Mel Gibson, über-Catholic
Jaime Jeske
Sunday, March 9, 2003
Is the Pope Catholic...Enough?
By CHRISTOPHER NOXON
The first sign that something unusual was going on up the hill was the
appearance of a fleet of brand-new Volkswagen bugs, lined up on a muddy
bluff like a row of oversize Easter eggs. It was a local handyman who
spotted them while he was out on a walk through this little valley in
the mountains northwest of Los Angeles, near Malibu. Neighbors had
already been talking about the 16-acre property on the valley's south
slope, and soon word spread that a church group called Holy Family had
purchased the site with plans to break ground for a 9,300-square-foot
Mission-style church complex.
Among the neighbors who wondered about the new arrival was my father, a
recently retired documentary filmmaker who joined the local homeowners
association when he moved to the area two years ago. This latest
project, however, wasn't the usual commercial complex or instant enclave
of luxury homes that tended to attract the association's attention. It
was a church, that much was clear, but it didn't sound at all like your
garden-variety community parish. A representative for the property owner
explained that the church was Catholic, but it wasn't affiliated with
the Roman Catholic archdiocese. While the church building was relatively
large, the congregation was quite small, with about 70 members. And
though religious practices and rituals would be familiar to Catholics,
there was one big difference: Sunday Mass, it was reported, would be
conducted entirely in Latin.
Lest anyone get the impression that this band of spiritual seekers might
disperse if the collection baskets were to run dry, a church
representative assured the neighbors that the church was supported by an
unnamed individual congregant with ''tremendous financial viability.''
Would that explain the VW bugs? The handyman recalls posing the question
at an early community meeting. He was told that the congregant financing
the church ''had given them as gifts to his nieces and nephews,'' he
says. ''I remember thinking, 'That's some generous uncle.'''
The person behind the unusually well-endowed chapel turned out to be the
actor Mel Gibson, star of ''Mad Max,'' ''Lethal Weapon'' and
''Braveheart.'' The church is operated by a nonprofit corporation;
according to public financial records, Gibson is its director, chief
executive officer and sole benefactor, making more than $2.8 million in
contributions over the past three years.
The fact that Gibson is building a church in the hills near Los Angeles
should come as no huge surprise. Gibson's Catholicism has never been a
secret, and in fact gives him a sort of reverse-exoticism in a town
where other stars dabble in Buddhism, kabala and Scientology. An avowed
family man still on his first marriage, with seven children to show for
it, Gibson smokes, raises cattle, publicly shuns plastic surgery and
seems wholly unmoved by most of the liberal-left causes favored by
industry peers. Recently, however, something beyond the impulse to
entertain has been showing up in Gibson's work. Last year he played a
former minister who rediscovers religion amid an alien invasion in
''Signs'' and a reverent Catholic lieutenant colonel in the war drama
''We Were Soldiers.'' In these films, but especially in a new movie, a
monumentally risky project called ''The Passion,'' which he co-wrote and
is currently directing in and around Rome, Gibson appears increasingly
driven to express a theology only hinted at in his previous work. That
theology is a strain of Catholicism rooted in the dictates of a
16th-century papal council and nurtured by a splinter group of
conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected
conservatives -- including a seminary dropout and rabble-rousing
theologist who also happens to be Mel Gibson's father.
Gibson is the star practitioner of this movement, which is known as
Catholic traditionalism. Seeking to maintain the faith as it was
understood before the landmark Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965,
traditionalists view modern reforms as the work of either foolish
liberals or hellbent heretics. They generally operate outside the
authority or oversight of the official church, often maintaining their
own chapels, schools, seminaries and clerical orders. Central to the
movement is the Tridentine Mass, the Latin rite that was codified by the
Council of Trent in the 16th century and remained in place until the
Second Vatican Council deemed that Mass should be held in the popular
language of each country. Latin, however, is just the beginning --
traditionalists refrain from eating meat on Fridays, and traditionalist
women wear headdresses in church. The movement seeks to revive an
orthodoxy uncorrupted by the theological and social changes of the last
300 years or so.
Michael W. Cuneo, a sociology professor at Fordham University who
reported on right-wing Catholic dissent in his 1997 book, ''The Smoke of
Satan,'' wrote that traditionalists ''would like nothing more than to be
transported back to Louis XIV's France or Franco's Spain, where
Catholicism enjoyed an unrivaled presidency over cultural life and other
religions existed entirely at its beneficence.''
While traditionalists agree on the broad outlines of correct religious
practice, the movement is hardly united. Its brief history is the story
of a movement branching off into ever-smaller submovements. Today there
are approximately 600 traditionalist chapels, representing a number of
theological streams, including the more Vatican-friendly Society of
Saint Pius X, the more strident Society of Saint Pius V, the militantly
traditional Mount St. Michael's community and the Apostles of Infinite
Love, a monastic community in Quebec led by a onetime Catholic brother
who claims to be the incarnation of the one true pope. All told, there
are an estimated 100,000 traditionalists in the United States.
Gibson's church may be the most comfortably endowed traditionalist house
of worship in the country, but in other respects it is quite typical.
Most of the congregation met while attending services held by a
traditionalist priest, whose church in the San Gabriel Valley was
eventually taken over by the Society of Saint Pius X. A group of
congregants, including the Gibson family, left in protest. They gained
approval from Los Angeles County to build their own church early last
year after agreeing to a set of operating guidelines -- covering such
issues as parking, lighting, signage and hours of services -- with the
regional planning commission and neighbors (including my father).
When I called the church elder who was Holy Family's representative at
the county meetings, he agreed to an interview and accepted my request
to attend a service, on the conditions that I not identify him or any
member of the congregation beyond Mel Gibson, and that I withhold
details that might invite the interest of fans or paparazzi. He also
asked that I refrain from speaking to the priest, the congregants or
anyone else during my visit. He told me that anyone seen speaking to me
''will not be welcome back at our church again.''
After all the warnings, I was a little surprised to find Sunday Mass at
Holy Family an almost entirely ordinary experience. The service itself
was remarkably similar to what I remember from parochial school -- that
is, until a homily delivered near the end of the two-hour Mass. The
priest read a parable from St. Matthew about a farmer whose fields are
raided in the night by an enemy who spreads a noxious weed in his wheat.
The evil in the story, the priest said, is ''the modern church,'' whose
wickedness will be dealt with on Judgment Day.
''The wiping out of our opposition must wait until harvest time,'' he
concluded. It suddenly became clear why Gibson isn't worshiping with his
fellow Catholic Martin Sheen down at Our Lady of Malibu.
Gibson is widely known in traditionalist circles, and he has made no
secret of his religious affiliation. ''I go to an all-pre-Vatican II
Latin Mass,'' he told USA Today in an interview two years ago. ''There
was a lot of talk, particularly in the 60's, of 'Wow, we've got to
change with the times.' But the Creator instituted something very
specific, and we can't just go change it.'' More recently, the Italian
newspaper Il Giornale reported that Gibson made a ''scathing attack
against the Vatican,'' calling it a ''wolf in sheep's clothing.''
While many traditionalists can't abide some of Gibson's career
choices -- the onscreen baring of his bottom is a particular source of
concern -- most are content to overlook his occasional wild streak.
''Gibson should get the tsk-tsk award for lowering his impressive acting
talent on occasion,'' wrote a priest known as Father Moderator on the
Internet posting board Traditio. Nonetheless, the priest continued,
Gibson ''never ceases to project his traditional Catholic faith to the
public. Who else in such a prominent position ever does?''
Mel Gibson is also known in traditionalist circles as the most famous
son of Hutton Gibson, a well-known author and activist who has railed
against the Vatican for more than 30 years. His books on the topic
include ''Is the Pope Catholic?'' and ''The Enemy Is Here.'' (Precisely
*where* is indicated by a map on the dust jacket -- it's a cartoon of
Italy, drawn by one of his 49 grandchildren). Gibson père also publishes
a quarterly newsletter called ''The War Is Now!,'' which includes all
manner of verbal volleys against a pope he calls ''Garrulous Karolus,
the Koran Kisser.''
Now living in suburban Houston, Hutton Gibson invited me for a weekend
visit after an initial phone conversation. When I arrived, he was
wrapping up an interview with a syndicated radio program. Hutton Gibson
is 84 but seemed a good deal younger (which he credited to his
abstinence from drinking, daily doses of vitamins and ''never going near
a doctor''). He is energized by an abiding love of corny jokes and
lively debate, and he peppered a commentary on the scandals facing the
Catholic Church with jokes about Texans, the Irish and, inevitably, the
pope.
He said he speaks to his son frequently and knows all about Mel's chapel
in the hills. ''Mel wasn't raised in the new church, and he wouldn't go
for it anymore than I would,'' he said. ''I've got to say that my whole
family is with me -- all 10 of them.''
While his rhetoric showed no signs of mellowing, the elder Gibson had
plenty of reasons to be satisfied. For one, he is a newlywed. His doting
bride, Joye, is a statuesque Oregonian who playfully addressed him as
''Mr. G.'' Surrounded by ceramic knickknacks and photos of his
grandchildren, he seemed entirely at ease with himself and the world.
Which made it all the odder when he launched into one of his complex
conspiracy theories. On our first night together, he nursed a mug of
sassafras tea while leading a four-hour tutorial on so-called
sedevacantism, which holds that all the popes going back to John XXIII
in the 1950's have been illegitimate -- ''anti-popes,'' he called them.
As Hutton explained it, the conservative cardinal Giuseppe Siri was
probably passed over for pope in 1958 in favor of a more reform-minded
candidate. Hutton said Cardinal Siri was duly elected, but was forced to
step aside by conspirators inside and outside the church. These shadowy
enemies might have threatened ''to atom-bomb the Vatican City,'' he
said. In another conversation, he told me that the Second Vatican
Council was ''a Masonic plot backed by the Jews.''
The intrigue got only murkier and more menacing from there. The next day
after church, over a plate of roast beef at a buffet joint off the
highway, conversation turned to the events of Sept. 11. Hutton flatly
rejected that Al Qaeda hijackers had anything to do with the attacks.
''Anybody can put out a passenger list,'' he said.
So what happened? ''They were crashed by remote control,'' he replied.
He moved on to the Holocaust, dismissing historical accounts that six
million Jews were exterminated. ''Go and ask an undertaker or the guy
who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,''
he said. ''It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six
million?''
Across the table, Joye suddenly looked up from her plate. She was
dressed in a stylish outfit for church, wearing a leather patchwork
blazer and a felt beret in place of the traditional headdress. She had
kept quiet most of the day, so it was a surprise when she cheerfully
piped in. ''There weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe,'' she
said.
''Anyway, there were more after the war than before,'' Hutton added.
The entire catastrophe was manufactured, said Hutton, as part of an
arrangement between Hitler and ''financiers'' to move Jews out of
Germany. Hitler ''had this deal where he was supposed to make it rough
on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they
needed people there to fight the Arabs,'' he said.
Whether any of this has rubbed off on Hutton's son Mel is an open
question. A church elder at Holy Family says that while the two share
the same foundation of faith, Mel Gibson parts company with his father
on many points. ''He doesn't go along with a lot of what his dad says,''
he says. And beyond claiming to have seen the plans for Holy Family and
attended services with the congregation, Hutton Gibson has no apparent
connection to his son's church in California.
Still, Mel Gibson has shown some of his father's flair for conspiracy
scenarios. In a 1995 Playboy interview, he related a sketchy theory that
various presidential assassinations and assassination attempts have been
acts of retribution for economic reforms that challenged the
powers-that-be. ''There's something to do with the Federal Reserve that
Lincoln did, Kennedy did and Reagan tried,'' he said. ''I can't remember
what it was. My dad told me about it. Everyone who did this particular
thing that would have fixed the economy got undone. Anyway, I'll end up
dead if I keep talking.''
Perhaps nothing Gibson has done will serve as a more public announcement
of his faith and worldview than the project he's now completing in Rome.
''The Passion'' is a graphic depiction of the last 12 hours in the life
of Jesus Christ, based on biblical accounts and the writings of two
mystic nuns. Gibson is returning to the director's chair for the first
time since ''Braveheart'' in 1995, but he will not appear on-screen.
There will not, in fact, be any big stars. Nor will there be subtitles,
which might prove a challenge for many moviegoers, since the actors will
speak only Aramaic and Latin. Gibson has said that he hopes to depict
Christ's ordeal using ''filmic storytelling'' techniques that will make
the understanding of dialogue unnecessary.
The idea came to him a decade ago, he announced at a news conference
last September, and he is soldiering on now without the backing of a
studio or a U.S. distributor. ''Obviously, nobody wants to touch
something filmed in two dead languages,'' he said. ''They think I'm
crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.''
In Hollywood, the astonishment many felt upon hearing about the project
has been heightened by reports that his production company is paying the
film's estimated $25 million cost itself. Making a movie that has
anything at all to do with religion is risky enough -- remember ''The
Last Temptation of Christ''? But spending your own money to help pay for
it?
''It's a very gutsy thing to do -- I certainly wouldn't do it,'' says
the veteran producer Alan Ladd Jr., who chose Gibson to star in and
direct ''Braveheart.'' ''But he wouldn't do it if he couldn't it pull
off, at least in his own mind. He's obviously satisfying some deep
personal need in himself.''
Only Gibson knows the precise nature of that personal need, and he
declined numerous requests for an interview, limiting his public
comments to a January appearance on the Fox news program ''The O'Reilly
Factor,'' in which he complained about inquiries regarding his faith and
suggested that any reporter asking such questions might be part of a
plot to undermine his message of salvation. ''I think he's been sent,''
he told Bill O'Reilly. ''When you touch this subject, it does have a lot
of enemies.''
Many traditionalists, meanwhile, hope the graphic approach Gibson is
taking -- production stills show the star, James Caviezel, beaten to a
pulp and drenched in blood, fresh from a flagellation -- will serve as a
big-budget dramatization of key points of traditionalist theology. After
waging a quiet war against what they see as the Vatican's overly
accommodating theology, traditionalists suddenly find themselves
equipped with a most unfamiliar weapon: star power. ''I'm delighted he's
getting more involved,'' says Bishop Daniel Dolan, founder of more than
30 Latin Mass churches and one of the most influential traditionalists
in the country. ''To put the weight of his Hollywood celebrity behind
the truth that the whole modern church structure is rotten to the core
is excellent. I welcome it.''
A friend of the Gibson family has his own ideas about how traditionalist
thought is informing ''The Passion.'' Gary Giuffre, a founder of the
traditionalist St. Jude Chapel in Texas, says Gibson told him about his
plans for ''The Passion'' on a recent visit. ''It will graphically
portray the intense suffering of Christ, perhaps as no film has done
before.'' Most important, he says, the film will lay the blame for the
death of Christ where it belongs -- which some traditionalists believe
means the Jewish authorities who presided over his trial and delivered
him to the Romans to be crucified.
In his conversation with Bill O'Reilly (who prefaced the interview by
disclosing that Gibson's production company has optioned the rights to
O'Reilly's mystery novel), Gibson was asked whether his account might
particularly upset Jews. ''It may,'' he said. ''It's not meant to. I
think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as
possible. But when you look at the reasons why Christ came, why he was
crucified -- he died for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind. So
that, really, anyone who transgresses has to look at their own part or
look at their own culpability.''
Christopher Noxon is a writer living in Los Angeles.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
Jaime