American priest James Altman, known for his defense of tradition and his persecution by the progressive hierarchy, has celebrated a Thanksgiving Mass on the set of “The Resurrection of the Christ,” the highly anticipated sequel to “The Passion” that Mel Gibson has been preparing for years.
According to John-Henry Westen, co-founder of LifeSiteNews, Father Altman traveled to Italy to be present on the final day of filming. There he blessed the cast and crew before the final take, and afterward celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for Gibson and his closest collaborators.
“I blessed the cast and crew as they prepared for the final take. Then I had the privilege of celebrating a Thanksgiving Mass for Mel and his closest collaborators.”
Father Altman’s presence on a project of this scale is no coincidence. The priest from the Diocese of La Crosse (Wisconsin) was removed from his parish in 2021 by his bishop, William Patrick Callahan, following a series of homilies in which he harshly criticized Catholics who voted for the Democratic Party and questioned the health restrictions during the pandemic. Since then, Altman has become a reference figure for American Catholics who reject the modernist drift of much of the episcopate.
For his part, Mel Gibson has never hidden his adherence to the traditional Mass and his distance from post-conciliar reforms. The Australian actor and director regularly attends the ancient Roman rite and has financed various traditionalist initiatives. “The Passion of the Christ” (2004), filmed entirely in Latin, Aramaic, and Hebrew, grossed more than 600 million dollars and became a cultural phenomenon that deeply irritated certain ecclesiastical and media sectors.
The sequel, centered on the Resurrection of Christ, has been in development for over a decade. The fact that filming concluded with a Mass celebrated by a priest publicly at odds with the official line of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops speaks volumes about the profile Gibson wants to maintain for this project.