EWTN portal reports that Lionsgate, in collaboration with Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey’s Icon Productions, announced that the film “The Resurrection of the Christ” will be released in two parts — Part 1 on May 6, 2027, and Part 2 on May 25, 2028. Filming reportedly concluded ahead of schedule after 134 days of shooting across multiple Italian cities including Rome, Bari, Ginosa, Craco, Brindisi, and Matera. Finnish actor Jaakko Ohtonen will portray Jesus, replacing Jim Caviezel from the original 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ.” Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, praised Gibson as “a true visionary with an artist’s eye for scale and a storyteller’s instinct for emotional truth,” claiming that “every image we’ve seen from set feels like a masterwork painting brought to life.” The article further notes that the original “Passion of the Christ” grossed $370 million domestically and “opened the door to faith-based media in Hollywood,” while also recalling that Joaquín Navarro-Valls, then-director of the Holy See Press Office, stated that the apostate John Paul II “gave it a positive review.” This entire enterprise — a Hollywood-produced spectacle about the central mystery of the Catholic faith, praised by the structures occupying the Vatican, and now being sequelized for mass consumption — demands ruthless examination against the immutable standard of Catholic doctrine.
The Resurrection Is Not Cinema: The Reduction of the Supernatural to Spectacle
The fundamental and most damning error of this entire project is one that the article never once acknowledges, because it is incapable of acknowledging it: the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a subject for cinematic dramatization. It is the supreme supernatural mystery of the faith, the very cornerstone upon which the entire edifice of Catholic truth stands or falls. “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). The Resurrection is not a “story” to be told with an “artist’s eye for scale” or a “storyteller’s instinct for emotional truth.” It is a divine act — the God-Man rising gloriously from the dead by His own divine power, conquering sin and death, opening the gates of Heaven. To reduce this to a Hollywood production, complete with casting decisions, press releases, and box-office projections, is to commit an act of profound irreverence that borders on sacrilege.
The Church has always understood that the mysteries of faith are communicated through the preaching of the Apostles, through Sacred Tradition, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and through Sacred Art created under the authority and guidance of the Church — not through the commercial entertainment industry. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that the annual celebration of sacred mysteries is “far more effective than even the most serious proofs of the teaching Church; for these are usually accessible only to a small number of learned men, but those engage and instruct all the faithful; these speak to men once, those annually and eternally, so to speak; the former affect primarily the mind, the latter the mind and heart, and thus exert a salutary influence on the whole man.” The Church’s liturgy, not Hollywood, is the proper vehicle for communicating the mysteries of faith. A film — no matter how “epic” or “ambitious” — can never substitute for the grace communicated through the sacraments and the preaching of the true Church.
The Apostate “Church” as Promoter of Religious Spectacle
The article casually notes that Joaquín Navarro-Valls, then-director of the Holy See Press Office, stated that the apostate John Paul II gave the original “Passion of the Christ” a positive review. This is passed off as though it were an endorsement of value. Let the reader understand: John Paul II was not the Pope. He was an antipope — a usurper of the Chair of Peter who spent his entire “pontificate” advancing the Modernist revolution, promoting false ecumenism, kissing the Koran, praying with animists at Assisi, and systematically dismantling the Catholic faith from within. That his structures would praise a Hollywood film about Our Lord’s Passion is entirely consistent with the conciliar sect’s program of replacing supernatural faith with naturalistic sentimentality.
The structures occupying the Vatican have no authority to endorse or promote any work of art as spiritually beneficial. They are the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). Their approval is, in fact, a mark of suspicion. The true Church — the Church of all ages, the Church that produced the cathedrals, the Gregorian chant, the Sistine Chapel, the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas — would never entrust the communication of the central mystery of salvation to a commercial film studio. The approval of Navarro-Valls and the conciar structures tells us everything about the spiritual bankruptcy of the post-conciliar regime.
Replacement of the Sacred with the Theatrical: A New Jesus for a New “Church”
The article informs us that “while many believed that Caviezel would reprise his role as Jesus, the filmmakers decided to instead select an entirely new cast” with Finnish actor Jaakko Ohtonen now portraying the God-Man. This casual replacement of the actor playing Our Lord Jesus Christ reveals the fundamentally theatrical and commercial nature of the enterprise. In the conciliar sect’s universe, Jesus is a role to be cast, not the Eternal Word made flesh, true God and true man, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity. The fact that one actor can be swapped for another, that Jesus is a part to be “played” by whoever the director chooses, exposes the underlying naturalism of the entire project.
The article further lists the cast: Mariela Garriga as Mary Magdalene, Kasia Smutniak as the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pier Luigi Pasino as Simon Peter. Let the reader consider: these are commercial actors being paid to simulate the roles of the Mother of God, the Apostles, and the saints. The Blessed Virgin Mary — the most blessed among women, the Immaculate Conceptress, the Queen of Heaven and Earth — is reduced to a role assigned to a Polish actress for a Hollywood production. This is not piety. This is the theatricalization of the sacred, the final stage in the conciliar revolution’s program of reducing the supernatural to the natural, the divine to the human, the sacred to the commercial.
The “Faith-Based Media” Industry: A Fruit of the Post-Conciliar Apostasy
The article proudly notes that the original “Passion of the Christ” “opened the door to faith-based media in Hollywood” and grossed $370 million domestically. This is presented as though it were a triumph for the faith. It is nothing of the sort. The rise of the “faith-based media” industry is a direct consequence of the conciliar sect’s abandonment of authentic Catholic catechesis and evangelization. When the structures occupying the Vatican gutted the liturgy, emptied the seminaries, suppressed the traditional catechism, and replaced the preaching of the Gospel with dialogue, ecumenism, and the cult of man, they created a vacuum of authentic Catholic formation. Into that vacuum rushed Hollywood, offering emotional simulations of faith as a substitute for the real thing.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77). The entire “faith-based media” industry operates within and reinforces the liberal framework of religious indifferentism — the idea that all “faiths” are equally valid paths to God, that Catholicism is merely one option among many in the marketplace of religious consumerism. A Hollywood film about Jesus is not Catholic evangelization; it is religious entertainment designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience, which necessarily means diluting, distorting, or omitting the hard truths of the Catholic faith.
The Omission of What Matters: No Mention of the True Church, the Sacraments, or the Supernatural Order
The most revealing aspect of the article is what it does not say. There is no mention whatsoever of the true Church — the Catholic Church that endures in the faithful who profess the integral faith. There is no mention of the sacraments, without which no one can be saved. There is no mention of the necessity of baptism, of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of confession, of the state of grace, of the reality of sin and the need for repentance. There is no mention of the fact that the conciliar structures occupying the Vatican are not the Catholic Church. There is no mention that the “popes” since John XXIII are antipopes — usurpers who never legitimately held the Chair of Peter.
The article treats the entire subject as a matter of entertainment industry news — release dates, casting decisions, box-office receipts, studio press releases. The supernatural order is entirely absent. The eternal destiny of souls is never mentioned. The reality of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory is never discussed. This silence is the gravest accusation that can be leveled against the article and the portal that published it. “The light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). The article prefers the darkness of naturalistic entertainment journalism to the light of supernatural truth.
The Date Symbolism: 2027–2028 in the Context of the Masonic Operation
While the article presents the release dates of May 6, 2027, and May 25, 2028, as purely commercial decisions, the attentive Catholic cannot ignore the symbolic dimension. The conciliar sect and its allies in the entertainment industry operate within a framework of dates and cycles that, while not provably deliberate, are consistent with the broader pattern of the post-conciliar revolution’s program of cultural domination. The original “Passion of the Christ” was released in 2004 — a year that falls within the timeframe of the conciliar structures’ systematic program of replacing authentic Catholic culture with sentimental simulations. The sequel’s release in 2027–2028 continues this pattern.
More significantly, the very fact that the central mysteries of the Catholic faith are being packaged and sold as Hollywood entertainment — with two-part releases timed for maximum commercial impact — reveals the extent to which the supernatural order has been subordinated to the entertainment industry’s logic of profit and spectacle. The Resurrection of Christ is not a franchise. It is not a sequel. It is the foundational truth of the universe, and it demands not a movie ticket but faith, repentance, and the reception of the sacraments from the true Church.
EWTN: The “Catholic” Portal That Reports Entertainment News Without a Single Supernatural Note
The article is published by EWTN, which presents itself as a “Catholic” media network. Yet the article reads as though it were written by a Hollywood trade publication. There is no supernatural perspective whatsoever. There is no reference to the teaching of the Church on the proper communication of sacred mysteries. There is no warning that no film — however well-intentioned — can substitute for the grace of the sacraments. There is no critique of the commercialization of the sacred. There is no mention that the structures occupying the Vatican that praised the original film are not the Catholic Church.
This is the hallmark of the conciliar-era “Catholic” media: it operates entirely within the naturalistic framework of the secular world, merely substituting “Catholic” branding for genuine supernatural content. It reports on “faith-based movies” as though they were a legitimate form of Catholic evangelization. It quotes Hollywood executives praising directors as “visionaries” without a single reference to the true visionaries of the faith — the saints, the martyrs, the doctors of the Church. It is, in every meaningful sense, secular entertainment journalism wearing a Catholic mask.
Conclusion: The Resurrection Demands Faith, Not a Movie Ticket
The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the central truth of the Catholic faith. It is not a subject for Hollywood dramatization, commercial exploitation, or entertainment industry press releases. It is a supernatural mystery that demands faith — “blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed” (John 20:29). The true Church communicates this mystery through the preaching of the Gospel, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through the sacraments, and through the lives of the saints — not through commercial films produced by the entertainment industry and praised by the apostate structures occupying the Vatican.
The faithful are urged to reject the false consolation of religious entertainment and to seek the true graces that come only through the sacraments of the Catholic Church — the one true Church founded by Christ, which endures in those who profess the integral faith and receive the valid sacraments from true priests. No film, no matter how “epic” or “ambitious,” can substitute for the grace of a single valid confession, a single true Mass, a single worthy reception of the Most Blessed Sacrament. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). Let the faithful invest their time, their attention, and their resources in the things that truly matter: prayer, penance, the sacraments, and the salvation of their souls — not in Hollywood’s simulation of the sacred.
Source:
Release dates for Mel Gibson’s ‘Resurrection of the Christ’ announced (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 23.05.2026