>Mel Gibson’s priest opposes "Holocaust myth", alleges Jews undermine Catholic Church

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Over the years, the question of whether Mel Gibson is a bigot has been raised in several contexts. First, when he made his film version of the Passion Play, he and his defenders portrayed this as merely the act of a devout Catholic, not an act of anti-Semitism.  Next, when he spewed anti-Semitic statements (“the Jews are responsible for starting every war”) at a Jewish police officer who was arresting him for drunk driving, his defenders claimed that he was so drunk that he didn’t know what he was saying. Now, with the publication of extensive audio apparently of Gibson using abusive, misogynist and racist language, threatening his girlfriend with death and defending his having punched her in the face as being justified, those prior defenses are wearing pretty thin. (Of all these offenses, his alleged punching of his girlfriend is by far the worst, so I am reluctant to list it in the same category as the others. A violent attack on a woman holding a child is a crime of a much high order than hate speech.)

With respect to his views concerning Jews, I have doubted Gibson’s good intentions from the time of his Passion of the Christ, first because of the Jewish-Christian conflict its release and publicity campaign deliberately set up, second, because of the contents of the film, and third, because I know a bit about the traditionalist Catholic movement.  That movement, in spite of its name, does not advocate a return to a familiar Catholicism (at least to those old enough) of Latin masses and fish dinner on Friday.  In fact, it is a cult-like reactionary group which opposes the Vatican, promotes bizarre conspiracy theories and has ties to extremist, sometimes violent, political movements.

One important clue as to Mel Gibson’s world view in general and his feelings about Jews in particular is provided by who he chose to serve as the priest of the traditionalist church he had built in Agoura Hills, near his home in Malibu.  (That church, which is private and not associated in any way with the Roman Catholic archdiocese or any other recognized Catholic denomination, has been funded extravagantly by Gibson , reportedly to the tune of $64 million dollars [read here and here.]  Gibson is solely in charge of what takes place within it.).  Gibson chose a priest named Louis Campbell (read here), an activist within the far-right traditionalist movement who had previously served as priest at Hutton Gibson’s church in Stafford, Texas.  Father Campbell advocates extreme anti-Jewish and anti-modernist views, as evidenced by his “Sunday Sermons”, which are published on a traditionalist website called DailyCatholic.org.  These sermons are presumably of the same sort as the ones he gave at Mel Gibson’s church.

In one outrageous sermon (read here), Campbell goes so far as to state his opinion that the Holocaust is a myth promoted by Zionists and an absurd list of “prominent Jews”, designed to undermine the church, negate the message of Christ and absolve the Jewish people for deicide.  (“Zionist interests have flooded the world with the concept that the real holocaust took place in the 1940’s.”)  Campbell contends that the antidote for this myth was provided by Mel Gibson:

   “The Holocaust myth is now being challenged mightily by the movie ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ The Jews (and we do not speak of all Jews, but of many influential Jews such as Abe Foxman and the ADL, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach and Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Museum, and those who have control of the media) had almost succeeded in blotting out the name of Jesus from the consciousness of the people. The public had been carefully programmed through a relentless round of movies, documentaries and books, so as to have the guilt of the Holocaust constantly in mind. ‘Schindler’s List’ and the abominable book “Hitler’s Pope” in so demeaning and desecrating Pius XII’s good name, are perfect examples of this. They had turned the tables on us. Rather than the Jews being reputedly responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, we now had Christians, especially the Roman Catholic Church, bearing the guilt for the Holocaust.

    “But with one fell swoop, this marvelous movie struck a nearly fatal blow to their carefully executed plan of convincing the world that the Holocaust is the pivotal event, the defining moment in human history, thus displacing the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ from that exalted position. This is the real explanation for their rage against Christ, and against this movie. They are afraid that Christians will begin to realize once again that the true Holocaust, the one perfect and acceptable sacrifice to God our Father, took place two thousand years ago on Calvary’s hill, when Jesus Christ shed His Precious Blood for the sins of the world. All human beings, whether Jews or Gentiles, of every place and of every time, must go to the foot of the Cross of Jesus and acknowledge Him as the Messiah, if they are to be saved.

    “The Holocaust myth and the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary are unalterably opposed to one another. If the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is the one perfect Sacrifice acceptable to God, the true Holocaust, and the one defining moment in human history, the Jewish Holocaust cannot be the unique event they claim it to be. It was a terrible atrocity, a great human tragedy, but not a perfect sacrifice offered to God; it was not redemptive; it cannot save anyone; it was not a holocaust, certainly not The Holocaust.

    “But even the Vatican II church cooperates, resulting in its own demolition. John Paul II has apologized to the Jews for the sins of Christians against them, and has absolved them from the necessity of believing in Jesus Christ. Much was made of his “historic” trip to Jerusalem where his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum was celebrated by the media. ‘The awful truth is this–that John Paul II and the New Vatican accept the myth of the Holocaust, thus denying the uniqueness and efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.'”

In this sermon, Campbell cites a column on the Lew Rockwell website written by Christopher Manion (read here) as the source of his thinking on this subject.  (Manion is a paleo-conservative blogger associated with a group called Catholics for Ron Paul.  Read here.)  After reading both, I see why he cites Manion.  Campbell was essentially restating Manion’s idea of comparing the Holocaust to Christ’s death in terms more suited to a fire and brimstone sermon than an opinion column, and taking Manion’s idea of Jews denying “Christ’s Holocaust” to a higher level of hate.  Here’s Manion, purportedly warning Jews not to do what Campbell, after reading this, accuses them of doing:

“(E)very Jew who does not proclaim Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior is denying the Christian view of the Holocaust – in other words, Jews might fear that Christians view them with the same virulent scorn that many Jews heap on “Holocaust Deniers” like Gibson’s father.  

“Hence, when Gibson, the son of a modern Holocaust denier, makes a film about the perfect Holocaust of Christ’s Passion and death, contemporary observers – and not only Jews – might be tempted to consider “The Passion of the Christ” a blasphemous affront to the modern Holocaust and an insult to the suffering and death of six million Jews under Hitler.

“If Jews think we Christians hate them for not loving Jesus, no wonder they’re upset! That would mean that we want to punish them as the perpetrators of the perfect Holocaust – Christ’s Passion and death on the cross.”

So Campbell, after reading that, actually does call Jews Holocaust deniers for their disbelief in Christ’s “Holocaust”, then complains that Jews are using the “myth” of the Nazi Holocaust to negate their collective guilt for killing Christ.  Campbell uses this rationale as a way to praise Gibson’s Passion as an effective counter to this Jewish conspiracy.  He then goes on to somehow connect this bizarre conspiracy theory to the promotion of both Communism and abortion:

Why is the death of the Jews a uniquely horrible event, an unspeakable atrocity beyond all others throughout human history? Why will they not allow the term “holocaust” to be applied to the deaths of millions of innocent children who die in their mothers’ wombs as victims of abortion? Why do we not see museums dedicated to the Ukrainians, or to the tens of millions of Christians and others who died in the Soviet Union?

Even when attempting to strike a moderate, compassionate tone with respect to Holocaust victims, Campbell can’t help but add a disquieting note of uncertainty as to the actual historicity of their fate:

If six million Jews died in the death camps under the Nazis we must have compassion for them.

If Campbell doesn’t know that the Holocaust occurred, I must conclude that he doesn’t want to know.

Reading some of his other “Sunday sermons” on the Daily Catholic website, one finds Campbell promoting bizarre conspiracy theories alleging Jewish interference in the Catholic Church. In one, he actually claims that Cardinal Augustin Bea, who was one of the church leaders responsible for liberalizing church teachings at Vatican II, was secretly a Jew himself. (Read here.)  Campbell absurdly cites (via another source) an obscure Egyptian newspaper called Al Gomhuria which made this claim and alleged that Bea’s true family name was “Behar”.

Another of Campbell’s sermons lashes out against the very idea of religious freedom, one of the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution, implying that the nefarious unseen hand of the Masons is behind its promotion, and that it intrinsically opposed to Christianity (read here):

“Religious freedom as a fundamental human right – it sounds like something from the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution, something you would expect from the U.N., and not from the Vatican. Actually it is a Masonic doctrine, which has overtaken the true Catholic doctrine on religious freedom. But it is one of the most important pillars of the pontificate of our putative pope, John Paul II, without which his ambitious ecumenical and inter-faith program would collapse.”

In his sermons, Campbell repeatedly promotes an ardent anti-Zionism rooted in an opposition to the existence of Israel in particular, and to Jewish power in general.  He considers both to be part of an anti-Christian holy war.  Even while using sometimes violent imagery, he connects his anti-Zionism to his purported desire for peace, which he differentiates from  John Paul II’s peace activism:

(A)lthough he never fails to promote his famous “civilization of peace and love,” John Paul II supports the false claims of Jewish Zionism, thus contributing to the cause of war in the Middle East. For if, as the Church has always taught, the Scriptures say that the promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His Church, how can it be said at the same time that God promised Jerusalem to the Jews? To affirm one interpretation is to deny the other. To support the false claims of the Jewish Zionists is to deny the Church its inheritance and to scandalize the little ones-faithful Catholics.

He follows this odd plea for peace with a prayer to bring on Armegeddon and punish Zionists and their supporters, who he depicts as defying God’s will:

Yes, God has something to say to presidents, prime ministers and potentates who ignore His laws and have an exaggerated sense of their own power and importance:

“And now, O kings, give heed; take warning, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before Him; with trembling pay homage to Him, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, when His anger blazes suddenly. Happy are all who take refuge in Him!” (Ps.2:10-12).

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle!

Campbell’s peace activism seems to have its limits. In a sermon he gave on Passion Sunday, 2004, Campbell predicted a holy war in which Jews would be violently punished for rejecting Christianity:

“Israel’s ultimate act of defiance against God was its rejection of Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah, which broke their Covenant with God and merited for them the seven-fold covenant curses. Jesus Himself foretold this when He thundered woes against the Scribes and the Pharisees, declaring that upon them would come “all the just blood that has been shed on the earth” and that “all these things will come upon this generation” (Mt.23:33-36).

“The Apocalypse of St. John, the last book of the Bible, gives us an account of the struggle between those who hold to the Old Covenant, symbolized by the harlot dressed in purple and scarlet, riding upon the scarlet beast, and the holy and immaculate Bride of Christ, the Church of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant fails as the covenant curses described in Leviticus fall upon unfaithful Israel, initiated by the opening of seven seals by the Lamb, the sounding of seven trumpets by the angels, the roar of seven thunders (although St. John is commanded not to write what they spoke), and the pouring out of seven bowls of wrath upon the earth by the angels. Jerusalem, called Babylon in the Apocalypse, is utterly destroyed. St. John echoes the words of Jesus: “And in her was found blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain upon the earth:” (Apoc.18:24).”

Campbell connects this prophecy to the post-Vatican II Catholic church, alleging that it is largely illegitimate because of its acceptance of the legitimacy of Judaism:

“(B)ecause of widespread infidelity and apostasy within the Church, the bowls of God’s wrath are already being poured out anew upon the earth, in particular because the Modernists who have taken over the Vatican have nullified God’s judgments by recognizing the apostate Jews as “the people of the covenant,” and “our elder brothers in the faith.” They tell them that there are two valid Covenants, theirs and the Christian Covenant. Thus they deny Jesus Christ and make Him out to be a liar…”

While couched in the language of biblical texts and traditional Catholic teachings, Campbell’s views, and those of the Gibsons and many other traditionalists, are actually a thing apart from what most would think of as traditional Catholicism. The traditionalist movement, which is entirely a reaction to external threats which they believe to have infiltrated the church to destroy it from within, devotes itself to a very great extent to promoting conspiracy theories about this perceived attack. Thus, in the name of promoting traditional Catholicism, traditionalist Catholics instead promote a sort of cult designed to counter Jewish and Masonic conspiracies, crypto-Jewish cardinals and secretly Communist popes. To call that “traditional” is a stretch. The stuff that the Gibsons believe is not a return to an earlier form of Catholicism, but a descent into pseudo-religious paranoia.

In a sermon called “The New Judaizers”, Campbell writes (read here):

“The Modernists at the Vatican have denied their heritage as the true heirs of Abraham by pretending that Catholics have some kind of spiritual relationship with the Jews and the Muslims because we are all ‘children of Abraham.’ This is deceitful and scandalous, confusing Catholics, and leading the conciliar church deeper into the darkness ‘where there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth’ (Mt.8:12). “

The Gibsons and their brand of traditionalism pray for the destruction of the modern Catholic Church with its acceptance of Jews and rejection of Jewish collective guilt. They not only pray for the “perfidious Jews” to be converted, they also pray for those who refuse conversion to be destroyed among other agents of the Antichrist.  They glorify the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, and await something comparable, only much much larger, to finish the job.

That these horrible, hateful views have the seal of approval of his father, his priest and his faith must play a role in Mel Gibson’s belief that his expressions of hate are acceptable.

>Eli Roth tweets link to Adam Holland Blog

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Read here: Twitter / Eli Roth: Gibson’s father is a guest on white supremacist radio shows.

Eli Roth (aka “Bear Jew” of Inglorious Basterds) has tweeted a link to my post concerning Hutton Gibson’s interview with the racist radio program Political Cesspool. (Read that post here.)

 The Political Cesspool program is broadcast on a number of local radio stations and via webstreams, links to which can be found on countless racist websites. Its host has been associated with Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party (for which he was a delegate and candidate) and is currently associated with two racist political organizations: the Council of Conservative Citizens — formerly known as the White Citizens Council — (read here) and the newly formed American Third Position Party (read  here and here). The program has provided a media forum for David Duke and others of his ilk, as well as allegedly mainstream right-wing political figures such as Pat Buchanan and his sister Bay Buchanan, and Ron Paul aides Lew Rockwell and Walter Block. According to one blog post (read here), Ron Paul himself appeared on Political Cesspool as well, although that program has been scrubbed from the archive.  (A list of the show’s guests is available here. My posts concerning the Political Cesspool program can be read here.)

Hutton Gibson used his Political Cesspool interview to expound at length on his belief that “the Antichrist” controls a world-dominating conspiracy (read “Jews and Freemasons”) which has taken over every national government in the world and the leadership of the Catholic Church. Gibson also used to interview to advocate the formation of militias in reaction to the election of Barack Obama as president, and expressed his endorsement of Ron Paul as the “only candidate worth supporting”.

It seems that Hutton Gibson’s son Mel is on Bear Jew’s fighting side as the result of his repeated racist, anti-Semitic and misogynist statements.

 I noticed that, while the Inglorious Basterds did attend the last Academy Awards ceremony, Mel Gibson did not. Coincidence?

>Hutton Gibson on Ford SuperQuiz

>When he wasn’t denying the Holocaust or “defending the faith”, Mel Gibson’s father had a career as a quiz show contestant. He’s posted the following to his YouTube page.

>Mel Gibson pouring millions into anti-Semitic conspiracy cult

>Mel Gibson, sometimes described as being a religious Catholic, actually belongs to an anti-Semitic cult which promotes the belief that Jews and Freemasons have taken over the Vatican. This cult, sometimes referred to as Sedevacantism, sometimes as “traditionalist Catholicism“, is not recognized by the Vatican as Catholic.

Gibson reportedly believes in the “Siri Thesis“, which claims that Giuseppe Siri was elected to succeed Pius XII in 1958 but denied the papacy by an occult conspiracy. Giuseppe Siri has been accused of assisting Nazi war criminals who fled justice after World War II.

Groups promoting “traditionalist Catholic” conspiracy theories tend to attract Catholics who reject the innovations started by the Second Vatican Council, including changes to the traditional mass and the Latin liturgy. They also attract those who reject Vatican II’s rejection of anti-Semitism and belief in the doctrine of Jewish deicide. Certain believers in this conspiracy cult have anointed their own “Popes in exile”. (For more about these groups, read here and here.)

Now comes news that Gibson has poured tens of millions of dollars into promoting these extreme beliefs. Shockingly, his private cult church, which has 70 members and provides no charitable services, has assets 12 times greater than those of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, which provides housing and social services to tens of thousands of people, and serves over 5,000,000 meals per year to the hungry (read PDF here).

from Australia’s Herald Sun: Mel Gibson’s Holy Family Catholic Church full of riches

MEL Gibson has poured another $15.2 million into his controversial private church in Malibu.

US federal tax files show Gibson’s Holy Family Catholic Church now has tax-free assets worth $64 million, up from $48.8 million last year.

Gibson is the single contributor to the church, which has a congregation of about 70 members and follows a 500-year-old ethos.

Among the church’s assets are artworks with a listed value of almost $760,000.

Gibson lists three major expenses for last year, including an architect and a landscaper who have done work in and around the church.

He also paid a law firm $105,000 for its services.

Gibson’s secretive sect is not recognised by the Catholic Church because it does not acknowledge the authority of the Pope or the Vatican and rejects the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

The church’s finances are impressive, particularly compared with the funds of other US religious organisations.

The Archdiocese of New York’s Catholic Charities organisation listed its assets at the end of 2006 as $5.1 million. That group gives millions away to charity every year.

The Holy Family church’s tax return documents do not indicate that they give anything away to charity.

Gibson’s church — which offers a daily morning mass in Latin — follows an antiquated ideology of Catholicism dating back to the 16th century.

Female followers of Gibson’s church must abide by a strict dress code, requiring them to wear veils over their hair and long skirts, with a ban on pants for women.

The exclusive parish caters for about 70 members, with the existing chapel having seating for only 100 people.

Over the past two years, Gibson, 52, has been overseeing the building of a much bigger Spanish mission-style church, which will seat about 400 people to expand his flock of followers.

Gibson’s church, launched by the actor-director in 1999, is set among lush Tuscan-style gardens and does not welcome strangers.

The exclusive community — located on a scenic hillside on the famed Mulholland Drive in the upmarket rural area of Agoura Hills — has high fences and heavy security to prevent outsiders from visiting.

The church has an unlisted phone number, keeps its address a secret and has asked members of the congregation not to release information.

The church preaches that Jews are responsible for the death of Christ, with many supporters, including Gibson’s father Hutton, denying the Holocaust happened.

>Hutton Gibson endorses Ron Paul for President in 2008

>Amazingly, this is not a parody:

YouTube – Hutton Gibson endorses Ron Paul for President in 2008

>Mel Gibson putting his money where his paranoia is…

>from FOXNews.com: “Mel Gibson Sinks $8 Million More Into Controversial Church”

Mel Gibson is not losing his religion. He keeps investing his “Passion of the Christ” money into the church he built in Agoura Hills, Calif.

Last year, Gibson parked another $8.2 million in his AP Reilly Foundation, the tax-free entity that takes care of his Holy Family Catholic Church.

Gibson’s church is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church because it does not acknowledge the authority of the pope or the Vatican or the reforms associated with Vatican II. Gibson and many of his fellow congregants are Holocaust deniers, as is Gibson’s father, who has been known to contribute to neo-Nazi publications.

Gibson, nevertheless, perseveres. According to a federal tax filing obtained exclusively by this column, the foundation now has $30 million in its coffers, up from $22 million last year.

>The connection between Mel Gibsons’ anti-Semitic cult and the Terry Schiavo case

>from the La Crosse, Wisconsin Tribune

Hate Groups in America By GREG HANIFL

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies and monitors racist hate groups in the United States, has named 844 active hate groups in the United States with 12 hate groups identified in Wisconsin. One such group, the “Christian Identity” movement, believe whites are the chosen people, Jews are the essence of evil and non-whites are soulless “mud people”.

Recent letter writer Fred Ainslie, of Sparta, Wis., stated that no one in the pro-life cause “would ever endorse Christian Identity”.

However, the facts would refute this claim. Christopher Ferrara, who was the lawyer for the family of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose feeding tube was removed in 2005 after a court battle, also writes for anti-semitic journals like the Remnant.

Ferrara recently stated that Pope Benedict XVI had “abased himself by entering a synagogue”. He also works with Robert Sungenis, a violent anti-Semite, who staffs the “Apologetics Desk” at Ferraro’s legal organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists as other Catholic extremists Mel Gibson and his father, Hutton Gibson, a known Holocaust denier who believes “a Masonic plot back-ed by the Jews” led to the Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s. Hutton Gibson is especially angry over the council’s declaration, Nostro Aetate, which condemns “all hatreds, persecutions and displays of anti-semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews”.

A three-year investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center has determined the Catholic extremists, including Mel and Hutton Gibson, Christopher Ferrara and as many as 100,000 like minded individuals, may represent the largest population of anti-semites in the United States.

>Mel Gibson shows up drunk to AA meeting

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Gossip is not a big interest to me, but, of all movie stars, Gibson deserves this treatment most, so pardon me for piling on. read it here…

Eyebrows shot up when Mel Gibson walked into an AA meeting near his Malibu home, stumbled over a row of seats and crash-landed atop them. “He was falling, tripping and clearly off balance,” said a source. “It was an embarrassing moment.” Later that evening, Mel stumbled into a petite woman, knocking her off balance. “And he didn’t even apologize!” said the source. “He looked so out of it.”

>Mel Gibsons’ Latin-rite church in Pennsylvania ousts priest – Tribune-Review

>Gibsons’ Latin-rite church in Unity ousts priest – Tribune-Review

By Richard Gazarik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, June 5, 2007

An attempt by actor and director Mel Gibson to establish a church that would celebrate the Mass in Latin and attract similar believers outside mainstream Catholicism apparently has failed.

St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church in Unity will be sold after Saturday’s ouster of its priest, a former clergyman of the Greensburg Catholic Diocese, parish members said.

Karen Petrone, her husband, Glenn, of Wilkinsburg in Allegheny County, and their nine children attended Mass at St. Michael’s until April. They said they stopped because of questions about the credentials of Leonard Bealko, who celebrated Mass each Sunday, officiated at weddings and conducted baptisms.

The building in Mountain View had been owned by the Charter Oak United Methodist Church before it was sold in 2006 to the World Faith Foundation of California, which Gibson funds, for $750,000. Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson, moved to Pennsylvania from West Virginia so he could attend the Mass celebrated in Latin. The foundation paid $315,000 for a home in rural Lycippus, Mt. Pleasant Township, where the Gibsons live.

But the new church attracted few faithful, according to Karen Petrone, who said the most worshippers the church ever drew for Mass was about 45. About 20 recently left the parish, she said.

The church now is listed by Jodi Repasky of Prudential Preferred Realty of Greensburg for $775,000, according to the company Web site.

The Gibsons follow the traditional Latin Mass, known as the Tridentine Mass.

Parishioner Trish Hammill, of Mt. Lebanon in Allegheny County, said the World Faith Foundation is the legal owner of the building, although the deed is held in trust by First Commonwealth Bank.

“We’ve been asked not to say anything until (Bealko) has left the building,” she said.

Glenn Petrone said the problems surfaced around Easter when Hutton Gibson and his wife, Joy, asked Bealko to produce documentation proving he was ordained in the Latin rite. When he couldn’t, he was asked to leave, Petrone said. Bealko celebrated his last Mass on Sunday, she said.

Hutton and Joy Gibson stopped attending Mass after Easter, and Hutton Gibson resigned from the church’s board of directors, the Petrones said.

Glenn Petrone said there were questions about church finances and why some bills were not paid.

“Everybody was always in the dark,” he said of Bealko. “He didn’t confide in anybody.”

Joy Gibson would not comment on the matter.

“Father Bealko’s leaving. That’s all I want to say,” she said.

Bealko blamed the failure of the 17,000-square-foot church on a lack of revenue.

“It’s a sticking point,” he said. “The utility bills were killing us. The church was a monster.”

Bealko, 63, who lives in Commodore in Indiana County, was defrocked in the mid-1980s by the Greensburg Catholic Diocese for undisclosed reasons. The Fayette County native once served as pastor of the defunct Transfiguration Church in Mt. Pleasant and has been involved in the Tridentine movement since being relieved of his priestly duties by the Greensburg diocese.

After leaving Westmoreland County, he joined the Polish National Catholic Church, based in Scranton, and was assigned to St. Casimir Parish in Rochester, N.Y. The Polish national church, which allows priests to marry, is not recognized by the Vatican.

While in New York, Bealko was arrested for reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a weapon after he fired an unregistered pistol at a 22-year-old man who was living in the parish rectory. According to a police report, the young man said Bealko “threatened to blow my head off.” When police arrested Bealko, they discovered a 17-year-old boy from Pennsylvania staying at the house.

Bealko has been associated with several Latin rite churches in the area.

After leaving New York, Bealko returned to Westmoreland County, where he celebrated Mass at Our Lady of Victory Chapel in Greensburg before he was ousted there, according to Nick Roy, who recruited Bealko. Then he began celebrating Mass at St. Joseph Chapel in Hempfield.

When parishioners at St. Joseph began to question Bealko about finances, Bealko changed the locks on the chapel, according to John Maher, a parishioner. It took a threat of legal action by parish members before Bealko agreed to turn over keys to the chapel and leave, according to a letter sent to Bealko by an attorney representing the chapel.

Bealko became acquainted with Mel Gibson and his father when the Gibsons attended a Mass he celebrated at St. Joseph.

“I feel sorry for the Gibsons,” Karen Petrone said. “They were duped.”

“I guess because we’re religious people, we had faith in the priest, and nobody challenged him,” her husband said.

>Southern Poverty Law Center on Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic cult

>Part 1 of their report (links to other sections in sidebar of their website):

SPLCenter.org: The New Crusaders: The radical traditionalist Catholics, who reject the teachings of the modern papacy, may form America’s largest group of anti-Semites.”

And a fine editorial:

The ‘Synagogue of Satan’
by Mark Potok

From a makeshift pulpit inside an Indiana Quality Inn, a baby-faced priest angrily denounces the Jews, saying they mean to “destroy all Christian nations.”
In offices in State Line, Pa., an intense, bespectacled man tirelessly recounts how the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia “predicts the anti-Christ will come from Jewry” and warns of the Jews’ role in the coming “New World Order.”

At a gathering near the Philadelphia airport, men in priests’ collars and brown monk’s robes rage against the “Judeo-Masonic” conspiracy to destroy the Catholic Church, the “Marxist-Jewish” scheme to wreck American schools, and even an elaborate 9/11 plot, “predicted by the Blessed Virgin Mary 84 years ago.”

For most Americans, the world of “radical traditionalist Catholicism” is so remote and little-known — it entered the nation’s consciousness, just barely, with revelations about the strident anti-Semitism of actor Mel Gibson and his father, Hutton — that it may seem wholly irrelevant to the modern world. Is it really important what a group of people, many excommunicated and most gathered behind the walls of their monasteries and other institutions, think about the Jews? That many believe there was no Holocaust? That some say every pope since 1958 has been illegitimate, and a few even insist the real pope has been kidnapped?

The fact is, it does matter. As explained in a remarkable and sweeping story by the Intelligence Report’s Heidi Beirich, the best estimates suggest there are 100,000 radical traditionalists in America, a number that appears to be growing. And while the size of this movement is dwarfed by the 70 million mainstream Catholics in this country, these energetic men and women are having an influence.

For one thing, the open anti-Semitism that characterizes the movement is leaking into other subcultures, some of them especially dangerous.

Last September, Father Nicholas Gruner, leader of the International Fatima Rosary Crusade and a key player in the radical traditionalist milieu, celebrated a special morning Mass at the Washington, D.C., conference of The Barnes Review, a Holocaust denial journal, also attended by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists. In February 2006, John Sharpe, head of the Legion of St. Louis and another leading radical traditionalist, sold books at a conference of the racist magazine American Renaissance that also played host to neo-Nazi David Duke. (Last December, Duke spoke to a Holocaust denial conference hosted by the Iranian government.)

In one case, the simmering anti-Semitism of the radical traditionalists may even have affected the thinking of a serial-killing terrorist. A new book by Maryanne Vollers, Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw, suggests that Rudolph may have been influenced by radical traditionalism, in addition to his known ties to the neo-Nazi theology of Christian Identity.

The movement also may be gaining influence on the larger political scene. A case in point is that of Christopher Ferrara, leader of the American Catholic Lawyers Association. Ferrara, who writes for the anti-Semitic, radical traditionalist journal The Remnant, was the lawyer for the family of Terri Schiavo and a key player, along with Republican and Christian Right leaders, in getting Congress to pass a law to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive. It was later overturned.

In the United States, we are accustomed to thinking of race as the critical fault line splitting our society. But in the world at large, religion is just as divisive.

From Iraq to the former Yugoslavia to uncounted other regions, religiously based violence has recently torn apart societies that once included people of different faiths living together in peace. Even in the United States, with its strong tradition of religious pluralism, religious conflicts seem to be increasing almost yearly.

One would think that radical traditionalists would understand this. After all, Catholics historically have been among the most despised minorities in America, with hatred of “papists” driving the Know Nothing party in the 1850s and swelling the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to almost 4 million members. The same kind of demonization that Catholics were subjected to in the past is now being practiced by extremist Catholics who describe all Jews as the “synagogue of Satan.”

Intelligence Report
Winter 2007