Hey, look at me; I can write letters too!!!

So I'm reading Kathleen Parker on Townhall Dot Com, see? And that's when I'm off to the races:

Subject: Another tiresome e-mail about Mel...

Kathleen:

You gotta be tired of this by now. But it's the price of fame. We all want our space. Even people like you with millions of people (well, maybe thousands; we can't all be Anne Coulter) who hang on your every word. Even people like... Mel Gibson.

So when someone asks about his father's personal views, it should be enough to acknowledge them and disagree with them. That's all the distance any of us should expect. Would you disown your parents over a thing like that?

See? Takes a while to answer, huh?

Yes, regarding the Holocaust, he said "atrocities happened." (He said more than that too.) It was an admittedly passing reference to something that he and Peggy and you and I and every damn body else who read the interview already understood. What more was his elaboration (and disagreeing with his father) going to do about it?

I'll assume someone as erudite as yourself (no sarcasm here) has read Kafka. So you don't have to be told how repeating something often enough doesn't make it true. (By the way, I saw the movie based on "The Trial." The first fifteen minutes alone are worth the price of admission. But I digress...) In the movie "The Passion of the Christ," the only people in the entire cast are Romans and (deep breath here) JEWS!!! There were Jews who were JC's pals and either sold him out or ran out on him. There were Jews at the trial who defended him and were shouted down by the others. There were Jews at the trial who condemned him. There were Jews in the crowd shouting about "let[ting] his blood be upon us and upon our children." If there had been Greeks or Phoenicians or Brooklynites in the crowd, they would have done the same (except the Brooklynites; they'd still be calling the Dodgers "bums" for moving to LA).

But don't take Mel's word for it. It's all in the Book. You know, Kathleen, THE Book! Not just that book, but even Jewish contemporary writings of the time were not kind to Caiaphas, calling him self-serving. Oy vey; the nerve of these people.

Go read the Talmud. Jesus is called a "bastard" and a "charlatan" who is spending eternity in hell boiling in excrement. Try picking on the Jews for that one, if you wanna say something original.

And then there were Romans. You've got your cynical Romans like Pilate, who were still pissed off at getting such a lousy backwater assignment. You've got his wife, who had a dream about the whole thing (and who, according to Eastern Orthodox tradition, was converted -- betcha didn't know that!). Then there's the soldier who was "washed in the blood of the Lamb," let us say. Catholic tradition knows him as Longinius. (The guy with the spear, remember?)

Then, of course, there is the obvious. If the Jews didn't kill Christ (assuming any one of them did), someone would have had to, so that the prophecies would be fulfilled.

That's because, in the end, the Jews didn't kill Jesus. You and I did, through our sins. He was wounded for those sins. And by those wounds we were healed.

So get off Mel's case, will ya? And let's see you in Church this Sunday, ya hear?

Speaking the Truth in Love, I am...

Stay tuned.