Gibson's 'Passion' tops readers' list of 'pro-Catholic' films

Published: 2004-08-12

NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (CNS) -- Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" topped a list of "pro-Catholic" films submitted by readers of Faith & Family magazine and the National Catholic Register newspaper. Readers of the two publications, both published by Circle Media in North Haven, sponsored an online poll, which garnered responses from more than 1,000 people, according to Father Owen Kearns, a priest of the Legionaries of Christ who is publisher of the two periodicals. An eight-member panel of critics was also asked to nominate what it felt were the most "anti-Catholic" movies. The panel's top choice was last year's "The Order," a thriller about intrigue at the Vatican over an arcane medieval ritual known as "sin eating," a heretical rite by which a person takes on the sins of another. For readers to nominate a film for the pro-Catholic list, the poll guidelines stipulated that the film had to "explicitly show Catholic customs and beliefs and had to be unambiguously positive," according to a National Catholic Register editorial in the Aug. 8 issue. The editorial also pointed out that the poll was "unscientific."

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