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Movie Reviews
The Passion of the Christ:
A Wasted Opportunity?
The Passion reviewed by Gary L. Morella
After assisting at the Stations of the Cross last night, I went to see The Passion of the Christ again. It was a large Penn State university crowd, and I was one of only six adults. After the movie was over, a good 20 of those students stayed for all of the credits, and when they were finished, i.e., the screen blank and the music over, they just sat dumbfounded in silence staring at the blank screen. I had never seen anything like it. It was as if the students didn't want to leave the presence of God. These youth probably are not catechized.
The moving scene where Our Lady meets the Redeemer |
There is such an opportunity for Catholic evangelization here, but they will never get it from a Church increasingly unrecognizable as Catholic per the heresy being encouraged at the Penn State Catholic Center in our Diocese. Instead of embracing Gibson's masterpiece as a Catholic devotion, the “Spirit of Vatican II Catholics” are embarrassed by such a traditional Catholic's accurate presentation of what Our Lord really suffered for us. These progressivist Catholics unjustly rush to discredit Gibson by falsely accusing him of "not being a Catholic.” This is exactly what my parish was told in the Sunday bulletin prior to the Ash Wednesday release of The Passion.
Interestingly enough, while in Rome for a private audience with the Pope, the actor who portrayed Christ went to pains to tell the world, three times I recall, that "Mel Gibson is a very good Catholic." To the best of my knowledge there has been no official encouragement whatsoever from the local diocese at all to see this Catholic masterpiece, contrary to what the Bishops of Scotland and of Atlanta have done by encouraging the Faithful to witness this beautiful Lenten devotion.
Here you have one of the best opportunities to accurately present Catholicism for the purposes of conversion, and it's being summarily trashed, wasted, which, IMHO, is a serious sin.
Posted on March 30, 2004
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