The smear campaign against Mel Gibson's "The
Passion" by people who haven't even seen the movie continues.
Gibson's defenders, however, refuse to be silenced.
William Donohue, president of Catholic League for Religious and
Civil Rights, takes issue with Paula Fredriksen's attack in the July
28 edition of The New Republic.
’ "Working with an unauthorized script of 'The Passion,' Paula
Fredriksen has declared the movie to be anti-Semitic. Neither she,
nor any of her friends who read an early draft of the screenplay,
have seen the movie. Nor have they explained how they obtained the
purloined script. But that doesn’t matter – what matters is that she
has libeled Mel Gibson.
"Fredriksen maintains there are historical inaccuracies in the
script," says Donohue, who has seen the movie. He continues, "[I]t
would be more honest to say that 'The Passion,' like other
renditions of the last twelve hours of Jesus' life, has elements in
it that some scholars might question. But this is not her point. Her
point is that Gibson has not acceded to her request to 'revise his
script substantially.' As if he should. Her arrogance is evident
again when she says that she and her colleagues 'functioned with a
naiveté that is peculiar to educators: the belief that, once an
error is made plain, a person will prefer the truth.' How reassuring
it must be for Mel to know that if he wants the truth, all he has to
do is give Paula a ring.
"Fredriksen is a demagogue. For only a demagogue would write,
'When violence breaks out, Mel Gibson will have a much higher
authority than professors and bishops to answer to.' Note she does
not say if violence breaks out, but when. How disappointed she will
be when none occurs. For the record, James Shapiro, in his work,
Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Play,
has written that the Passion play has never been directly linked to
anti-Semitic violence. Never.
"I would agree with Jesuit Father William J. Fulco, a professor
of ancient Mediterranean studies and translator of the movie into
Aramaic and Latin, that 'there is no hint of deicide' in the film.
But this will obviously not do for those bent on discrediting it:
they will 'find' anti-Semitism. They don't even have to see it to
hate it — they have truth on their side," Donohue concludes.
Stop the Presses: Something Might Happen!
Fredriksen is far from the only critic proudly flaunting her
ignorance. The local yokels at the Palm Beach Post haven't seen "The
Passion" either, but that doesn't prevent them from attacking it.
Columnist Steve Gushee writes, "Critics, who have yet to see the
script, fear that Gibson might resort to badly skewed sources and
imply that Jewish people killed the Christian Messiah."
He might?
And the left-wing thought police might stop their hypocrisies. Or
might not.
NewsMax's
James Hirsen says the film is a powerful and deeply moving work of
art. But then, unlike these nattering nabobs of negativism, he
has actually seen an early cut of "The Passion."
Editor's note: Hirsen's new book, "Tales from the Left Coast,"
reveals the inside story behind "The Passion" and the anti-Christian
bias motivating Gibson's detractors. Click here
now.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media
Bias
Mel
Gibson Passion
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