Thanks for the clarification, Patty. 

I’m not a fan of the Catholic Church and am not a Catholic myself, so I don’t know if it goes against the teachings or not.  I’m sure there are instances when it is allowed, by special order or something (my mother would say the special order generally comes with a golden handshake, but I’ll let her voice her opinions here!). 

I think the thing that has people so riled up about Mel is just that he was so public about his faith.  Passion of the Christ was a huge success, and not just with Catholics.  My church (I’m a Lutheran) bought out a whole theater three days in a row!  It was a moving experience to see the movie, complete with the original languages spoken.  The movie was faithful to the Bible accounts of the Crucifixion. And let’s face it, the story about the Crucifixion of Christ does not reflect well on the Jews.  It’s in the Bible: this is not an opinion, but a matter of religious record (and please don’t anybody tell me that it’s a story book, for me it is a religious record).

Then, Mr. Mel gets held up by the religious right (a group I do not put myself with, by the way.  I don’t agree with many of their opinions) as a genius.  BINGO!  That insures him instant dislike from many people.

And to add to it, he goes off, gets drunk and starts to slam the Jews (what was that all about!).  I never got that part.  Mel had said for years that he had a problem with alchohol (for that matter, so has Robin Williams, Bruce Willis, and countless other celebs).  For him to go off the wagon so publically, just gave the people who didn’t like him fresh material.  The same people who would have said "I hope he gets back into rehab" about his drinking or "I wish his family the best" wrt his divorce, now just attack him as a hypocrit.

On another thread, I wrote that I hope his wife gets as much as she can.  She has stood by him for thirty years, from shack in Australia to multi million dollar estates in Malibu.   Why shouldn’t she get at least half?  That’s California law: it’s a community property state.

Maybe people are thinking "Let he who is sinless throw the first stone" about Mel.  Maybe he should have been more low key about his faith (I don’t see people knocking Madonna about her Kabballah or John Travolta about his Scientology).  Or maybe they expected Mel would be perfect after he announced his religion.  Well, folks, here’s a fact about religions.  RELIGIONS ARE MADE UP AND FOR HUMAN PEOPLE.  And humans are flawed.

My prayers are with his family.  And Liz, please note the above quote from Patty as well.  Your comment at the end of the clip was inflammatory.