CORRECTION: SEE CORRECTION APPENDED; "The Passion" -- In the Jan. 21 Calendar, the Regarding Media column about papal reaction to Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" incorrectly reported that the movie's producer supplied a Reuters correspondent in Rome and a Wall Street Journal columnist with an account of Pope John Paul II's alleged comment praising the film. In fact, the Reuters report relied on a Vatican source for the comment attributed to the pope, according to the news agency.

Both Reuters and [Peggy Noonan] were informed of the purported comment by Gibson's producer, Steve McEveety, who along with the film's assistant director, Jan Michelini, met with Dziwicz shortly after he and the pope watched the film. It was during the course of that meeting, they allege, that the archbishop conveyed the pontiff's uncharacteristically Delphic remark. Whatever one thinks of John Paul II, he never has had any trouble making himself clear, and it might have occurred to somebody, somewhere along the line, that "It is as it was" sounds a bit like a screenwriter doing additional dialogue for an Eastern Yoda.

Shortly before he began filming "The Passion" in Italy, Gibson told the newspaper Il Giornale that he regards the Vatican as a "wolf in sheep's clothing." He said "my love for religion was transmitted to me by my father," a Holocaust denier who believes that there has been no legitimate pope since Pius XII and that the election of John XXIII was engineered by a conspiracy of Jews and Masons. "I do not believe in the Church as an institution," said the younger Gibson, who financed "The Passion" out of his own pocket. So in what does he believe that has led him to solicit the backdoor imprimatur of this lupine usurper, Pope John Paul II?