This whole controversy bogles my mind.

1. Violence - Hollywood movies are filled with violence, and they seldom are protested. I see no comparison between a movie like The Passion, which I assume has a body count of around three (or single digits), that is put purely in a historical context than say a movie like Kill Bill, with a body count of over 100, that places Uma Therman in relatively tight clothes dismebering peoples limbs torsos and heads for no clear reason.

2. Anti Semitism - I never understood the argument that this will breed antisemitism. The jewish leaders may as well be protesting the new testament. It is far more widespread than this movie will ever be and a common review is that they stuck pretty close to it. And as Mary Anne pointed out, the bloody violent crucifiction was around long before this movie. (My catecism class was not so radical as Mary Annes I might add though, but i remember at least one day being devoted to blood and gore of crucifiction)

Futhermore the main character being crucified was in fact, Jewish along with his followers.

Furthis still, if the jewish leaders complaining about it took the advise many other were giving and just shut up about the movie, it never would have been this big to begin with. They shot themselves in the foot with regards to what they were trying to accomplish.

3. Positive Portrayal of the Romans - This is lost on me as well, especially pontious pilot. I would commonly ask as a child growing up in the Catholic Church "Hey, whats so bad about this Pilot guy? The passion we read clearly states he could not understand why they wanted to crucify Christ, he kept saying "are you sure you guys really wanna do this? you don't want this other guy instead?" I'm not saying he's a good guy or anything, I now know he was a ruthless and brutal governor, like many of the time. Its just that in light of this crucifiction and compared to the bloodthirsty mob, the movie again is accurate to the Gospels.

If anyone has something to complain about, you may as well direct it to the whole of Christianity, not just Catholisicm, but specifically the Gospels in the new testament that Catholics and Protestants share. Overall this movies seems to be an honest attempt to make an accurate depiciton of an event according to those. How many of us would love to see an attempt like this to make an accurate hard core sci-fi movie? I for one appreciate an honest attempt at an accurate depiction of events as opposed to hollywoods excessive and constant artistic liscense. If it happenes to be bloody, keep in mind the history of mankind is very bloody and cruel. It is different from fictional gratuitous violece.

I keep movies like braveheart, the patriot, and the Passion completely seperate from movies like Blade, Matrix 3, Kill Bill and the rest of the flash in a pan pointless violence Hollywood 'R' rated cash cows which only serve to liven our imagionations with violence rather than expose our past for what it was.

In Summary - instead of complaining about the movie, you can complain about:
Gospels in the New Testament. or is this really what they want to do, they just can't morrally justify doing it?

Regards,
Justin Kelly

P.S. Everyone in that mob is dead now, and the jews today had nothing to do with it, so I still don;t see the point. You may as well hold me (modern day white guy) accountable for slavery and take my money to pay for reparations.