First, the movie was slammed as anti-Semitic. Then, after people saw the movie for themselves, the anti-Semitic line became difficult to sustain, unless one were to damn all Christianity. Then it was too violent (from critics who appreciate the violence of a Tarantino film). Now Gibson is accused of cashing in on Christ.
But, as Rabbi Aryeh Spero wrote this month in The Wall Street Journal, it wasn't anti-Semitism the critics feared but anti-secularism. They feared "the movie would spark renewed interest in serious Christianity and strengthen the commitment of those already faithful".
And lo and behold, it seems their worst nightmares have come true.
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Despite attacks on its sincerity, Mel Gibson's movie has renewed the faith for many, writes Miranda Devine.
Mel Gibson's much-maligned movie The Passion of The Christ has been blamed for bumper congregations this Easter at Christian churches around the world. I say "blamed" because, of course, the result is the opposite of what the movie's most malevolent critics and their imitators desire.
From Bunbury, Western Australia, to Kent, England, the movie's extraordinary box office success seems to have translated into more bums on pews.
In Sydney, the Eastwood Baptist Church reported the largest Easter congregations in 12 years; several hundred people turned out at dawn for an Anglican service at Balmoral Beach on Sunday; and, on Good Friday, a record crowd of about 3000 joined an Italian Catholic procession through Marrickville.
In Bunbury, St Boniface Cathedral's Anglican dean, Brian Newing, reported attendance was higher than last year with "very enthusiastic congregations" and "lots of comment about the film".
The New Zealand Herald reported the Anglican Bishop of Wellington, Dr Thomas Brown, boasting "the biggest congregation we've seen for five years", and increased church attendances across the country over Easter, although the newspaper claimed The Passion movie was "not the reason".
Brisbane's Catholic Archbishop, John Bathersby, reported the biggest crowd on Sunday of the 12 years he had been at St Stephen's Cathedral, and credited The Passion as well as increased insecurity in the world.
In Adelaide, The Advertiser reported that church attendance this Easter was up 20 per cent.
In Canberra, where more than 1000 people packed St Christopher's Cathedral, Archbishop Francis Carroll was reported to have directly credited the movie for increasing interest in religion.
In Melbourne The Age reported "exceptionally increased" numbers at St Francis's Catholic Church, with 5000 extra worshippers over Easter, double the usual Sunday congregation at St Hilary's Anglican Church in Kew, and "an abnormally large number of visitors" at Donvale Presbyterian Church.
The picture was similar elsewhere, with St Luke's Church in Maidstone, Kent, which had handed out free tickets to the movie, reporting a 10 per cent increase in Easter Sunday attendance over previous years.
In his Easter message, Sydney's Cardinal George Pell said Gibson's movie had "focused public attention on the Christian understanding of the whole Easter season more effectively than any other event for years".
On Good Friday night, he again praised the movie in Italian to a crowd of about 3000 at St Brigid's Church in Marrickville, after the annual Procession of the Crucified Christ.
In secular Sydney, the procession was quite a spectacle, with police halting traffic for two hours as people walked through the streets of the inner-west suburb, carrying candles and singing Italian hymns, with loudspeakers spaced along their path.
A giant crucifix headed the procession, and a group of men carrying an almost life-size Christ and Madonna figure. Outside many houses they passed, families had gathered at front gates with their own candles, statues, crucifixes and holy pictures.
The procession was bigger than in previous years, said a St Brigid's priest yesterday, "possibly due to The Passion of the Christ and the trouble in the world today as well as the presence of Cardinal Pell". Numbers were double those of last year, when it rained.
Some preferred to attribute the bumper Easter flocks to factors other than Gibson's movie, from the weather to anxiety over terrorism. But the world seemed as frightening a year ago, the first Easter after the Bali bombings, and with the Iraq war already begun.
Even with some of the harshest criticism of the movie coming from within the Christian churches, The Passion's impact has been remarkable, rekindling the faith of believers, eliciting a rash of confessions from murderers and burglars, and drawing the curiosity of non-religious people, especially the young. Variety magazine reports the "heaviest demographic" of the film's audience is 18-30.
Whether all the attention is welcome to Christians or not, popular culture is presently full of Jesus references, including a viciously anti-Gibson episode of the cartoon South Park, called "The Passion of the Jews". Hollywood is said to be rushing to make more biblical movies.
Despite the critics' best efforts, the movie is a runaway success, from Zagreb to Hong Kong, reportedly exceeding $US400 million ($530 million) in box-office takings, becoming, so far, the eighth-most watched movie of all time, and opening at No.1 over the past week in Italy, Croatia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, and returning to No.1 over Easter in the US, though not in Australia.
But the success of the movie, on which Gibson gambled his own $US30 million and which he couldn't get a major studio to back, is now being used as another bludgeon against him. The attacks have morphed from one front to the next, as each criticism becomes invalid.
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I never thought about that. Crying was the norm over here 
