← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ed Toner
Thread ID: 8873 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2003-08-08
2003-08-08 18:54 | User Profile
[url=http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2003-07-24/news.html/1/index.html]http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2003-07...ml/1/index.html[/url]
Holy Father
When it comes to the Catholic hierarchy, Mel Gibsonââ¬â¢s dad is one Mad Max
BY WENDY GROSSMAN
wendy.grossman@houstonpress.com
Daniel Kramer
Gibson's spiritual views led him to Houston.
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Letters Letters
The pope isn't Catholic. John Paul II, the man most people believe to be pope, is really an imposter. He's deliberately plotting to destroy the Catholic Church from within. Catholics have been lied to, and they have been robbed. These are the messages Hutton Gibson preaches in his crusade to save the souls of his fellow Catholics. From his home in northwest Houston, he mails out his eight-page newsletter titled "The War Is Now!" He has 600 subscribers worldwide. He's also authored the self-published books Is the Pope Catholic? and The Enemy Is Here, which features a cover with a map of Italy and an arrow pointing to Rome.
He's gained international notice in some segments of the theological community from his years spent denouncing the pope as an imposter.
"Whenever you say 'plot,' people automatically think 'nutcase,' " Gibson explains. "But there's no way this could happen by accident. There's no way this was not rigged."
However, Hutton Gibson gets recognition far beyond his scholarly arguments about Catholic conspiracy theories. He also happens to be Mel's old man -- he's the father of one of the most established superstars in Hollywood, and he lives right here in the Houston area.
The elder Gibson doesn't believe the holocaust happened and thinks the idea of evolution is ridiculous. He likes detective novels. The 84-year-old closes his blue eyes when he talks, often slipping into Latin. Instead of saying hello or using any other greeting when he answers the phone, he just says the last four digits of the number in a brisk military tone.
The missal Gibson uses is in Latin. The prayer book's battered spine is covered in masking tape; his 11 children have torn out hunks of its pages.
While he avidly tells of his crusade against the Catholic leadership, Gibson refuses to talk about his family or his famous son. Mel reportedly was outraged when The New York Times Magazine recently interviewed his father; the New York Post reported that Mel Gibson declared the Times story a "hit piece" on him and that the newspaper had harassed his father. The Times story quoted the elder Gibson calling the pope a "Koran kisser" and implied that he sounds a bit like the obsessive-compulsive, newsletter-writing, Catcher in the Rye-collecting character Mel played in Conspiracy Theory.
The elder Gibson's unique life would seem suited for big-screen treatment itself.
His mother, an opera singer ...............................
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep reading. This stuff is DYNAMITE!
2003-08-08 20:11 | User Profile
Not a bad story. I take "Mad Max" to mean angry rather than crazy, and he should be.
I was surprised given that the story was apparently written by a kikess. Hutton comes across as curmudgeonly but smart and devout, and a dedicated father.
I'll see if I can find his newsletter.
2003-08-08 20:53 | User Profile
I wonder what Hutton Gibson's attitudes towards Eastern Catholics? One problem I find among most Traditionalist Roman Catholics is that they're ignorant of the fact that an Eastern branch of the Catholic Church exists(they will often mistake us for the Orthodox Church), and they also ignore some of the positive effects that Vatican II had on the Eastern Branch. For centuries, Eastern Catholics were forced to adopt many Latin rite rituals and concepts, which violated our own Eastern traditions. This was called Latinization. Vatican II help bring an end to the practice of Latinization, but the damage was still done, which has made many Eastern Catholics convert to the Orthodox Church, where Eastern traditions are preserved. John Paul II in particular has brought more spotlight on the Eastern churches with his apolostlic letter "the Light of the East".
Also I wonder if this man and other Traditionalist Roman Catholics know that many of the changes brought about by Vatican II have origins in Eastern Catholicism, including the practice of giving liturgy in the vernacular language(Eastern Catholics never used Latin in their services).
I do support the Traditionalist wing of the Roman Catholic Church, but I do wish they would they take the time to better understand their Eastern brothers. At least John Paul II refers to us as "the other lung of the Catholic Church". I certainly hope that most Traditionalists, including Gibson, do not support a return to Latinization of the Eastern Churches as part of their program for returning to the Latin mass. :thd:
Alot of what I'm talking about is explained here in the article [url=http://www.theuniversityconcourse.com/VI,1,10-3-2000/Dragani.htm]The importance of understanding Eastern Christianity [/url]
For those who need basic knowledge on our traditions [url=http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/eastern.html]http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/eastern.html[/url]
[img]http://www.byzantines.net/StCyril/crosscross.gif[/img]
2003-08-08 21:56 | User Profile
I wonder if Mel's dad would feel more at home in the traditionalist Catholic prelature Opus Dei?: [url=http://www.opusdei.org/]http://www.opusdei.org/[/url]
2003-08-09 11:34 | User Profile
I'm a bit like Hutton. The first mass I attended after Vatican Due was my last. I walked into St. Veronica's, and was greeted by a long haired, dirty hippie, dressed in rags, strumming a guitar, and mumbling something, ON THE ALTAR.
I did a 180, and never went back. I joined the OCC, Orthodox Christian Church.
Fr. Malachi Martin wrote much on this.
[url=http://www.starharbor.com/fr_martin/index1.html]http://www.starharbor.com/fr_martin/index1.html[/url]
We grew up together in S. Jamaica, Queens, a real nice neighborhood turned into a black nightmare.
Malachi was an altar boy in the church I went to as a child.
2003-08-11 18:02 | User Profile
I founf Hutton in the TX white pages. gave him a call yesterday. No answer.
I got a call from him a few hours ago. My number came up on his caller ID.
Great old gentleman. At the end of the chat, I said, "Hutton, I wish there were more men like you around here today."
He replied "You know, Ed, so do I."
The letter in this forum has gotten around. I got a call from a guy in Tucson who liked it. James Beardsley. He's one of us, and a Journalist, no less.
2003-08-11 22:40 | User Profile
perun1201,
Are you a Carpathian Russian. A Lemko?
[url=http://www.lemko.org/BBC/bbc1.html]http://www.lemko.org/BBC/bbc1.html[/url]
I have a small cottage in a Lemko village, in south Eastern Poland, not far from the Slovak border. The Lemks are good people.
Alas, many of them were forced by the Polish communists (with Moscow's blessings) to move to north-western Poland.
However, some are moving back.
2003-08-12 05:07 | User Profile
*Originally posted by Polish Noble@Aug 11 2003, 16:40 * ** perun1201,
Are you a Carpathian Russian. A lemko?
[url=http://www.lemko.org/BBC/bbc1.html]http://www.lemko.org/BBC/bbc1.html[/url]
I have a small cottage in a lemko village, in south Eastern Poland, not far from the Slovak border. The Lemks are good people.
Alas, many of them were forced by the Polish communists (with Moscow's blessings) to move to north-western Poland.
However, some are moving back. **
No I'm a Byzantine Russian Catholic, like [url=http://stmichaelruscath.org/]St. Michael's Church[/url] in NY(I don't belong to this church but gives info on my sect). Although technically a Russian Byzantine Catholic, I usually the attend Ukrainian Catholic Churches in my area. My family moved, so there are no Russian Catholic Churches where we live now, only Ukrainian ones.
I am glad to hear about the Carpathians moving back. :th: