Mel Gibson says the Catholic Church needs a ‘cleanse’ after series of scandals

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Hollywood actor Mel Gibson has said the Catholic Church needs to undergo a ‘cleanse’, having been mired in scandal over the years.

The Catholic Church has faced a number of unflattering headlines recently, mainly due to its record in handling cases of sexual abuse.

And The passion of Christ Director Gibson, who was raised a sedevacantist traditionalist Catholicism, thinks a behind-the-scenes cleanup would greatly help the church’s image. Sedevacantists believe that since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 (or, in some cases, the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963), subsequent popes have been neither true Catholics nor true popes, but rather heretics because they espoused modernism.

In an interview with Additional host Billy Bush, Gibson was asked if his decision to team up with fellow Catholic Mark Wahlberg for the upcoming faith-themed biopic Father Stu was part of an effort to “get back to the good” of the church.

“Back to basics,” replied Gibson, 66. “Of course, it’s lamentable everything that happened. Like any institution, it is capable of being corrupted. And, you know, it’s sad to see, but as always, I don’t think this either the institution that is at fault.

“I think a lot of people are getting into it. Institutions are as good or as bad as the people who run them. Times are a bit difficult right now.”

Gibson – whose self-built Malibu church, Holy Family Church, is not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese – added: “I think it’s going to have to be cleaned up. It’s going to have to be cleaned up. come back to some kind of balance in the future.”

This isn’t the first time Gibson has spoken about certain aspects of the church. In September 2021, the National Catholic Journalist published an article that quoted him speaking out against the Second Vatican Council.

Mel Gibson attends the 22nd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on December 11, 2016 in Santa Monica, California. The actor and filmmaker said the Catholic Church needed a ‘cleanse’ after a series of scandals over the years.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images for the Critics’ Choice Awards

According to the report, the movie star endorsed the Coalition for Canceled Priests, whose bishops have removed clerics from ministry for expressing views considered controversial by the church.

“And my question is, who is hiring [the bishops]? I don’t think it’s Jesus. Is it [Pope] Frances? Who hires Francis? Is it the Pachamama?” Gibson said.

Gibson said “there was nothing wrong” with the Catholic Church before the Vatican II reforms, adding, “It didn’t need fixing. It was working pretty well.”

While Gibson is known to be a devout Catholic, he faced a slew of critics amid accusations of anti-Semitism and racism. Actor Joshua Malina called him a ‘Jew hater’ in an impassioned op-ed for Atlantic last month.

This week, the Vatican came out in defense of Pope Benedict XVI’s record of handling sexual abuse cases in the church after it was reported that the former pontiff had mishandled four such cases. cases in the 1970s and 1980s.

The report by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, which was published last week, covered church officials‘ handling of sexual abuse allegations between 1945 and 2019.

Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was accused in the report of mishandling four cases when he was head of the Archdiocese of Munich between 1977 and 1982. He was also accused of approving the transfer of a pedophile priest to Munich in 1980. The priest then assaulted another boy in 1986.

In a Vatican News op-ed, Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said the report “is not a judicial investigation or a final condemnation.”

He also said the report’s reconstructions “will help combat pedophilia in the Church if they are not reduced to finding easy scapegoats and summary judgments.”

Benedict, Tornielli said, “did not evade questions” during the investigation and provided an 82-page response after reviewing documents from the diocesan archives. Benedict allegedly defrocked nearly 400 priests whom he found guilty of abuse.

“For too long, abused children and their loved ones, instead of being seen as wounded people to be welcomed and accompanied on the road to recovery, have been kept at a distance,” writes Tornielli. “It was Joseph Ratzinger, [who was] the first pope to repeatedly encounter victims of abuse during his apostolic journeys.”

Pop Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI blesses pilgrims upon his arrival in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican May 18, 2005, for his weekly general audience. The Vatican recently defended its record of handling sexual abuse cases in the church.
VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images
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