Charles Krauthammer has never written a dumb column, to my knowledge. Even on emotional subjects such as civil marriage, he brings to the debate a calm reasoning that wins the respect of his opponents as well as his supporters. And that is also why his searing criticism of Mel Gibson's inflammatory and idiosyncratic version of the Passion is so helpful. I'm tired of people believing that Gibson is representing Catholicism. He isn't. He is a rebel against Catholicism, specifically the reformed, open, repentant Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council. Gibson doesn't recognize the authority of the current Pope; he doesn't recognize the current mass - the central ritual of Catholics across the world. People are mistaken in believing that he merely prefers the Latin mass; he doesn't. He favors the Tridentine mass, a relic. He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy. He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews, and, as such, is an act of aggression against Catholicism and the current Pope's heroic efforts to confront the shameful history of the Church with regard to the Jewish people. Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie. He doesn't mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie, a device that only students of medieval anti-Semitism would notice. In fact, one reason that today's viewers do not notice the hatred of Jews in the movie is because, mercifuly, they are not familiar with the medieval tropes that signal evil and that Gibson trafficks in. Gibson knows. And he knows how his movie will play in those parts of the world where anti-Semitic tropes are still recognized. Notice I am not accusing people of good faith who have found inspiration in the story portraayed in this movie of being anti-Semitic. I'm sure that many if not almost all of that devition is genuine and not motivated by anything but spiritual hope and reflection. But that cannot disguise the malice that lies beneath. And that Gibson would use the message of Christ to advance it is what makes it doubly unforgivable.

the crucifixion is not just a story; it is a story with its own story -- a history of centuries of relentless, and at times savage, persecution of Jews in Christian lands. This history is what moved Vatican II, in a noble act of theological reflection, to decree in 1965 that the Passion of Christ should henceforth be understood with great care so as to unteach the lesson that had been taught for almost two millennia: that the Jews were Christ killers.

Vatican II did not question the Gospels. It did not disavow its own central story. It took responsibility for it, and for the baleful history it had spawned. Recognizing that all words, even God's words, are necessarily subject to human interpretation, it ordered an understanding of those words that was most conducive to recognizing the humanity and innocence of the Jewish people.

The Vatican did that for good reason. The blood libel that this story affixed upon the Jewish people had led to countless Christian massacres of Jews and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre -- 6 million Jews systematically murdered in six years -- in the heart, alas, of a Christian continent. It is no accident Vatican II occurred just two decades after the Holocaust, indeed in its shadow.

Which is what makes Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" such a singular act of interreligious aggression. He openly rejects the Vatican II teaching and, using every possible technique of cinematic exaggeration, gives us the pre-Vatican II story of the villainous Jews.

His Leni Riefenstahl defense -- I had other intentions -- does not wash. Of course he had other intentions: evangelical, devotional, commercial. When you retell a story in which the role of the Jews is central, and take care to give it the most invidious, pre-Vatican II treatment possible, you can hardly claim, "I didn't mean it."

His other defense is that he is just telling the Gospel story. Nonsense. There is no single Gospel story of the Passion; there are subtle differences among the four accounts. Moreover, every text lends itself to interpretation. There have been dozens of cinematic renditions of this story, from Griffith to Pasolini to Zeffirelli. Gibson contradicts his own literalist defense when he speaks of his right to present his artistic vision. Artistic vision means personal interpretation.

And Gibson's personal interpretation is spectacularly vicious. Three of the Gospels have but a one-line reference to Jesus's scourging. The fourth has no reference at all. In Gibson's movie this becomes 10 minutes of the most unremitting sadism in the history of film. Why 10? Why not five? Why not two? Why not zero, as in Luke? Gibson chose 10.

In none of the Gospels does the high priest Caiaphas stand there with his cruel, impassive fellow priests witnessing the scourging. In Gibson's movie they do. When it comes to the Jews, Gibson deviates from the Gospels -- glorying in his artistic vision -- time and again. He bends, he stretches, he makes stuff up. And these deviations point overwhelmingly in a single direction -- to the villainy and culpability of the Jews.

The most subtle, and most revolting, of these has to my knowledge not been commented upon. In Gibson's movie, Satan appears four times. Not one of these appearances occurs in the four Gospels. They are pure invention. Twice, this sinister, hooded, androgynous embodiment of evil is found . . . where? Moving among the crowd of Jews. Gibson's camera follows close up, documentary style, as Satan glides among them, his face popping up among theirs -- merging with, indeed, defining the murderous Jewish crowd. After all, a perfect match: Satan's own people.

Perhaps this should not be surprising, coming from a filmmaker whose public pronouncements on the Holocaust are as chillingly ambiguous and carefully calibrated as that of any sophisticated Holocaust denier. Not surprising from a man who says: "I don't want to lynch any Jews. I mean, it's like it's not what I'm about. I love them. I pray for them."

Spare us such love.