EWTN Takes Down Caviezel Interview Deeply Critical of Bishops and Clergy -- It's Back Up -- Mel GIbson's New Movie is Coming

 Edit:  Heard this from Michael Hichborn. James Caviezel talks about his new film and the importance of witnessing Christ, especially when there's a cost to it in the Middle East. EWTN took this down previously, because later in the interview, he criticizes the Bishops, but it's back up for now.   I'll try to make a copy of it in case EWTN decides to shoot it down again.  He even explains at one point that many in the hierarchy hated Mother Angelica. 

It's a sad day if you can't tell the difference between a priest, a bishop and a pastor when they become politicians and the priests who do speak out are persecuted. Why isn't the hierarchy standing up to the state?

The interview starts at 45:30.

AMDG

Hutton Gibson Has Died

Edit:   a reader just told me that Hutton Gibson has passed away.  Here's an obit from Father Moderator who is close to the deceased.  

 Hutton Gibson, father of actor-producer-director Mel Gibson and ten other children, and an outspoken traditional Catholic, who rejected both the heretical Newchurch of the New Order and the Society of St. Pius X, died (not of the Chinese Virus) on May 11, 2020, at the age of 101, having been born on August 26, 1918, three months before the armistice ending World War I was signed. He himself was a World War II veteran, serving with the United States Marines at the Battle of Guadalcanal against the Empire of Japan. Gibson was also a highly-successful quiz-show contestant in Australia and the United States, becoming Grand Champion of the famed "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions in 1968, winning well over 100,000 U.S. dollars from his various contests. 

It was only fitting that a man who had so staunchly promoted and defended the traditional Catholic Faith all his life should have had a happy death, fortified by the traditional Last Rites of the true Catholic Church  and surrounded by his family. In the cause of traditional Catholicism, which he vigorously advanced throughout his long life, Hutton Gibson founded the Alliance for Catholic Tradition, wrote six books, and published a monthly traditional Catholic periodical, "The War is Now!" He rejected the post-Vatican II heretical Newpopes as null and void.  

Hutton Gibson published six books and one video that expose the invalidity of the Newchurch of the New Order, founded on November 21, 1964, at the Vatican II Anti-council. He wrote early on about what has become clear to many only now, many decades after the Anti-council, that the Anti-council and Newchurch has in fact been initiated and run by Modernists and Freemasons. Gibson published three book collections from his periodical "The War Is Now!":

1. Is the Pope Catholic? (1978)

1. The Enemy Is Here! (1994)

1. The Enemy Is Still Here! (2003)

Gibson also published three other books and one video: 

The Robber Church

Authority & Jurisdiction of the Society of St. Pius X

Time out of Mind

Catholics, Where Has Our Church Gone?(video)

In 2006 Gibson purchased a church building in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and founded there the St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Chapel.

AMDG

Father Jean-Marie Charles-Roux Has Passed Away

The Curé of Nottingham

Oremus!

Edit: He was a fantastic man who will be sorely missed.  He loved the things we love, and prayed earnestly for the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, as do we. Now Mel Gibson will have to find another Royalist chaplain for his movie set.  Thanks to PV Wood for this page from the Telegraph.

FATHER JEAN-MARIE CHARLES-ROUX, who has died aged 99, brought the mystical aura of French royalism to London as a Roman Catholic priest of the Rosminian order; he was devoted to the divine nature of monarchy and the Tridentine liturgy. 

Tall, elegant, and with a theatrically silky voice, Charles-Roux wore buckled shoes and medallions commemorating martyred sovereigns, and used an eyeglass to read a newspaper during more than 40 years at the medieval church of St Etheldreda at Ely Place, off Holborn. There he celebrated the Latin Mass every morning with his back to the congregation. Sought after as a confessor, he preached lively and eloquent sermons, flattering and shocking his listeners in equal measure. 

He would emphasise the Christian duty to the poor while maintaining that the parable of the talents proved that capitalism was not only acceptable but also a moral imperative. He made clear his abhorrence of the Allied bombing of Dresden by celebrating Mass for its victims. And once, comparing the transformation of the soul to cooking, he described how it was more likely to be successful in black saucepans (meaning priests) than in grander copper ones (casting a glance at Cardinal Hume sitting nearby).

Here is a more sympathetic article from the Catholic Herald, written by Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith.  In contrast to Father, we hope someone does take on the task to write the auto-biography of this fascinating priest:

Fr Charles-Roux was deeply concerned about the state of the Church; indeed, it made him despair, if a Christian full of faith ever can despair. In private he was always charitable but highly critical of the lack of leadership he saw in various authorities and in particular their refusal to confront the serious problems posed by priests whose way of life was not in keeping with their vocation. He told me on several occasions that he had made his concerns known, but that the superiors simply would not listen. This was a pity, because Fr Charles-Roux was a close and wise observer and they would have done well to have taken his advice.

He was not in favour of “modern” liturgy and he lived long enough to see the traditional way of doing things come back into favour. But he had long ceased to play any active role in the life of the Church by that stage. Indeed, though a very social man, he was adept at avoiding people and situations that he found distasteful. He had retired from the field, shell-shocked in the culture wars. For him, everything had gone wrong a long time ago, indeed in 1789: the French Revolution had been the start of the continuing catastrophe through which we were all living still. Marie-Antoinette, famously, was his favourite subject, though he was hugely knowledgeable on all aspects of recent French history. He was widely assumed to be an aristocrat, but the only ancestor who had played any role in the Revolution, he told me, was one of the guards at Versailles, who was killed during the storming of the Chateau on 5th October 1789. His father was a famous diplomat and head of the Quai d’Orsay, who left behind a several valuable volumes of memoirs. Charles-Roux pére had spent a great deal of his career before the War in Rome, where Jean-Marie was born. On one occasion, Fr Charles-Roux remarked to me: “I switched on the television, and there was this lady singing in Daddy’s office.” The lady was Catherine Malfitano, playing Tosca, and Daddy’s office was of course in Palazzo Farnese. On another occasion, scanning the newspaper through his monocle, a piece of glass that seemed to be no help at all, as he held the paper at such an odd angle, he asked: “Is there anything good on television tonight?” I told him the only thing on was the World Cup. “Ah,” he said after a slight pause. “What is world cup?”

A brilliant speaker, and most amusing company, and also a stimulating preacher – I have heard thousands of sermons, but his I still remember – he was a simply terrible writer, much given to prolixity and eccentric figures of speech. Sentences would continue for pages and pages of typescript. (Needless to say he never learned to use a computer, but was one of the last to keep to a typewriter.) He would send people postcards covered with spidery writing which were allusive and elusive, indeed almost Sibylline. It is a pity that he never produced any memoirs and so sternly resisted anyone writing his life story. His autobiography would have been fascinating, could he have written it. A biography would have been good too, but it is too late for that. His story dies with him, which is how he would have wanted it. After all, he knew very well that it was not about him. He abhorred egotism, particularly in the clergy.

Photo stolen from Portrait Gallery...

Editor Tries to Deny Financial Connection With Mel Gibson --- Gibson Still Supports Pro-Abort, FEMEN Mouthpiece

Edit: we'd published an article last week about Mel Gibson's strange relationship with an online tabloid that gives positive news coverage for FEMEN and attacks Pro-Life causes. It was a head scratcher for sure.  To date, nothing has come to light showing that Mr. Gibson has altered his relationship with TheLip or Mr. Lustig, although his son no longer works for the company.

The original publisher of the article, The Deadline's editor, Mike Fleming, however, has chosen to defend its article while attempting to portray Allison Hope-Weiner's alleged change of heart as the honest to goodness truth, even going so far as to write about how The Passion had changed his life.  He denies any financial relationship with Icon or Mr. Gibson.

The Deadline is an entertainment and media news source, which featured  an opinion piece was  by journalist Alison Hope-Weiner.  Ms. Weiner not only writes for Deadline, but she writes for TheLip.com, a publication where Mel Gibson's son until quite recently worked, and which is partly owned by Gibson's production company, Icon.    

Whether or not Ms. Weiner's extraordinary conversion took place as result of a real change of heart or for other reasons doesn't belie the fact that she failed to disclose an obvious conflict of interest based on the financial relationship her employer has with Mr. Gibson.  

Mr. Gibson and theLip's founder, Michael Lustig, are very close indeed, or at least it seems from the photos of them together on a balcony at Cannes.

Lustig and Mel Hanging Out

Actually, one commenter from Deadline puts it  succinctly:

Ms. Weiner made a major breach of journalistic ethics by not disclosing Icon’s involvement with a start-up venture which she has an equity stake in. This is journalistic ethics 101 and she knows it. It’s smoke and mirrors to suggest since she has editorial freedom and isn’t paid by Icon she did nothing wrong. The fact is she has a financial connection to Icon and should have disclosed it. Readers should be able to decide for themselves if there is a potential for bias, but they need all the facts to do this. 

I’m also disappointed in Mr. Fleming’s long-winded explanation about how much “Passion” meant to him. It’s not relevant here. DHD should just acknowledge they blew this one and make a commitment to doing a better job in the future. I actually think Deadline is more professional than it was when Nikki was running it and think Mike’s a terrific writer. Not sure why it’s so hard to just apologize when you make a mistake instead of all this self-justifying.

Photo stolen from JustJared.

Mel Gibson Forms Alliance With Leftist, Pro-Abort, Feminist Media Outlet to Save Image

[Los Angeles]  This comes from Hollywood gossip rag, TheWrap, which has uncovered some unsavory connections.  It's about Mel Gibson who is back in the news again after an impassioned plea for forgiveness from a former detractor,  Allison Hope Weiner, a freelance journalist who has her own show on  TheLip,  has miraculously changed her mind about the fabulously wealthy "ultra conservative" Gibson.  Weiner has even talked about Gibson coming to her Seder.  He's truly won her over.

Yet, if this  looks as though it's another upbeat public relations miracle, proving once and for all that Mel is reformed and has cast off his old ways since being a blacklisted, Catholic film maker and actor in Hollywood, think again.

There is more. Alison Hope Weiner not only works on the team of LipTV,  which is not only partly owned by Gibson, but  his son, Will Gibson, is its producer and long-time friend Michael Lustig is the  founder.  Lustig gave a favorable deposition for him during his custody battle with the mother of his daughter, Oksana Grigorievna.

The two were also seen clowning around on a hotel balcony at Cannes during when the film, The Beaver made its appearance.

LipTV may be eager to give its support, but it is also very Leftist, which has some scratching their heads.   Gibson has owned a share in this enterprise for two years during which it has produced shows in support of abortion, attacking conservative pro-life groups and the prostitute group Femen.



The investment has been made through Gibson's Icon Entertainment  for an amount 1.5 million dollars according to one source close to Gibson.

AMGD

Mel Gibson Answers Director's Accusations

Mel Gibson vs. Joe Eszterhas 

Mel Gibson has fired a return volley toward Joe Eszterhas in the jousting over why Warner Bros. rejected the screenwriter's screenplay for a proposed movie about Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee. 
The studio said Wednesday that it was not proceeding with Eszterhas' script and was “analyzing what to do with the project.” 

The news prompted the “Basic Instinct” writer to allege in a letter posted by the Wrap (http://www.thewrap.com) that Gibson, who was to produce and possibly direct the film, never wanted to make it because, as Eszterhas said of Gibson, “You hate Jews.” 
The actor and filmmaker, in response, sent Eszterhas a letter of his own, also sent to the Los Angeles Times, alleging that Eszterhas' script was “substandard” and “a waste of time.” 
The full text of the letter follows:

Joe,

I have your letter. I am not going to respond to it line by line, but I will say that the great majority of the facts as well as the statements and actions attributed to me in your letter are utter fabrications. I would have thought that a man of principle, as you purport to be, would have withdrawn from the project regardless of the money if you truly believed me to be the person you describe in your letter. I guess you only had a problem with me after Warner Brothers rejected your script.

I will acknowledge like most creative people I am passionate and intense. I was very frustrated that when you arrived at my home at the expense of both Warner Brothers and myself you hadn't written a single word of a script or even an outline after 15 months of research, meetings, discussions and the outpouring of my heartfelt vision for this story. I did react more strongly than I should have. I promptly sent you a written apology, the colorful words of which you apparently now find offensive. Let me now clearly apologize to you and your family in the simplest of terms. 

Contrary to your assertion that I was only developing Maccabees to burnish my tarnished reputation, I have been working on this project for over 10 years and it was publicly announced 8 years ago. I absolutely want to make this movie; it's just that neither Warner Brothers nor I want to make this movie based on your script. 

Honestly, Joe, not only was the script delivered later than you promised, both Warner Brothers and I were extraordinarily disappointed with the draft. In 25 years of script development I have never seen a more substandard first draft or a more significant waste of time. The decision not to proceed with you was based on the quality of your script, not on any other factor.  

I think that we can agree that this should be our last communication. 

Mel 

Taken from the Miami Herald, h/t cathinfo... 

Warner Bros Shuts Down Gibson Film: Should Anyone Care?

Edit: what does it matter if Warner Bros shuts it down anyway? They had nothing to do with the Passion either.

April 11, 2012,

By Sharon Waxman and Brent Lang
TheWrap

Exclusive -- Warner Bros. has put on hold a controversial Mel Gibson movie project about the Jewish Maccabee revolt in the 2nd century B.C. after reading the script by writer Joe Eszterhas, TheWrap has learned.

A spokesman for the studio told TheWrap, "We are analyzing what to do with the project."

Jewish groups were outraged after news broke in September that Gibson had reached a production deal with Warner's to direct the story of Judah Maccabee, whose victory over Greek and Syrian armies is celebrated at Hanukkah. One Jewish group called it "a moral lapse in judgment."

Link to original...

Another reason might be that he no longer gets along with Joe Esterhas who denounced him in a 9 page letter, here.

H/t: cathinfo.com...

Mel Gibson's Upcoming "Berserker" and "Maccabees" Will be Catholic Films

Saint Olaf II, Martyr

Edit: There's an old platitude that to know history is to be Catholic, and so Mel Gibson is taking on two historical projects guaranteed to treat Christian themes.

On the one hand, you're bound to see the heroic resistance of the Christians as the terrible Vikings come down and destroy their world.  Perhaps we will hear of the brave resistance of Alfred the Great and how he magnanimously introduced the Vikings he conquered into his household?

Perhaps he'll tell the story of the conversion of St. Olaf who went down fighting gloriously at the Battle of Skittelstad on July 29th 1030 and accomplished more as a martyred Saint, than a great but merely heroic epitome of valor, to win over his battle hearty people to the true religion of peace.

Our speculations aside, it's clear that the Viking film is going to be made, it's going to be called "Berserker" [Literally, bare shirt fighter].  He looks determined to make it.

Despite his efforts to make a film about the scirptural story of Maccabees , there are many who look in askance at the effort.  They view it cynically as an attempt to coddle Jewish sensibilities in the wake of his "tirade".  In reality, Maccabees is a Catholic story which should cause modern Jews, and not a few Catholics,  to reconsider what they believe.  It is a story of how God used a small band of Jews to liberate Palestine in one of the most amazing upsets in history.

Don't look for it in a protestant Bible, unless it says "apocrypha" included.  Also, it's not really Apocrypha, it's part of the Biblical Canon and the reservations of a few biblical scholars and Protestants should not stop you from meditating on how it points to Catholic teachings like purgatory.

"2 Maccabees 12:46: "Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from sin."


If you're a Catholic, you should expect to see a lot of Catholic references in both films.  Mel's trying to make up for his failings by doing good works, like helping Whitney Houston with her addictions, which earned him some admiration and gratitude from the family who invited him to her funeral in Newark, New Jersey.

Whatever he decides to do with these complimentary and beautiful subjects, they will be two things:  great stories,  Catholic stories.

The following is an interview and it was well done:

Los Angeles Times] Reserved and reflective, Mel Gibson came to the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to celebrate the legacy of his “Mad Max” films but, of course, the 56-year-old star’s recent career calamities were the silent passenger that accompanied him during the trip down memory lane.
Thirty-three years have passed since ”Mad Max” exploded on the scene with a high concept and a low budget (about $400,000) and began the minting of an international movie star. Sitting in the dark with the time-capsule moment, Gibson found it hard to recognize his 21-year-old self up on the screen. “I thought,” he said, “it was one of my kids.”
Above, you can watch the full video from the American Cinematheque event where I interviewed Gibson about the career-launching franchise and you’ll hear that the conversation veered off at times to his filmmaking future, the TMZ era and the emotional wear and tear of recent seasons. There was also a lot of applause — and two standing ovations — from the sell-out crowd. And, for that, the two-time Oscar winner seemed truly thankful.

Watch video, here....

Mel Gibson to Make His Maccabees Film

Edit: Not really a shocker for anyone who reads this blog regularly. Mr. Gibson is continuing his creative pilgrimage by making something that will have something for everyone, including his detractors. There is as yet no word about how Protestants will feel about a Deuterocanonical book being the subject of his next religious film.

It will do something no religious film we know of has attempted before. It will be a Religious "Western" with Jewish cowboys as the good guys. A real showdown between good and evil.

EXCLUSIVE: It’s a project that will have everybody in Hollywood and beyond talking. I’ve learned that Warner Bros has set up an untitled drama that teams Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas on the telling of the heroic story of Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee. Eszterhas will write the script, and I understand that Gibson will collaborate with him. Maccabee teamed with his father and four brothers to lead the Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that had conquered Judea in the second century B.C. Gibson has the first option to direct but will definitely produce the film through his Icon Productions banner. It’s understandable why Warner Bros would want to be back in business with Gibson, who was once a high-profile fixture there and who made a fortune for that studio with the Lethal Weapon series and other films.

 Link to read further...

One Thing He Won't Jettison is His Faith

Sardonic but alive

Gibson and his wife, Robyn settled their divorce in on August 30th. They reunited in August at Malibu where they arrived separately on the eighth for the tenth birthday party for the two Siamese twins from Honduras whom they were able to help and have miraculously survived thanks to the skill of surgeons and God's will. The twins were joined at the head.

Despite his father Hutton Gibson's attempt to separate Gibson's marriage by way of faux annulment in some kind of ad hoc lay tribunal, he is cited from USA Today, where Gibson said the following to People:

"My wife was really far more involved than I was in the past, but we're both still involved."

Still involved? Maybe a slip of the tongue or is it Mel's hard-to-kill Catholic Faith at work on his conscience? Anyway, he's still wearing his Miraculous Medal. And now he's planning on doing an action film with Bruce Willis while he continues to work on his Viking Film. Hopefully that project isn't dead.

He's been promising to do the Battle of Vienna Wood for a number of years. Hopefully, when he's finished satisfying the needs of Hollyweird, perhaps he'll get a tug from that gossamer connection with the Catholic Church he's been nurturing since his media fall and make some Catholic films that drink in deep from the well of Christendom.

Link to photo.

Mel Gibson Wears Miraculous Medal and Visits Amazing Twins

 

Editor: Mel has been very publicly shamed, but there is public reparation too and an example to be set by someone in his favorable, and often not so favorable, position.   While visiting twins he gets to tweak the consensus in two ways, while amending his life and setting an example:  In one way, he's demonstrating that these two beautiful and happy children with very challenging physical conditions can be full of joy and a powerful desire to live.  On the other hand, he's wearing the Miraculous Medal, whose image was entrusted to Saint Catherine Labouré and popularized in great part by Jewish convert  Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne of Strasburg. 

 

This is a tragedy turned to joy for human souls in the image of God expressing the ineffable mysteries of our mortality.  These courageous Guatemalan girls also bear striking names: Maria de Jesus and Maria Teresa.

 

Mel Gibson checks on formerly conjoined twins

.

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Play CBS News Video

(CBS News)  Guatemalan conjoined twins who were separated nine years ago turned 10 this past weekend.
The twins, Maria de Jesus and Maria Teresa, were connected at the skull, but were separated in 2002 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in a painstaking 23-hour procedure that required untangling and disconnecting the babies' shared blood vessels.

Pictures: Mel Gibson attends party for formerly conjoined twins

The sisters returned home to Guatemala, but Maria Teresa contracted a devastating case of meningitis and the twins returned permanently to the United States for ongoing care.

Link to CBS News...

Mel Gibson Forges Ahead to Make Viking Film: Life Goes On

Editor: it's funny how all the pommies are freaking out about the "historical inaccuracies" of Gibson's Brave-heart.   Gibson has surely become a kind of local ogre for the politically and morally obscure, but that's another thing entirely.  Of course, it's a sure bet that these parsimonious quibblers don't find the same fault with Jackson's Lord of the Rings for getting that completely and utterly wrong, anyway.  Check out the moaning and groaning going on in the comments.  Still looking forward to a film about Lepanto or Vienna Wood, and another religious classic, perhaps something uplifting about the Holodomor. 

[The Daily Fail] He may have faced criticism for his interpretation of William Wallace's battle for Scottish independence in Braveheart, but that hasn't deterred Mel Gibson from producing another history-based movie.
This time the actor is planning to turn his directorial skills towards the Viking invasion of England and Scotland in the ninth century.

Gibson, 54, will follow a similar route to his previous films The Passion Of The Christ and Apocalypto by filming all of the scenes using Old Norse language, with English subtitles

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1244769/Mel-Gibson-plans-recreate-Viking-invasion-England-Scotland-latest-movie.html#ixzz1N6sVdYeA

Mel Gibson Still Wears His Scapular

Some of us never take them off, not even in the shower.

Who cares about stars anyway? Well, Mel Gibson is one of the most significant creative artists of our age, such as it is, and he's still got the Faith, even if he is a bit broken down inside. He still has a devotion to the Blessed Mother, the Carmelites and St. Simon Stock, and so should you.

After failing to appear at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival for his upcoming film, "The Beaver", Gibson is depicted here wearing a Scapular, or a religious garment that consists of two brown pieces of wool attached to a string worn around the neck. From the looks of it, this is a really cheap one he's worn for ages, it's tied around his neck, the brown colored tag of fabric hanging down.  It has an image of St. Simon Stock or St. Micheal the Archangel defeating the Devil, with an inscription which reads, "Whoever wears this scapular shalt not suffer eternal fire". It's a promise associated with the scapular that whoever wears it piously and follows its promises will be taken to heaven.


Photo from the Daily Fail.

Edited for clairity.