A passion for the Passion
The Scriptures recounting the Passion of Jesuswhich we read each year just before Easterconstitute the core of our faith. It is a story full of drama, of color, of deep human emotion. And simply reading it often fails to convey those feelings.
Many Catholics discovered that when seeing the Passion portrayedperhaps for the first timein Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” That film simply placed on movie screens what has long been popular on stage: the Passion Play.
The passion as entertainment as well as instruction has been around for centuries. Developed mainly in the Middle Ages as “morality” or “miracle” plays, they sought to present the mysteries of faith to a largely unschooled people. Today, however, such plays are generally more fashionable in this country among evangelical Protestants than among Catholics.
In the mid-’90s I saw my first really full-scale production of a Passion Play at a Pentecostal mega-church in the western suburbs. It was fascinating, well-acted, awesome, overwhelming and graphic. There were donkeys and other livestock as well as people populating a recreated first-century Jerusalem. There were colorful costumes and even special stage effects.
It was also potentially problematic.
Catholic scholars have been working for decades on guidelines for presenting such Passion plays so they tell the story of faith correctlyand without unnecessarily harming vital relationships with the Jewish people.
The efforts grew out of the development of the document “Nostra Aetate,” the document promulgated by the Second Vatican Council regarding the church’s relationship with non-Christian peoples. They also sought to more accurately understand and depict the events reported in Scripture about the Passion of Jesus.
It’s a good idea for Catholics to see such plays. They have the ability to place flesh on the scriptural skeleton we all know so well.
But the guidelines, which were issued in 1988 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, should be understood by Catholics as well.
Passion Plays which seem to “blame” the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole are an unfortunate misrepresentation of Scripture and society, the guidelines say. They can reduce the complex society that existed at Jesus’ time to a monolith. Jewish culture of Jesus’ time was much like that of todayin which conservative, liberal, moderate, even radical and uninvolved people share their views.
Other points made by the guidelines, which use biblical scholarship, church teaching and tradition to counter errors which crop up in some Passion Plays:
---Jesus shouldn’t be shown as opposed to the Jewish Law.
---The Old Testament and Jewish tradition should not be set against the New Testament so it blurs the connection between them.
---It should always be remembered that “Jesus was and always remained a Jew” and that many Jewish people welcomed his teachings.
---Stereotypical portrayals of Jews should be avoided.
---Christians should be aware that crowd scenes can effectivelyand mistakenlyundermine the role of Roman authorities in the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Christian tradition has always recognized that the “guilt” for which Jesus died is the guilt of sin.
There’s more in the document, which is titled “Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatization of the Passion” and is available through the archdiocesan Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, (312) 751-5325. It’s also available online at www.usccb.org/seia/CRITERIA.PDF.
Finally for a better understanding of the developing relationship between Catholic Christians and Jews, read the story on Page 6.
Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager