Mel Gibson 'bankrolls Church Sect'

Gibson has long been an open Traditionalist, who believes the modern church has corrupted the faith, but until recently, he has kept his religious beliefs at some remove from his film career.

Gibson, an Australian who won an Oscar in 1995 for directing Braveheart and made his name as an actor in the title role of Mad Max , has recently appeared in films with a stronger spiritual con tent. He starred as a devout army officer in We Were Soldiers , and played a former priest who rediscovers his faith in Signs.

Now, in his most overtly controversial project so far, he is directing and funding Passion , a gory version of the last hours of Christ, told in Latin and Aramaic.

The author of the Times article, Christopher Noxon, says these choices reflect Gibson's deepening ultra-traditionalist beliefs, 'rooted in the dictates of a sixteenth-century Papal Council and nurtured by a splinter group of conspiracy-minded Catholics, mystics, monarchists and disaffected conservatives'.

The star 'appears increasingly driven to express a theology only hinted at in his previous work'.

Bishop Daniel Dolan, founder of more than 30 Latin Mass churches, has welcomed his increased involvement. 'To put the weight of his Hollywood celebrity behind the truth that the whole modern church structure is rotten to the core is excellent,' he told the Times.

Noxon, a freelance journalist from California, was accused by Gibson earlier this year of harassing him and his father in Rome, where Gibson was filming Passion . The actor has even suggested that the writer has focused on him as part of a conspiracy.

'I did expect trouble,' Noxon told The Observer : 'I tried to be very respectful of Mel Gibson's religion but he put up armies against me.

'Yet both he and his father are promoting their extreme views in the public domain, and we have a right to discuss them. It's just that nobody connected the dots before.'