Andrew Greeley hates "The Passion..." with a passion.

[greatauntoftriplets]

'Passion' fails to nail key point

March 5, 2004

BY ANDREW GREELEY
'The Passion of the Christ'' is a celebration of the bloody suffering of Jesus, a fundamentalist interpretation by a man who rejects the Vatican Council. It is not, contrary to claims, a literal interpretation of St. John's Gospel but is based on the ''revelations'' of a 19th century mystic. It is a film about torture, legitimated because it is the torture of Jesus. ''Passion'' is a glorification of sado-masochism.

For most of the first millennium of Christian history, the church spread a veil of modest discretion over the physical suffering of Jesus. It respected the privacy of his final hours and celebrated the empty crucifix as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus (an event that is noted only weakly and vaguely in Mel Gibson's conclusion). The Greek churches even to this day resist sensationalist presentations of the suffering of Jesus. However, in the Middle Ages, the Western church gradually put the corpus back on the cross, though it did not present Jesus as naked, as he in fact would have been. The cult of the physical suffering of Jesus became especially strong during the Renaissance. It was not always a completely healthy devotion as the cult of the flagellants demonstrated.

Crucifixion was a cruel form of execution. After the slave revolution of Sparticus, 30,000 slaves were crucified along the Apian Way. The death of Jesus was not unique in its cruelty, however horrible it may have been. Whether our modern methods of execution are any more humane might be an open question. It was typical of everything in the life of Jesus that he chose to be united in his death with the poor and the oppressed, a point Gibson seems to have missed.

Those religious conservatives who seem to delight in how much Jesus suffered are certainly correct that his sufferings were terrible. Those who say the sufferings were absolutely unique to him simply display their own ignorance of history.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel05.html

[Plaid Adder]

1. Yeah, the other Andrew has been ranting for weeks on his blog about this

On edit: misread byline. Thought this was about Andrew Sullivan:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com

Ah well. The other Andrew's take on this movie is pretty entertaining. It's actually very interesting to me as an insight into the pathology of denial...

OK, so seeing Bush endorse the Federal Marriage Amendment was a big shock to Andy's system. Ranting, outrage, threats of dire revenge, hurt, pain, betrayal, the whole bit--it makes very good reading, I have to say. However, it still hasn't wised him up abotu a lot of things, especially the war in Iraq and, you know, corporate greed.

His response to *The Passion* is particularly interesting because on the blog he keeps wondering why none of the other conservative commentators can tell that this is not a moving and devout treatment of the greatest story ever told, but rather two hours of "psychotic sadism." The movie, like the FMA, has become a symbol of just how big a perceptions gap there is between him and the conservatives he thought were his allies. Why can't they see that *The Passion* is sick and twisted and all about repressing homoerotic desire so violently that it returns as blood-soaked sadism? *Because when it comes to sex, they're all just as sick and twisted and repressed as Mel is.* They *can't* see it the way he does because none of them are even close to being able to recognize and acknowledge the weird and wacked shapes that sexuality takes in that subterranean territory into which they're always trying to thrust it.

I think that's a big part of why he reacted against the movie as strongly as he has; it's not just about Mel, it's about his relationship to the American right. Yes, Andrew, this is your party. You have aligned yourself with the most powerful political engine of anti-gay hatred and bigotry in the country. How's that workin' for ya?

Yeesh,

The Plaid Adder

[Benhurst]

2. I found Father Greeley's take on "Passion" interesting

and informative. Thanks for the post.

[supernova]

3. Thank you, Fr Greeley is wonderful

The lesson of Good Friday, properly understood, is that God suffers with us.

:cry: :cry:

Most of the time I think this message gets lost. This is what I have intuitively felt for a long time but was unable to say it. Most of the time in church it is said that God/Jesus suffers for us. Well, anybody who has ever had a serious illness, near-death experience, prolonged personal problems of whatever stripe knows this isn't so. S/He does not replace our hurt. S/He hurts with us. We are not alone.

[UTUSN]

4. Yep, GREELEY Said This with Tweety Last Night

Though it gives me an icky feeling to end up on the same side with these two Andrews.

And I claim first dibs on having called the movie an S&M cult-to-be, with another poster adding that it was "a Xtian snuff movie."

Actually, two people resolved my confusion about whether to patronize Saint Mel's first billion: O'REILLY, who saw it a week before the opening and said there was "nothing new" for anybody, like him, who had a traditionalist Catholic background. Later, my older, "delicate", unofficial-nun sister said the same thing and was enthusiastic about it. That settled it for me, the other way: If Mel is anti-Liberal-John-XXIII-Vatican-II (and Zeus knows that whatever change was made then is not enough now), I refuse to add my $7.50 to Mel's billions.

After that somebody posted ZEFFERELLI's comments about GIBSON killing farm animals to study the look in their eyes and how Z's own Jesua movie aimed at the Vatican II spirit and Mel is a reactionary, sadistic throwback.

As for the icky factor with GREELEY: On LETTERMAN years ago, he made lame, sexual double entendres ("It's not my AFFAIR"), to which LETTERMAN replied, "What does that MEAN?!!!"

[supernova]

5. "Crucifixion porn"

is the phrase I read from one reviewer over at rottentomatoes.com a couple of weeks ago.

LOL! I have my own scars and now how much they have cost me; I have no need to ask Jesus to show me how he got his again, because I already sympathize. ;-)

[UTUSN]

6. OLIPHANT 'toon re: "Little Mel"

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/05/cartoons_that_offend_through_stereotype/

THE CARTOON ATOP last Monday's editorial page was intended as a satirical comment on the violence in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." But many Globe readers saw it as something else: assault-by-stereotype on nuns.

Scores of readers quickly phoned or e-mailed their dismay and their disgust. They were as hurt as they were angry, and a couple were in tears. ....

********UNQUOTE*******