ADL Asks Vatican to Condemn 'The Passion'

[DuctapeFatwa]

A Jewish leader met with Vatican officials this week to ask them to restate church teachings on the Crucifixion, saying Mel Gibson's new film contradicts the church's position that the Jews as a people were not responsible for Jesus' death.

A top Vatican official who met with Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Wednesday that no such statement was planned. U.S. Archbishop John P. Foley, who heads the Vatican's social communications office, again praised the film, "The Passion of the Christ," and said he found nothing anti-Semitic in it.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040218_1416.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[HawkerHurricane]

2. Trying to answer your questions...

And coming up mostly empty.

I will say this: The movie is based on one subsect of Catholicism's beliefs; while many other groups agree, it is based on a Catholic belief, so going to the Pope makes a little sense.

[demdave]

3. Only 8% of EVERYONE holds this misconception.

As posted here at the DU..http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=369260.

Having gone to Catholic school and raised in a Catholic family, with clergy relatives, I can tell you I NEVER heard that the Jews killed Christ. That thought is reserved for the small percentage of slack-jawed bigots who only use it as an excuse for their hatred.

What I learned was that Jesus's purpose for becoming man was to save man. Since the plan was laid out well before the action and it was God's plan, how can anyone hold the Jews responsible? In the same line of thought, Judas also was just an actor in the play, not the playwright.

[HawkerHurricane]

13. Having gone to a Catholic school myself...

I did hear it, repeatedly, from nuns... "The stupid Jews killed Christ" was a common refrain around Easter time.

This was in the mid-70's, in Los Angeles. St. Joan of Arc.

[fla nocount]

4. Oh! Horse by-products.

Here we have a rabble-rousing home boy causing in-town trouble with his radical beliefs that "OurFather" wasn't a hard-ass but instead was a force that asked us to love one another and help the other to achieve. Gosh and begora, that won't fill the coffers, let's ask our betters and governors to axe his ass. Our occupation is proof we can't govern ourselves and this raving punk down on the corner is a prime example of why. You promised us a stable environment Rome, aqueducts and civilization in return for taxes and occupation. Remove this mote for if you allow him to remain among us he will become as a needle in our eye.

Don't know this for a fact, wasn't born yet. But seems plausible from my jaundiced eye.

[DavidMS]

5. Which Jews, Which Christians?

A certain segment of the American Jewish community (most of them Neo-Cons, those on the organized-institutional side of it) support Israel right or wrong. Most of the rest of us are much less enthusiastic. There are some groups (traditional Reform Jews and Traditional Orthodox) who are doctoronly opposed on thological grounds.

Interestingly enough many of the most rabid Zionists are Christians who desire to by human actions to fulfill the book of revelations.

The reason for asking the Pope to reiterate the Catholic doctrine (post Vatican 2)that the Romans offed Jesus is to make it harder for Christians drift towards Christian anti-Semitism.

Of cource the problem is that the historical record does not support the existance of a "Jesus of Nazerith," but that's immeterial to the discussion.

[T Bone]

6. Fundamentalists, extreme fundamentalists killed Jesus

There I said it.

[fla nocount]

7. Likud? Or the mindset..........

sad that it still exists, no? Is it a cultural thing, perhaps a part of the human condition? Or maybe just a resistence to the mind molding that would fix all things for all times.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves "who would this harm, who stands in the way of the world population loving and supporting each the other?"
If we were to answer this question we would know the enemy, we could reclaim all of our brothers, sisters and their children from this day to all others. Who stands is the way of the obvious solution....and WHY?"

[Voltaire99]

8. I can't believe I have to watch this overblown melodrama...

...but obviously, if I intend to comment upon it, I'll need to. The film has set in motion energies that are stirring our culture. That makes it important, even if, as the previews suggest, it'll turn out to be a crap exercise in sheer fundamentalist sentimentality.

Were it not for my interest in judging the anti-Semitism concerns, I'd gladly pass this one over (so to speak).

The problem is that the story of Christ contains hardly any interesting ambivalence or ambiguity. Sure, there's a moment of doubt in the garden, but then it's off to the races with all the cardboard villains stacked against this long-suffering hero - who, being the Ultimate Good Guy, is always right about everything. Man, that's not my idea of drama.

[IndianaGreen]

9. Had Jesus been born today, he would be Palestinian

Bethlehem is a Palestinian town.

The irony!

[fla nocount]

10. If the sentiments are to be taken seriously,

he would certainly be on their side of the wall.....he was righteous and just, at least that's the rumor.

[Tinoire]

11. Foxman is embarrassing himself

AS A PART OF OUR MISSION, we have provided the following resources to give you different perspectives of the brewing controversy surrounding the release of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of The Christ in late February of 2004.


Is The Passion of Jesus
Anti-Semitic?
By Larry W. Poland, Ph.D.
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/passion/LarryPoland.html


Protesting Mel Gibson's Passion Lacks Moral Integrity
By Rabbi Daniel Lapin,
Toward Tradition
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/passion/DanielLapin.html


The Passion: Christians and Jews Are Watching Different Films
By Dennis Prager
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/passion/DennisPrager.html

A Review of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ
By Keith A. Fournier
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/passion/KeithFournier.html

The above articles all from a site trying to bring some surely needed understanding to this subject:
http://www.mastermediaintl.org/guest/index.htm

[durutti]

12. I'll reserve judgement.

I'll have to see the film.

[Endangered Specie]

14. Before you say too much, go see the damn thing first