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Thursday March 11, 2004
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Pope Doesn't Find The Passion Anti-Semitic but Police and Courts are Investigating
ROME, March 11, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview with the Italian daily Il Messaggero published today, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls strongly implies that Pope John Paul does not find Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ to be anti-semitic. "If the film were to be considered anti-Semitic, then the gospels would also have to be considered so," Navarro-Valls said.
The papal spokesman said the Pope saw the film and despite calls to distance the Catholic Church from the film, John Paul II has remained silent. "The subsequent silence by the hierarchy is eloquent," added Navarro-Valls.
Despite the views of the Pope, the film's critics are attempting to have film showings shut down under hate-crime statutes.
Early this month, the New York Post reported that the 20 officers of the Hate Crime Unit of the New York Police Department were ordered to screen the film. Moreover, a petition is underway demanding that US Attorney General John Ashcroft and the US Department of Justice evaluate the "anti-Semitism clearly presented" in the film asking that "civil, criminal, and Federal hate-crime laws, as appropriate, be utilized . . . against the directors, producers, and screen writers responsible for the work itself."
Meanwhile in Brazil, Jewish lawyer Jacob Pinheiro Goldberg has written the Brazilian Department of Justice demanding the department forbid the film to be released in the country. Goldberg admitted to purchasing and viewing a pirated copy of the film.
See related news coverage:
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=32527
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/19527.htm
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb110381.php
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/showarchive.php?date=2004-...
See LifeSite's regularly updated page of numerous praises for the film. The page has been changed to show significant quotes drawn from most of the linked articles on the page.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/040225a.html
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