Qld: Packed Easter services due in part to Gibson film: A'Bishop

AAP General News (Australia)
04-11-2004
Qld: Packed Easter services due in part to Gibson film: A'Bishop

BRISBANE, April 11 AAP - An uncertain world and Mel Gibson were responsible for packed
Easter services, Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby said today.

People were standing in the aisles and in doorways of Brisbane's St Stephen's Cathedral
today to hear Archbishop Bathersby talk about the meaning of faith.

After the service, he told reporters he had no doubt that Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion
of The Christ, had moved a lot of people to attend Easter services both today and on Good
Friday.

"It has to be that factor," Archbishop Bathersby said.

"That is the biggest Easter Sunday crowd that I've seen here since I came here in 1992."

He said he acknowledged that other factors, such as insecurity in the world, were causing
more people to turn to religion.

"But I do think that the Gibson film has created a whole lot of interest that people
are plugging into," he said.

Archbishop Bathersby said he had seen the film and liked it.

"I do agree with others that there was a great deal more violence than I would have
liked in the movie, but nevertheless there were some brilliant moments and I thought it
was a brilliant movie," he said.

"It certainly touched me deeply on a number of occasions (and) it has touched the lives
of many many people."

Archbishop Bathersby said he hoped increased attendances at services over the Easter
period would turn into a more permanent trend.

"You never quite know -- in America after the September 11 terrorism, then the churches
filled up very rapidly and then they disappeared again," he said.

"But even that they come on those occasions is good."

In his Easter message to the congregation, Archbishop Bathersby dealt with the issue
of faith and the need for people to keep believing in God.

He said it was a special privilege to have faith.

Outside the cathedral, he said people were living in an age where science was very
powerful and people were demanding proof of things.

"But you can't give a proof of God," he said.

"You believe in God and you experience the presence of God but you can't put God together
like two plus two equals four.

"As we've always said, faith is reasonable but not rational, we can't rationalise it
and prove it to people," the archbishop said.

AAP jfs/cmc/tnf

KEYWORD: EASTER QLD

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