Movie's tone worries ecumenist

Jewish friends of Sister Mary Boys, SNJM, still have painful childhood memories of being taunted as "Christ-killers." Today, she is concerned that a new movie, "The Passion," directed by actor Mel Gibson, could reopen those old wounds.

"The interpretation of the Passion has been one of the chief sources of not only tension, but open hostility between Christians and Jews through the ages," she told The Evangelist.

In fact, she added, it wasn't until Vatican Council II in the 1960s that the Church officially repudiated the belief that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Christ's death.

'Passion' interest

Sister Mary is a noted expert on ecumenism and a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City who advises the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on ecumenical affairs. Lately, however, the issues people have asked her about are the possible effects of "The Passion" on the viewing public.

The movie is an historical drama about the death of Christ, based on accounts in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the 19th-century diaries of Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (collectively titled "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ").

"The Passion" was filmed with the actors speaking in Aramaic and Latin. English subtitles, which have been shown during preview screenings, may be added when the film is released to the public next spring. Originally, Mr. Gibson planned no subtitles for his film.

Mixed results

The reactions of those who have previewed the movie have been mixed, with some calling it a powerful piece of cinema and others concerned that its graphic depiction of Christ's suffering may trigger anti-Semitism.

Mr. Gibson, who also co-wrote the script for "The Passion," is a very traditionalist Catholic, and Sister Mary is worried that he may be rejecting Vatican II's repudiation of the claim that all the Jews killed Christ -- and showing that in his film.

"He's claiming that this is the most authentic portrayal of the Passion of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit directed this film," Sister Mary remarked. But his use of the non-historical Gospel accounts and the writings of Emmerich, she said, quashes that claim.

Script seen

Sister Mary hopes that viewers do not come away from the movie believing that "the Jews killed Christ." As one of four Catholic scholars who reviewed a draft of the movie's screenplay, she believes that such a misinterpretation is possible.

One problem, she said, is that the Gospels are not historical transcripts. They were written decades after Christ's death, by people who were still under Roman control and therefore couldn't place too much blame for Jesus' killing on Rome.

From the earliest years of the Church, said Sister Mary, some people have taken passages from Gospel stories of the Passion out of context, interpreting them to mean that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for killing Jesus.

"Neither all Jews at the time of Jesus nor Jews today should be held responsible for the death of Jesus," Sister Mary said, paraphrasing the Second Vatican Council. "Jesus died for the sins of all. The sinfulness of humanity is what Jesus takes upon Himself."

History lesson

Sister Mary believes there was probably collusion to kill Jesus between the Jewish high priests, who were appointed by Rome, and the Roman authorities.

But in the "Passion" script she read, those roles were reversed: The high priests Caiaphas and Annas are portrayed as not only wanting to kill Christ, but also talking the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, into it.

"Caiaphas and Annas were portrayed as brutes, sadists really," Sister Mary stated. In the graphic scene where Jesus is scourged, for example, "they're enjoying it," she said. "There's a lot of emphasis on the brutality."

Her concern is that "the average Christian goes to see this film, which is going to be incredibly graphic, and [thinks] the people that do this to Jesus are the Jews. This does not do well for Christian-Jewish relations."

Scholars to meet

Sister Mary and the other scholars who reviewed the script -- Philip Cunningham of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, Rev. Lawrence Frizzell of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University and Catholic-Jewish studies professor Rev. John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago -- plan to meet in November to discuss the impact of "The Passion."

They have received hate mail since their review of the movie was published, and the public relations director of Mr. Gibson's movie company dismissed their report as "frankly irrelevant" because it was based on an outdated and leaked copy of the script.

Regardless of which version of the script is finally used, Sister Mary wants to turn the furor over it into "a teachable moment" for Christians on how to read the Gospels knowledgeably.

People's nun

As one of only a few people who got to see an early script of "The Passion," Sister Mary has been deluged with interviews by every media outlet from NBC to NPR. Her office, she said, is filled to bursting with her research: "about 300 books, all piled on a table" on interpreting the Gospels -- "and we won't even talk about my files!"

The expert on ecumenism and interfaith relations remarked that she was waiting to get a haircut the other day when she picked up a copy of People magazine and was surprised to see an article on "The Passion" in which she was quoted.

"I made People magazine," she said wryly. "I never thought my career would rise so high."

(Sister Mary Boys, SNJM, will speak on "The Passion and Death of Jesus: The Future of Jewish-Catholic Relations," at The College of Saint Rose in Albany on Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m. For information, call Joan Dunham of the diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, at 863-6731.)

Vatican document on Jews

"The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," a document of the Second Vatican Council, states: "True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today....As the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation."

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