The Crucifix And The Cruciflick: The Gospel According To Mel Gibson

Art Rosen

Mondays, 2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
April 19 & 26, 2004
D.O.C. House

Gibson appears increasingly driven to express 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.

- Christopher Noxon, New York Times, March 9, 2003

The course will begin with a review of pre-Vatican II teachings about Jews and Judaism, and will outline the history of the Passion Play as an elaboration of these teachings. The course will then contrast this to the teachings that began with Vatican II and the criteria developed for Passion Plays since that time.

The second session will introduce the near-schismatic group called Traditionalist Catholics, and particularly, the Gibsons — Hutton and Mel — who as Traditionalist Catholics reject Vatican II and the changes it advanced. The course will then summarize reactions to Gibson's film, and will note the heat generated and the sharp split in opinion — liberal Catholics, Protestants, and Jews on one side, conservative Catholics and Evangelicals on the other.

The course will conclude with an examination of possible motives for making the film at this time. It will suggest that while Jews are the apparent target, the intended target may be Vatican II itself and the Roman Catholic teachings and teachers it inspired.

The course is based upon the Boston College symposium series, "Portraying the Passion," and over 30 articles from the religious and secular press written while the film was being edited. There is no text for the course, but if the film is being shown in this area, it is strongly suggested that it be viewed as additional background.

Class is limited to 25 members.

Arthur Rosen is a graduate of Yale University, Brooklyn College, and Columbia University, Graduate School of Business, Executive Marketing Program. Art spent most of his career in advertising with such companies as Benton & Bowles, Grey, and Young & Rubicam. He has been a frequent speaker at New England churches and schools, has led courses at Colby-Sawyer's Adventures in Learning, at Dartmouth's Roth Center where he is chairman of adult education, and at ILEAD where he is chairman of the Curriculum Committee.