Miraculously, they didn’t follow me as I stumbled down our gravel driveway and into the arms of my mother, just returned from shopping. They wheeled around and skated off.
I couldn’t speak. I felt that if I repeated what they’d said, it would only get worse and more real. And for the first time, I saw the world as a hostile and threatening place – a place where I was, and would be, completely at the mercy of people like those girls, whose hatred had absolutely nothing to do with me. Instinctively, I knew there were others like them, and that there was nothing I could do or say that would dispel their loathing, though I knew myself to be completely guiltless of any crime, certainly one committed more than 1,900 years ago.
I never did tell anyone what happened, and though I sometimes saw the dreaded trio separately or together in town, they never said anything again. The pain and fear receded, though I never forgot the despair I felt that afternoon.
Those emotions were revived by the release of the original version of “The Passion,” but even more so by this new “sanitized” version, and anyone of any age who views the beak-nosed, bearded villains still seeking Jesus’s crucifixion will know my fears are not unfounded – no matter how much less footage is shown of Jesus being flogged.
The timing of the edited version’s release – by no coincidence, I’m sure – was conveniently close to Easter, the holiday that most vividly evokes the crucifixion. As a result, I haven’t a doubt that scenes like the one in which I was a terrified participant will be re-enacted by impressionable young people and their innocent victims in towns and cities across America and in the many foreign countries where it’s being distributed.
Making his movie more “acceptable” doesn’t mask the unacceptable nature of Gibson’s message. “The Passion Recut” will cast a dark shadow on the late pope’s unprecedented and enlightened policy of acceptance.