way out, not a way in. Liberalism has 
no attraction for the pagan. If he is going to convert, 
he is going to convert to a faith that demands rigor and 
offers salvation. He takes Revelation and divine law 
seriously. It's the world-weary Western Christian who is 
tempted to water it all down and reduce religion to bland 
platitudes. He wants to keep his formal membership in a 
church without feeling unduly obligated.

     As far as I know, there are no Unitarian 
missionaries or Unitarian martyrs. Unitarianism 
represents the entropy of Christianity, the final burning 
out of zeal. As James Hitchcock has put it, liberal 
Catholics see themselves not as the Church's missionaries 
to the world, but as the world's missionaries to the 
Church.

     This seems to be Robinson's attitude too. He regards 
himself as a walking moral test for other Christians. And 
so he is, but not in the way he imagines. He is trying to 
bring the Episcopal Church into alignment with current 
worldly trends, not eternal truths.

     This seems so embarrassingly obvious that I marvel 
that anyone can take it seriously. It's not Robinson's 
sodomy that amazes me, it's his incredible smugness. He 
actually takes pride in defying an ancient moral code, as 
if those who adhere faithfully to that code are lacking 
in Christian charity. It never seems to occur to him that 
he may be a sinner. He sits in judgment on the orthodox. 
It's up to them to adjust to him!

     Of course the "progressive" bias of the media, in 
which tradition has no weight, only confirms him in his 
smugness. He has embraced the starring role the media 
have assigned him: defying the authority of two 
millennia, he claims authority for himself, and he has no 
misgivings about the disruption he has caused among pious 
people. As for causing scandal, well, as they say on 
Madison Avenue, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

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                                        --- Joseph Sobran

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