Mel Gibson, a handsome and whimsical fellow, has made some wonderful movies. He won an Oscar for directing Braveheart, thrilled millions and made millions in the Lethal Weapon series with Danny Glover, made Sigourney Weaver and Pauline Kael swoon in The Year of Living Dangerously, and gave eschatology an Australian accent and swagger in his Mad Max trilogy. Even his Hamlet was pretty good.

Now Gibson is producing and directing The Passion, based on what is often called The Greatest Story Ever Told. The movie will be rigorously faithful to the Gospels, Gibson claims, so much so that the actors will speak only Aramaic and Latin. (Latin? Never mind.) And no subtitles. Gibson, known as a "traditionalist" Catholic, is a fan of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, and a supporter of various schismatic Catholic traditionalist groups. According to the New York Times Magazine (March 9, 2003), the superstar inherited much of this worldview from his father, a former seminarian well known among "traditionalist" Catholics for his conspiratorial frame of mind and extreme views. Gibson senior, now eighty-four, is a Holocaust denier and an ardent believer that Vatican II was "a Masonic plot backed by the Jews." He thinks that all the popes since John XXIII have been imposters, and has written scathing attacks against John Paul II and the Vatican.

To what extent Mel agrees with his father’s wackier theories is not clear. There is, however, concern that The Passion may revert to "traditional" stereotypes employed by the church depicting the Jews as a race as responsible for Christ’s death. Gibson says the movie is not meant to single out Jews, but that he is determined to be faithful to the Gospels. "I want to be as truthful as possible. But when you look at the reason 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."

Bracing words, even in English, let alone Aramaic. But let’s hope Gibson isn’t so traditional that out of misplaced loyalty he insists on repeating the church’s greatest historical sin.