Cardinal Lustiger
There’s a chance that I will meet Cardinal Lustiger and 12 Fresh bishops tomorrow. Naturally, the one thing on every Jew’s mind when faced with high-ranking Church officials is about the movie the Passion. But, when I reflected as to what the interaction will be like tomorrow – and I ask that question – I recognized that I don’t think the movie’s target is the Jews. Oh, sure, if a few Jews get killed it’ll be just gravy, but the real target is the current Catholic leadership.
Ya see, Gibson’s a wacko. He’s part of a fringe group of reactionary Catholics who think that the current Church are a bunch of “bloody Protestants” (to quote an Opus Dei cleric who insulted my roommate in college). As such, Gibson (and his loony-tune father) want to force the Catholic Hierarchy to make a choice: either accept the movie as faithful and thus anger the rest of the world and upset years of amity; or to deny the film and anger the Catholic base who naturally think that the movie is accurate, albeit over-the-top.
I compare it to Kach (Meir Kahane’s group) who bawl out how the Talmud and tradition has nasty things to say about non-Jews. Either I can accept what they say and ruin my rapprochement with the Secular world or I can deny what they say and show myself to be a religious hypocrite.
The Catholics can try to maneuver out of it in the way I would maneuver, but that’s immaterial. Kach and Gibson engage in fractious thuggery and the civilized majority often find themselves at their mercy.
There’s a chance that I will meet Cardinal Lustiger and 12 Fresh bishops tomorrow. Naturally, the one thing on every Jew’s mind when faced with high-ranking Church officials is about the movie the Passion. But, when I reflected as to what the interaction will be like tomorrow – and I ask that question – I recognized that I don’t think the movie’s target is the Jews. Oh, sure, if a few Jews get killed it’ll be just gravy, but the real target is the current Catholic leadership.
Ya see, Gibson’s a wacko. He’s part of a fringe group of reactionary Catholics who think that the current Church are a bunch of “bloody Protestants” (to quote an Opus Dei cleric who insulted my roommate in college). As such, Gibson (and his loony-tune father) want to force the Catholic Hierarchy to make a choice: either accept the movie as faithful and thus anger the rest of the world and upset years of amity; or to deny the film and anger the Catholic base who naturally think that the movie is accurate, albeit over-the-top.
I compare it to Kach (Meir Kahane’s group) who bawl out how the Talmud and tradition has nasty things to say about non-Jews. Either I can accept what they say and ruin my rapprochement with the Secular world or I can deny what they say and show myself to be a religious hypocrite.
The Catholics can try to maneuver out of it in the way I would maneuver, but that’s immaterial. Kach and Gibson engage in fractious thuggery and the civilized majority often find themselves at their mercy.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, February 22, 2004 at 2/22/2004 09:28:00 PM.
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