The mail just keeps on comin'

From reader Bill Schultz, your blogstress received this affirmation of her American Prospect Online essay, The Shylock Code, which examines the intent of Mel Gibson's defenders in their word-choices:

So, uh, if Mel can build his own tabernacle, can't he build his own "12 Steps" program?

"I am powerless over the 'Jews' and they have made my life unmanagable."

I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Mel's Hell...Thanks for the good read.

--Bill Schultz
Topeka, Kansas
(Where the new state motto is: "As BIGOTED as you think")

The "tabernacle" to which Mr. Schultz refers is the Traditionalist Catholic chapel that Mr. Gibson has built near his home, so that he need not travel long distances to hear a Latin Mass. Here's Peter Boyer in a 2003 issue of The New Yorker:

At home in California, Gibson worshipped until recently at a Traditionalist church some distance from their house in Malibu. Then he decided that he had the means, and the motivation, to make worship a bit easier. He determined to build his own chapel, a Traditionalist church called Holy Family, in the hills near his home.

This, of course , begs the question, what on earth is the Catholic League doing defending an apostate such as Mel Gibson. Mr. Gibson rejects the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which was convened by Pope John XXIII, and practices in what is, essentially, a breakaway church. So, why has the church not disavowed both him and his anti-Semitism?