The Passion of Mel Gibson

I don’t know Mel Gibson. A colleague who does tells me that Gibson admired my columns, notably the one I wrote about his last motion picture, The Passion of the Christ, for NewsMax.Com. And in my conceit I like to think that my book “Sindone: on the Shroud of Turin and what it tells us about Christ’s passion and death was among his research materials.

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I have, however, paid keen attention to his work, as well as his comings and goings as chronicled in the media, which does not share my admiration for the man and his accomplishments, especially his depiction of the final hours of Jesus Christ in this world. We are now witnessing the passion of Mel Gibson, played out in the sordid tale of his troubled relationship with his former mistress, much of it revealed in a series of tape recordings which are alleged to have been doctored and thus unreliable. This is not the first time Mr. Gibson has been pilloried in the media for past examples of his public misbehavior, much of which appears to have been motivated by the consumption of an unacceptable amount of booze, which was certainly the case in the rampage that got him busted. I don’t know if prior to his tape recorded phone tirades with the woman who appears to be motivated by greed, one of the seven dearly sins about which we are warned, but it seems likely that Mr. Gibson had taken more than a few large sips of demon rum or whatever hootch that strikes his fancy. It also appears that the thuggish Gibson heard on the tapes is not the Mel Gibson his friends and colleagues, and his regrettably soon-to-be ex-wife know … and love. So one is left with the impression that the new Mr. Gibson was probably born within the contents of a bottle of booze, as well as a seething resentment that he now believes the lady of his recent choice – the mother of his eighth child, ain’t no lady. That Mel Gibson is bad news for himself and those around him. That Mel Gibson is the Mel Gibson, fanatically faithful to the Roman Catholic Church, if not its hierarchy, and a victim of his confusion with what he views as the tinkering with doctrine and practice that in his view has resulted from Vatican II and imposed on the faithful by radical elements within Holy Mother Church. Taking that stance, along with the father he loves and admires, has set him at odds with the Vatican, and no doubt with himself and what we have seen recently is, in my humble opinion, a direct result of the inner conflict between faithful Catholic and his rebellious nature. Like many traditionalist Catholics, he has been deprived of certitude and set adrift, and that’s a prescription for an inner chaos that often slips it moors and explodes amidst those around him. As an altar boy from the age of seven until I was fourteen, and a faithful Catholic since I found the disruption since Vatican II to be at the very least unsettling, but unlike Mel Gibson I was reassured by the certain knowledge that the Church is always and everywhere guided by the Holy Spirit, and I’m not about to argue with the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, even when it appears to my mortal mind that He has goofed, or that his servants in Rome don’t know what the hell they are doing. Sooner or later things get back on track and in the meantime the more confused among us simply have to sit back and wait for the abuses that followed Vatican II get straightened out. Getting back to Mel Gibson, it is instructive to listen to his wife, now in the process of divorcing, leap to his defense. In the midst of the traditional male mid-life crisis, he’s damn lucky to have such a wife, even one he has publicly dumped such as Robyn Gibson. Most women publicly betrayed by the father of her seven children would be more likely to have taken the opportunity to take a cudgel and beat his brains out with it. Anyway, I’m not about to join the lynch mob and now gathering around Mel Gibson. He remains in my mind, a good and decent man to whom the world is indebted for giving us the magnificent “Passion of the Christ”. Sure, he’s a sinner, but then so am I, and so are you. We’re just not in the public eye where even our most venial sins are grist for the media mill. He is in my prayers and should be in yours.