Just like Scientology? Why is Mel Gibson so secret about his Catholic Church in Agoura Hills?
Buster Cherry
E! Entertainment did an episode on actor Mel Gibson's privately
constructed Catholic Church in Agoura Hills (near Malibu) that teaches
Catholicism pre-Vatican II. Gibson is very guarded about who attends
the church for its services and its physical location, asking church
members to keep it secret. According to FOX News, Gibson has
contributed over $5 million to the church and is listed as a director
of the church (with wife Robyn).
E! made reference to this article:
FEAR & LOATHING IN MEL GIBSON'S CHURCH
by Marco Mannone
By what weird winds of chance did I end up in Mel Gibson's private
Malibu church in the naive spring of 2001?
To explain this I would have to go back to a tiny acting class in the
Valley I used to attend, somewhere on Ventura Blvd. It was in this tiny
theater space above a popular bowling alley that I first met "Rodrigo."
Rodrigo was a large hulk of a man in his late 40's, at least 6 feet 5
inches with a pronounced jaw and an immaculate mullet carved sometime
during the Reagan Era. He was one quick to make friends and I soon
found myself sucked into his personal vacuum of delusional stardom.
Friendship with Rodrigo was like experiencing a severe car crash in
comfortable slow motion, an accident of tragic magnitude you somehow
walk away from vaguely amused. You see, Rodrigo is the classic Male LA
Archetype. They don't differ much from the Female LA Archetype, but the
male slant is more towards drugs and alcohol rather than sex and
prostitution.
Rodrigo was generous about sharing details of his life, including
manic-depressive episodes and bursts of random violence that permeated
his "party days" in Malibu. Through some chain of events he and I will
never fully comprehend, he integrated himself with a crew of celebrity
troublemakers back in the Swinging 80's that included Gary Busey and
Nick Nolte. According to Rodrigo, these were the days of Sex, Drugs &
Rock n' Roll, Malibu style. Whiskey for breakfast and jumping out of
the back of moving pickup trucks on narrow mountain roads for the fun
of it. That kind of stuff.
At first I dismissed these as the exaggerated ravings of just another
desperate wannabe in the City of Broken Dreams. But I stood corrected
when he showed me photographic evidence of these friendships, including
a home movie Rodrigo had shot of Robert Mitchum at his mansion,
casually smoking the Fattest Joint I have ever seen in my life in his
ultra-plush leather armchair. Rodrigo also had rare footage of Matthew
Perry and River Phoenix when they were kids, stuff he shot while making
a movie with them that bombed a long time ago. All of this was
fascinating stuff, rare glimpses into the lives of celebrities not many
had a chance to see. It wasn't long before Rodrigo brought up his old
buddy, Mel.
You see, one sunny morning Rodrigo woke up and it was the 90's.
An entire decade had drowned in a pool of excess, and an agonizing
moment of clarity made him realize he had not become the Movie Star he
set out to be. The Dream had officially crashed and burned. But the
strangely charmed life of Rodrigo did not end with the booze and pills.
At around that same time, unbeknownst to him, another man was also
having a bit of an identity crisis. Mel Gibson, an actor, entered the
Alcoholics Anonymous program in 1991. Mel was 35 and having suicidal
tendencies. He was quoted in the New Yorker as saying: "I got to a
desperate place...I had to use Christ's wounds to heal my wounds." It
was here that Rodrigo befriended Mel, and it was because of their
special Bond of Sobriety that I would be invited to Mel's private
church some ten years later.
Life is clever like that.
"Yeah you wanna go, Marco? Come on, let's go. Come up with me to Mel's
church on Sunday. You'll get a kick out of it. I'll just give him a
call and ask if it's all right that I bring a friend. He's usually cool
about people bringing a guest, as long as they're not with the press or
anything."
"Uhhh, sure. Mel's church, Sunday. Sure why not. It's been a few years
since I worshipped a god. Let's do it."
Mind you, this was a year or two before The Passion of the Christ
defined Mel's celebrity. The way Rodrigo explains it now, Mel has
withdrawn into a nest of paranoia and distrust as never before.
Outsiders of any kind are not permitted. But even before this recent
hype, I had a feeling this would be a once-in-a-lifetime gig. No two
ways about it.
Christ, how long HAD it been? As an Irish-Sicilian, I was temporarily
raised Roman Catholic. But the Sunday church thing faded with my
adolescence and for the life of me, I could not remember the last time
I had been in the House of God. In a way it was fitting. The American
Century was defined by its popular culture. In many ways we worship
Hollywood Celebrities in the same way the pagan Greeks worshipped their
gods. These are intangible beings of sex, power, and illusion. That I
was en route to the private place of worship for one of the World's
Greatest Celebrities seemed to me the perfect combination of secular
and cultural madness.
At the time, sparking a bowl of fresh herb seemed like a perfectly
natural thing to do before basking in the glory of Mel Gibson and his
friend God. But as Rodrigo shot us up the Pacific Coast Highway in his
black, '92 Mitsubishi Eclipse, a raw and intangible Fear consumed me. I
had made a point of keeping this innocent habit of mine a secret from
Rodrigo, since he was recovering from just about every substance you
could recover from. So there I was, blasting up P.C.H. high as a UFO en
route to Mel Gibson's church.
"I'm fuckin' starved. You want anything?"
I shook my head as we cruised through the drive-thru, quietly having a
private nervous breakdown. Billions & billions served.
Soon enough, Rodrigo was stuffing his mouth with Big Macs as we skidded
up a lone, winding road into Agoura Hills. The sun was giving up on the
day behind us, baptizing itself in the Pacific somewhere near China. It
made the hills glow crimson and azure., Darkness was falling fast, and
all signs of celebrity civilization were fading from view.
It's just us and the hills now, I thought. No point worrying in the
middle of Agoura Hills. That would be silly and unprofessional. Get a
grip. Loosen the tie. That's it. Now...breathe.
"The church is called 'The Holy Family Chapel,' or some shit like
that," Rodrigo announced, after washing down his meal with some soda.
"The phone number is unlisted and the address is kept a secret. You
don't have a camera, do you?"
"Not on my person, no."
"Good, no cameras allowed. There's never really been any problems, but
Mel's a little, how can I say, cautious. When it comes to his family
and his church, he'll fuckin' kill without thinking." Rodrigo laughed
heartily.
"Mel and his wife, Robyn, they been married for, like, twenty years.
Anyways, they set up this charity, called The AP Reilly Foundation
after his dead mother, and it enabled tax-free donations to help set up
the church. But the church is not officially a part of the Roman
Catholic Diocese."
"Uh, what's that mean?" I asked, gripping the door handle as Rodrigo
casually took a sharp turn at about sixty miles per hour.
"It's like a rebel faction of the Catholic Church. You gotta
understand, Mel's dad Hutton believes that the Second Vatican Council
of the 1960's is a Masonic plot backed by the Jews to take over the
church. He believes that every pope dating back to John the 23rd has
been an illegitimate puppet."
"Is that what Mel thinks?"
"Well, the apple doesn't usually fall too far from the tree. But his
dad also thinks the Holocaust was bullshit, so who knows. This place is
one of like, six hundred Traditionalist chapels in the world. They
think the modern reforms of the Catholic Church are the work of
liberals and heretics. They fuckin' hate the new shit."
Rodrigo laughed once more as we pulled into Mel's top-secret religious
compound. "Well, this is it."
My heart skipped a beat. Am I really doing this? It certainly appears
so. All right, man. Let's go to church in the middle of nowhere at
night. Let's see Mel Gibson for a change.
I had no idea what to expect and, of course, what I saw did not match
anything I'd envisioned. The 9,300 square foot property was modest and
charming, a Spanish-style structure without any flashy crosses or neon
signs blinking "Mad Max's Church of the Damned." From the outside, you
really couldn't tell what it was.
We arrived a little early, as most people did. There was a moderate
crowd of the well-to-do mingling with each other outside the church's
main entrance -- the kind of rich white folk you know throw kick-ass
BBQ's during the summer and take casual vacations on private islands
when they feel like it. Everyone was friendly enough, and I found out
that several of the men were either detectives or cops. Mel likes to
keep these people in his private circle -- it makes him feel secure.
Not a stupid man, this Mel Gibson. Fuckin' nuts, though? Maybe.
Rodrigo shook hands with the parishioners, introducing me to parents
and their children as "my friend Marco." I just grinned like a fool, an
impostor, and nodded my head. One of these hands happened to belong to
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson. He was wearing a black suit without a tie
and gave me a quick, polite smile.
"Hey Marco, how's it going?"
"Hey Mel, nice to meet you." Yes, you impostor, you just shook hands
with Mad Max, William Wallace, and Sergeant Martin Riggs.
There was a circle of men now, created by Mel's presence, and idle
chitchat drifted briefly into a recent news story about a woman who
fell out of an airplane and miraculously survived. Mel clenched his
cigarette between his teeth and puffed nervously. There was something
shifty about him, on edge, as if he knew something we didn't and it was
going to be horrific. But he was charming, that Mel Gibson, and he
covered it well.
Soon enough it was time to worship God, and we ushered ourselves into
the 70-person chapel just like it was a movie theater playing one of
Mel's latest blockbusters. Rodrigo and I sat towards the back and I
suddenly felt very anxious, like I normally do right as the plane is
taking off. A couple rows in front of me were four of Mel's sons, all
of whom bore a striking resemblance to their father. His wife and
daughter were nowhere to be seen -- perhaps they were busy.
Time seemed to lose all meaning as the service commenced and lasted for
what I think came to about ninety minutes. Ninety-minute service was a
hell of a thing to sit through as a child with no interest in holy
matters, and it wasn't any easier in my early twenties -- especially
since it happened to be conducted entirely in Latin.
Yes, loyal reader. LATIN. The entire thing, start to finish, beginning
to end. A dead language that went extinct for several decent reasons, I
am sure. Mind you, this was a couple years before The Passion of the
Christ, Mel's all-Aramaic ode to the Messiah. Apparently, the priest
who conducted the service was one of few who still liked to "kick it up
old school," and Mel flew him out on a private jet from Seattle once a
week.
This, I thought to myself while on my knees in sovereign prayer, is
what happens to people who play dress-up for a living when they become
too wealthy. Wealth leads to power, and the possession of power segues
effortlessly into religion.
God save us from...well, you, Lord.
The mind wanders when stuck in strange and foreign situations like
this. Who are all these people? How do they all know Mel? Christ, how
the hell do I know Mel? Look at me. A struggling actor who doesn't know
his ass from his elbow, an utter impostor among royalty. But then
again, if I was able to attend, maybe these people impostors as well.
Maybe the whole lot of us, Mel and God included, are impostors here.
Then came the singing. These people sang songs in Latin. I felt like
Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, wandering into the mansion thinking what
have I gotten myself into? As I did in my youth, I mouthed the lyrics
ever so slightly, giving the illusion of knowledge.
And then came a sharp distinction: a voice from behind me, emerging
from the rest with bravado and conviction. I turned around and sure
enough, seated just behind me, was Mel Gibson. Kept apart from the rest
of the crowd, looking down at the lyric sheet, brow furrowed with
intense concentration, and singing in Latin. His voice wasn't good so
much as it was commanding. He was tapping into The Force, and The Force
was The Lord.
It's at about this time that I broke out into a cold sweat.
As it turns out, miracles do happen, because the Service eventually
came to an end. We filed out into the cool spring night, and everyone
lingered for an uncomfortably long time. If Mel thought any of these
seventy-some people were here to worship anything but him, he was
greatly mistaken.
Soon, everyone noticed a sudden, dark change in Mel's demeanor.
Something was wrong here. Apparently, there was a conspicuous vehicle
sitting in an empty parking lot at the bottom of the hill. You could
see it clearly through the dark foliage at certain angles. Mel was
distraught, this much was certain. He commiserated in secret with
several of his detective friends, and at one point Rodrigo went over to
see if everything was all right. I kept my distance, as a majority of
people took this as their cue to leave.
Mel led Rodrigo and some others to the back of the chapel, into the
shadows facing the mysterious car below. God only knows what foul
things were afoot in Agoura Hills. Before long Rodrigo walked over to
me with a sheepish grin.
"Time to go," he said in a hushed tone. "Mel thinks the car down there
might belong to a stalker. He thinks they might try to kidnap his
daughter Hannah. She's on her way over here, but he's calling her cell
phone now to tell her not to come."
I craned my neck around Rodrigo and, indeed, Mel was pacing urgently on
his cell phone, puffing smoke like some tense machine.
"That's insane," I said, "What makes him think that?"
"Mel's cautious, I told you. You shoulda heard him. He was like, 'I
hate these fuckin' bastards. I wish I had a marble-gun so I could shoot
out their fuckin' windshield.'" Rodrigo's laugh was slightly subdued
this time around.
"Maybe they're just paparazzi?" I offered.
"Maybe, but Mel's sending his friends down there to check it out. We
better go."
Indeed, we did. Rodrigo said his goodbye to Mel behind the chapel, and
I never got to personally thank the Biggest Movie Star In The World for
letting a perfect stranger onto his sacred Holy Land. The dark hills of
Agoura spat us back out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, a road leading
back to a more reassuring, public form of madness. I breathed the cool
ocean air deeply, staring out at the endless black expanse of water
beside me.
Mel is quoted as saying that "there is no salvation for those outside
the Church. I believe it." And on that surreal spring night of 2001, I
came to understand that salvation doesn't come easy, no matter which
side you're on.
http://www.ostrichink.com/feb2005/church.html
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A Google search reveals the address of the church:
30188 W. Mulholland Highway
Agoura Hills, CA (between Sierra Creek and Kanan roads).
Also located on the 17-acre site in the scenic Santa Monica hills is a
smaller, 30-year-old church currently undergoing renovation.
Although not affiliated with the Vatican, Holy Family Chapel observes
traditional Catholic doctrine, practices and customs. Sunday mass is
conducted in Latin.
The A.P. Reilly Foundation, a private organization, is funding the
project.
http://theacorn.com/news/2002/0117/Community/017.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mel Gibson: $5 Mil to Fringe Church
Friday, February 20, 2004
By Roger Friedman
Mel Gibson's put his money where his mouth is. By now everyone in the
world knows he's spent $25 million to make "The Passion of the Christ"
and promised nearly $25M more to market it.
But what you may not know is that Gibson has also put up $5.1 million
so far to run his own personal church near Malibu.
Last year, Christopher Noxon wrote in The New York Times that Gibson
had donated $2.3 million to make Holy Family Catholic Church in Agoura
Hills, California a reality. Holy Family rejects the universally
accepted teachings of the Second Vatican Conference and chooses to
stick with antiquated Catholic ideology.
But it turns out that Gibson has donated a little more than twice that
amount to Holy Family since 1999, according to federal tax filings. And
that's not counting 2003, since the most recent report has not yet been
filed.
Gibson and his wife Robyn are listed in federal tax records as
directors of the Holy Family Catholic Church. The church is run out of
Gibson's Icon Production company offices, with an Icon employee
responsible for keeping the church's books.
The Gibsons' tax-free donations to Holy Family are made possible by a
charity they established called the AP Reilly Foundation, which is
named for Mel's late mother. The foundation was created on October 29,
1999 for the sole purpose of creating the church.
The church, by the way, has an unlisted phone number, keeps its address
a secret and has asked those who have the information not to release
it.
Gibson is no stranger to controversy when it comes to voicing his
opinion about his religious beliefs. In a 1992 interview with the
Spanish magazine El Pais, his comments about homosexuals - which
cannot be printed here - caused an international stir.
In the same interview, Gibson talked about the fact that his brand of
Traditionalist Catholicism did not subscribe to the Second Vatican
Council's 1965 rulings on various subjects including who was
responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.
According to published descriptions, this tiny wing of Traditionalist
Catholics view the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council as
a conspiracy between Jews and Masons to take over the church.
"For 1,950 years [the church] does one thing and then in the '60s, all
of a sudden they turn everything inside out and begin to do strange
things that go against the rules," he told El Pais.
"Everything that had been heresy is no longer heresy, according to the
[new] rules. We [Catholics] are being cheated... The church has stopped
being critical. It has relaxed. I don't believe them, and I have no
intention of following their trends.
"It's the church that has abandoned me, not me who has abandoned it,"
he said.
Gibson, meantime, is trying to distance himself from comments made by
his father, Hutton Gibson, about the Holocaust.
Mel's dad, has been the source of much of the passionate arguing about
the movie "The Passion of the Christ." In a radio interview this week,
Gibson senior reiterated statements that appeared in Noxon's article,
including his denial of the Holocaust.
"It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he said.
Then, to illustrate his point that the gas chambers and crematoria at
camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so
many people, Gibson senior added: "Do you know what it takes to get rid
of a dead body? To cremate it?" he said. "It takes a litre of petrol
and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not
have the gas to do it. That's why they lost the war."
Mel recently told ABC's Diane Sawyer. "He's my father. Gotta leave it
alone Diane. Gotta leave it alone."
And she did.
As for his own opinion of the Holocaust, Gibson told Sawyer: "Do I
believe that there were concentration camps where defenseless and
innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do;
absolutely. It was an atrocity of monumental proportion."
But Mel is still smarting from criticism of comments he made to
conservative speechwriter and pundit Peggy Noonan in this month's
Readers' Digest. Asked whether the Holocaust happened, Gibson answered:
"Yes, of course," but elaborated ambiguously. "The Second World War
killed tens of millions of people," he said. "Some of them were Jews in
concentration camps. Many people lost their lives."
斧R.L.Measures
Cherry" <weho...@myway.com> wrote:
>E! Entertainment did an episode on actor Mel Gibson's privately
>constructed Catholic Church in Agoura Hills (near Malibu) that teaches
>Catholicism pre-Vatican II. Gibson is very guarded about who attends
>the church for its services and its physical location, asking church
>members to keep it secret. According to FOX News, Gibson has
>contributed over $5 million to the church and is listed as a director
>of the church (with wife Robyn).
>
>E! made reference to this article:
>
>FEAR & LOATHING IN MEL GIBSON'S CHURCH
>by Marco Mannone
>
>By what weird winds of chance did I end up in Mel Gibson's private
>Malibu church in the naive spring of 2001?
>
>...
>Gibson, meantime, is trying to distance himself from comments made by
>his father, Hutton Gibson, about the Holocaust.
>
>Mel's dad, has been the source of much of the passionate arguing about
>the movie "The Passion of the Christ." In a radio interview this week,
>Gibson senior reiterated statements that appeared in Noxon's article,
>including his denial of the Holocaust.
>
>"It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he said.
>Then, to illustrate his point that the gas chambers and crematoria at
>camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so
>many people, Gibson senior added: "Do you know what it takes to get rid
>of a dead body? To cremate it?" he said. "It takes a litre of petrol
>and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not
>have the gas to do it. That's why they lost the war."
> ...
• The crematoria at Aushwitz burned coal to start them up. However, once
they reached normal operature, with an adequate supply of obese ones, they
required no additional coal because a fat collection system returned fat
drippings to the firebox. Of course, the crematoria operators had to use
some discretion in selecting the order of bodies burned to keep the fires
going without having to use additional coal. According to one report, a
big one could provide enough fuel to cremate 7 or so normal ones.
--
€ R.L.Measures, 805-386-3734, www.somis.org
remove _ from e-mail adr
David
Buster Cherry wrote:
>
> Gibson, meantime, is trying to distance himself from comments made by
> his father, Hutton Gibson, about the Holocaust.
>
> Mel's dad, has been the source of much of the passionate arguing about
> the movie "The Passion of the Christ." In a radio interview this week,
> Gibson senior reiterated statements that appeared in Noxon's article,
> including his denial of the Holocaust.
>
Man, I remember when that happened thinking, "Didn't movie reviewers
used to leave the director's parents out of the movie review?"
I mean, I know it was an unspoken rule, but still, it was an accepted
convention.
> "It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he said.
> Then, to illustrate his point that the gas chambers and crematoria at
> camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so
> many people, Gibson senior added: "Do you know what it takes to get rid
> of a dead body? To cremate it?" he said. "It takes a litre of petrol
> and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not
> have the gas to do it. That's why they lost the war."
>
>
> But Mel is still smarting from criticism of comments he made to
> conservative speechwriter and pundit Peggy Noonan in this month's
> Readers' Digest. Asked whether the Holocaust happened, Gibson answered:
> "Yes, of course," but elaborated ambiguously. "The Second World War
> killed tens of millions of people," he said. "Some of them were Jews in
> concentration camps. Many people lost their lives."
It is ambiguous to remember everyone who died because of World War II?