An Open Letter to
James Carroll concerning
The Passion of the Christ

Dear Mr. Carroll,

As a Roman Catholic I found your participation in the panel discussion on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ at Harvard Divinity School (3/18/04) to be most disturbing. The fact that Protestants would comment on and malign this film is understandable but for a member of the Church of Rome to join in such a one-sided and blatantly anti-Catholic gathering is cause for alarm. The Draconian nature of the event can be summed up in Professor Harvey Cox’s bizarre statement concerning the Lenten liturgy celebrated by one billion Roman Catholics:

"The problem is that much of this stuff in the movie is in the Gospel…It's read every Good Friday in churches…The film may push Christians to scrutinize these terrible passages of canonical sources."

Did it ever occur to you that Prof. Cox’s statement was anti-Christian as well as being anti Roman Catholic? Did you ever consider what tyrannical events can be generated by this statement? What would you and Prof. Cox have us do – rip the passion narratives from our Bibles? Take hammer and chisel to the stations of the cross in every church? Confiscate and destroy all rosaries? Why did you remain silent and not protest this outrageous statement?

Members of Harvard University are in no moral position to judge anyone with the way they operate. According to an Associated Press article filed on 10/14/03:

“Harvard Medical School has decided to alter the name of a research center at Massachusetts General Hospital that will get funding from Purdue Pharma, the maker of the painkiller OxyContin.

Last year, Harvard officials said they were planning to name the facility the Purdue Pharma Pain Center. Now, the university has inked a deal with the Stamford, Conn., company to accept $3 million over two years for the Harvard-Purdue Education and Research Center.

OxyContin has fueled a crime wave in recent years. It is a narcotic that is widely prescribed for victims of moderate to severe chronic pain resulting from such problems as arthritis, back trouble, and cancer.”

What the Associated Press did not mention is that Harvard University owns huge blocks of stock in Purdue Pharma. According to a Drug Topics article filed on 8/6/01:

“With increasing frequency, drug abusers and dealers, often brandishing guns, are bursting into pharmacies demanding that frightened pharmacists hand over all their OxyContin , the painkiller that has rapidly become the street drug of choice.

There have been at least 700 OxyContin thefts during the past 18 months, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion Control. Florida tallied 82 thefts, compared with 90 in Pennsylvania, 69 in Kentucky, 74 in Ohio, and 34 in California.

Massachusetts pharmacies have also been targeted. There were at least 14 robberies in a recent period. Police officials attribute the bulk of the crimes to two gangs of young men who hit pharmacies near closing time and made a fast getaway. In a recent robbery in Woburn, a pharmacist and two clerks were bound with duct tape by two armed robbers who made off with OxyContin and cash.

In response to the upsurge in robberies, the Massachusetts pharmacy board decided last to put pharmacies on 'high alert' with a letter urging them to retrain their employees about crime awareness, check their security equipment, give police their hours of operation, and request more frequent police visits. The state police chiefs association has agreed to forward a board letter to its members encouraging them to beef up pharmacy surveillance.”

Harvard University's actions surrounding OxyContin are far more a threat to the safety of the people of Massachusetts and the nation than Mel Gibson’s successful film. Why don’t you mention these facts at your next HDS panel discussion?

Regards,

William H. Kennedy

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