Guin, I don’t have any actual cites, but it was a few years ago and he was all drunk and carrying on with a GROUP of women. I’m sure he’s confessed by now. He’s also on the wagon, from what I hear. He’s still one hot lookin’ alter boy, if you ask me. I still say I’d do 'im.
You know, when I hear things like this, it really comes as a shock, even though it probably shouldn’t. I’m 20, Catholic (-ish, at the moment ;)), went to Catholic grade and high schools and had 12 years of religion classes and weekly masses on top of Sunday masses.
In my home life and my school life, we never heard anything like this. What the fuck is with Mel’s mom going on about Jews in Europe after the Holocaust? Pardon my language, but Jesus Christ! I grew up learning that Jewish people were people and never that there was anything “wrong” with being Jewish, it was shown in quite a positive light (I had never heard the term “Christ killer” until I was in university, believe it or not). Hell, my high school required a class on Judaic history and theology.
I grew up believing you didn’t even have to be Catholic to get into heaven. I go to a Church that gives prayer tips that the Monsignor learned from Tibetan monks. The things I’m learning about some “Catholics” (quote marks because Mel and his father?.. um…) truly disturb me.
Only thing I really want back is one High Latin Mass each week. I truly adore going to a Latin Mass, everything sounds so much more beautiful. Have the early Mass in Latin and the later ones in English. That’s mainly an aesthetic reason though.
So he’s transgendered?
Beagledave, huh? I’m not following you…
Thanks for the answer and link Captain Amazing.
And Kalhoun, I assume it’s meant to be a play on words. “Altar boy” vs. “alter boy”, one tends to altars, one has been altered.
The correct spelling of your term was altar boy.
alter means “to change” 
Oh fuck. Never mind.
Well, I’m not a communist-I mostly look at liberation theology as people like Oscar Romero, or my advisor at school. Oscar Romero was certainly NOT the type to ignore the spiritual needs of his people.
zweisamkeit, yes, it sounds like your experience mirrors mine.
Like it’s been said, Gibson isn’t really a Catholic-he’s a sedevacantist.
Yeah, there’s that spirit of Christian love and charity. :rolleyes:
Although he’s a nut, I will say Hutton looks good for his age. He doesn’t look 84 at all! But Gregory Peck still looks better and he’s way cooler. And he’s a way liberal Catholic.
Oh, and as for his claims about the Holocaust and the ovens-I’ll ask my dad how something like that could be accomplished on a larger scale. Show him.
Mel was talking about some Federal Reserve conspiracy. His dad mentioned the Pope and the nukes. Mel said the FR thing had Lincoln and Kennedy AND Reagan. Hmmmm…was the Federal Reserve even around when Lincoln was president? I thought it came about in the 20th century?
Oh, and The Passion will probably bomb, seeing as how it’s totally in Latin and Araimic WITHOUT even subtitles.
Um, yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Mel. :rolleyes:
BTW, would he and his father be automatically excommunicated for their beliefs? (Of course I should talk, liberal hippy that I am!)
Am I mistaken or was their a “spin” publicity campaign when Mel Gibson became a star that led me to think his father and familia emigrated to Oz to avoid the sons’ getting drafted?
The only person I know really looking forward to it is my friend Tom, who has a graduate degree in ancient languages. He’d be the only guy who knew what anybody on screen was saying. I pity him when he goes to see it, his girlfriend will have to restrain herself from constantly asking “what did he just say then?”
I really want to see that movie because it’s completely in Latin and Aramaic without subtitles. Seriously.
But I’m weird like that.
Oh yeah, and Guin, I love Oscar Romero, we watched movies and documentaries on him in 8th grade.
Oh, please note that I’m NOT knocking people who will see this movie-even with the languages and all that.
I just meant that a lot of people won’t-I know I couldn’t. That’s all.
Nothing wrong with making a scholarly movie. I’m just saying it’s probably not going to do very well in the Hollywood crowd.
Shit! Altar/Alter – I’m a dork. Sorry for the spelling error! Oh, and now I get the joke. Duh.
I’ve always been amazed by the statement that “Jews killed Jesus”. What does this mean?
Let’s leave aside the fact that th Roman army crucified Jesus (a Jew) along with many other Jews who the Roman occupation army deemed to be a threat.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the local Jewish authorities (who worked to make sure no one stirred things up) deemed that Jesus of Nazareth was a destabilizing force.
How can you say that “the Jews” killed Jesus when everyone involved in this thing (except the Romans) was Jewish?
That would be like saying that “the Americans” killed Martin Luther King. Or “the Arabs” killed Anwar Sadat.
The short answer to why “the Jews” are blamed is to deflect criticism on the ancestors of the first Christian Romans. First you co-opt someone else’s religion. Then you blame those same people for killing your (ie, their) lord.
Anyway, here’s the official Straight Dope answer:
Ah, memories, Catholic memories…
“I Used To Be Irish Catholic” (George Carlin)
I was sent to Catholic grade school in the 1960s. My parish was a fairly middle-of-the-road affair. Very Vatican II. Everybody was a Kennedy Democrat as far as I can recall. At least my parents were. None of this Christ-killer Jews nonsense. The nuns were very, very gung-ho cheerleaders for the Civil Rights movement, the most lasting impact Catholic school ever had on this boy. When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, it was the worst trauma imaginable. Sister Mary DePadua had been giving us daily updates on RFK’s campaign all through the spring of '68. How he was helping the Appalachians and the Poor People’s March. And then there was Cesar Chavez, another hero.
You know, in the 1960s, World War II was not all that far behind. In 1968, it had been over, Hitler dead, and the concentration camps liberated only 23 years before. Twenty-three years ago was only 1980, to give a bit of perspective. In the 60s, WWII was still very fresh in people’s memories. We were given all kinds of social-consciousness, social justice teaching. We got the guitar mass in the spring of 1968, I remember it was right when 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. We sang “We Shall Overcome,” “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” (an antiwar song), and, for the love of God, “Blowin’ in the Wind” at guitar Mass down in the church basement. We also had to sing new Catholic lyrics written for guitar Masses: “Christ Is in Our Midst” to the tune of “We Shall Overcome” and “Living in All Men” to the tune of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” replacing the secular lyrics.
Of course, we were taught about the Jews in a 100% positive light, so much so that I remember as a young boy announcing to my shocked Mom that I wanted to be Jewish. “Um, son, you know they don’t accept that Jesus was the Son of God…” But in Catholic school the nuns taught us about the Jewish OT history as the precursor and origin of Christianity, so that made Judaism important and valulable.
The way the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ was taught to us, they made it out to be all the Romans’ fault. Jews were off the hook. Nonetheless, I remember the Good Friday service where were had to stand for one solid hour, not allowed to sit down. We did that reader’s theater Passion play, where the priest recited Christ’s lines, an altar boy played Pilate, and the congregation played the bloodthirsty mob. I remember chanting along with everyone else: “Barabbas! We want Barabbas!” and “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Many years later, in college, I gradually realized that this was the scene once used to pin the blame on the Jews. It still hadn’t been purged from the liturgy as of the late 60s. But the way I’d been taught in Catholic school, it was nothing but a dumb mob; there was no Jewish stigma attached. I remember thinking that if Christ’s crucifixion, descent into Hell, and resurrection were the essential Mystery of the whole shebang, then the Romans who had done the dirty deed should have been thanked instead of blamed. (It wasn’t until many years later I learned of the gospel verse: “Offenses must needs come, yet woe unto him by whom offenses come.”)
In 12th grade at my Catholic high school, we actually had a rabbi from a Reform temple come and teach a class on Judaism. (From him I heard that America’s Founding Fathers nearly adopted Hebrew as the official language of the United States. Riiight…) One fine spring day we went on a field trip to his temple. All we did there was watch the video of Chariots of the Gods?!?. We had got to talking about Biblical archeology in class and somebody mentioned von Däniken’s theory that space aliens were behind it all, not God. The rabbi himself was so laid-back, he probably didn’t even care one way or the other. We just used that field trip as an excuse to toke up and get hugely stoned for the rest of the day. The rabbi didn’t mind. Of course, the priest who was our high school chaplain used to advise the boys to “go and get laid.” Ah, the carefree 1970s…
I don’t care about Mel Gibson and his beliefs one way or the other. Folks, he’s just an actor. (What does worry me shitless is the ultra-hardcore Protestant Fundamentalism of the Bush administration and his crusade against the Middle East.) But as a linguist specializing in comparative Semitic languages, I would go see Gibson’s movie simply for the sake of hearing spoken Aramaic. And as a lover of drop-dead gorgeous Italian women, I would go simply for the sake of seeing Monica Bellucci. I saw her in Malèna. Oh…My…God…
Actually, the hebrew as official language is true, apparently.
http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/The_Impact_of_the_Bible_4_-__-Proclaim_Liberty_throughout_the_Land…-.asp
Truthfully, though, it’s as much an anti-England thing as any. German was also a potential choice.
It was limbo that the Church no longer talks about. However, limbo was never an official doctrine of the Church. It was more theological theory, a train of thought based around a consideration of what would happen to the souls of unbaptized children. It was never proclamated infallible by a Council or Pope.
Well, Mel’s father was there and saw it first hand.
:rolleyes:
I loved him as The Joker on “Batman.”