- Here's some happy news this Christmas season, an unexpected
gift for those who have seen and admired Mel Gibson's controversial movie,
"The Passion," and wish to support it. The film has a new admirer,
and he is a person of some influence. He is in fact the head of the Holy
Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
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- Pope John Paul II saw the movie the weekend before last,
in the Vatican, apparently in his private rooms, on a television, with
a DVD, and accompanied by his closest friend, Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz.
Afterwards and with an eloquent economy John Paul shared with Msgr. Dziwisz
his verdict. Dziwisz, the following Monday, shared John Paul's five-word
response with the co-producer of The Passion, Steve McEveety.
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- This is what the pope said: "It is as it was."
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- Officially the Vatican has avoided formal comment on
the film because its contents have been a matter of recently famous dispute
and argument. The movie has been accused of being harsh toward Jews, and
Mr. Gibson, the film's director, has been accused of anti-Semitism. This
summer a group of scholars associated with the U.S. Bishops Council obtained
an apparently stolen copy of an early draft of the script and came forward
to denounce it as scripturally incorrect and potentially injurious of Christian-Jewish
relations. Mr. Gibson protested, and the bishops more or less fled the
scene, but the damage was done.
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- Since then, church officials have tended to treat the
film as if it were a car crash that happened down the street: It can complicate
your life to go there, and it can get messy. Six weeks ago, at a diplomatic
reception in Rome to mark the 25th anniversary of John Paul's papacy, I
spoke to an important American cardinal about the controversy and urged
him to see the film and come to his own honest conclusions. He blinked
anxiously behind thick glasses. No, he said, he shouldn't, the movie is
a matter of "dispute." (The church is very odd these days in
that it dodges those controversies on which it has known authority and
expertise, and seems to embrace those controversies on which it seems to
have nothing to add but airy non sequiturs. See the comments this week
of Cardinal Renato Martino, who said it was not compassionate of U.S. forces
to publicly search Saddam Hussein's head for lice. Yes, how brutal. Why,
it was like what Saddam himself would have done with a captured foe, except
once he was done with him he wouldn't have a head. But never mind.)
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- John Paul II, who even with the challenges of his current
illness has more good sense than many of his cardinals, knew of the controversy
surrounding Mr. Gibson's film, and wanted to see it. Producer Steve McEveety,
who had flown to Rome uninvited to show the film to as many Vatican officials
as he could, gave the DVD to Msgr. Dziwisz on Friday, Dec. 5. The monsignor
and the pope watched it together. Where did they watch it? I asked Mr.
McEveety in a telephone interview this week. "At the pope's pad,"
he laughed. In the papal apartments. "He had to watch it late in the
evening," Mr. McEveety said of John Paul. "He's pretty well booked.
But he really wanted to see it."
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- Afterwards, Msgr. Dziwisz gave Mr. McEveety the pope's
reaction. The pope found it very powerful, and approved of it. Mr. McEveety
was delighted. Msgr. Dziwisz added that the pope said to him, as the film
neared its end, five words that he wished to pass on: "It is as it
was." The film, the Holy Father felt, tells the story the way the
story happened. A week later Mr. McEveety was marveling at what he felt
was the oracular quality of the statement. "Five words. Eleven letters."
(I asked the pope's veteran press spokesman, Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valles,
if he knew if the pope had said anything beyond "It is as it was."
He e-mailed back that he did not know of any further comments.)
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- "I was kind of relieved--it's a scary thing,"
said Mr. McEveety. "But Billy Graham saw it and was very supportive,
and now JPII. The amazing thing is they're in agreement on the film."
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- Why is this news? Not only because John Paul has, it
seems, broken free of the Vatican apparatus to see the film, and not only,
obviously, because of who he is, but also because of his history, the facts
of his life. He is a scholar, a poet and former playwright who loves the
drama and himself considered acting on and writing for the stage professionally.
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- And no pope has done more for Jewish-Christian relations
than he. He has had a profound engagement with Jews and Judaism both since
his elevation and before it. He would know cheap when he sees it, and he
would know anti-Semitic, too. His approbation would not be given lightly.
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- Michael Novak, a scholar of this pope, summed it up for
me. He said John Paul's life has been marked by "a profound sense
of the irrationality and barbarity which fell upon the Jews in World War
II, which he saw and experienced, which suffused his desire thereafter
to pitch his life close to the Jews. One sees it in his lifelong friendships,
in his visit to the Jewish community in Rome, in his unforgettable visit
to Auschwitz, and in his deeply affecting visit to Jerusalem. His prayerfulness,
his reverence for those who have suffered, and his acute wish that this
suffering will be lifted by the grace of God, have been visible and moving
to all who have observed him."
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- "It is as it was."
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- I don't know if those words will settle the matter. But
for me they do, and for many they will.
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- I saw a screening of "The Passion" in Washington
last July with about 50 writers, editors and activists. I worried that
it might seem to be anti-Semitic, that it might rouse passions in viewers
in a way that would cause pain to Jews and others. I came away reassured.
It is a moving film, and what it moves you to is tears, and thought. It
doesn't rouse, it seeps in and inspires introspection and consideration.
It is the story of a Jew who was the Messiah; it is the story of his loving
Jewish mother, his ardent Jewish followers, and his Jewish opponents, who
saw him as heretical and dangerous.
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- He is brutally put to death by non-Jewish Roman soldiers,
who are portrayed as sadistic in a businesslike way, on the acquiescence
of a tired, non-Jewish cynic who then sought to wash his hands of culpability.
It is a film that leaves the viewer indicting not Jews and not Romans and
not cynical bureaucrats. It leaves you indicting yourself: it leaves you
wondering about what your part in that agonizing drama would have been
back then, and what your part is today.
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- I'm glad the Holy Father chose to see it; I'm glad he
has spoken; I'm glad his judgment was, "It is as it was." If
this ends the controversy, or quells it, and I believe it should, that
would be a beautiful gift to everyone this holiday season.
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- Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street
Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street
Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), which you can buy from the <http://www.opinionjournalbookstore.com/Noonan.htm>OpinionJournal
bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.
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- http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110004442
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