c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Pope John Paul II on Sunday (Oct. 3) will beatify Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, a sickly 19th century nun who claimed to have visions that gave her courtside seats at Jesus’ execution.

But curiously, the Vatican says her grisly revelations _ which provided inspiration for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” and prompted charges of anti-Semitism _ are irrelevant to Emmerich’s would-be sainthood.

Instead, the ailing pontiff will move Emmerich one step closer to sainthood as an icon of saintly suffering. “So great was her personal participation in the sufferings of our Lord that it is not an exaggeration to say that she lived, suffered and died with Christ,” notes her official Vatican biography.

Some Jewish and Christian groups, meanwhile, say Emmerich’s accounts are dangerous because they seem to blame Jews for the death of Jesus _ a notion the Catholic Church formally discarded 40 years ago.

Either way, the bedridden German nun who died in 1824 is getting more attention in death than she ever did in life.

“I sometimes wonder if anyone would have even heard about Anne Catherine Emmerich until recently,” said Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a professor of religious art and cultural history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She said she finds Emmerich’s accounts “personally offensive.”

The Rev. John O’Malley, a professor of church history at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., said Emmerich’s influence didn’t really take hold until she died, and later skyrocketed with Gibson’s film.

“This beatification would have passed practically unnoticed” without the publicity generated by Gibson’s film, O’Malley said. “Gibson did her a big favor.”

Emmerich, an Augustinian nun who entered the convent at age 28, is best known for her blood-stained visions of Jesus’ suffering, chronicled after Emmerich’s death by poet Clemens Brentano in “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Emmerich’s followers say she suffered the stigmata (the bleeding wounds of Jesus) and had visits from the infant Jesus and John the Baptist.

Her visions were gory, painful and unusually detailed. They also took an unkind view of Jews, calling them “wicked” and “hard-hearted.” “Pity was, indeed, a feeling unknown in their cruel breasts,” Emmerich said.

Because it was unclear which accounts were authentic and which may have been embellished, the Vatican suspended Emmerich’s sainthood cause in 1928 until it was reopened in 1973.

The Rev. Peter Gumpel, who investigated the case for the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes, told Catholic News Service in June that questions about authorship prompted church officials to ditch Emmerich’s writings as part of the sainthood process.

“It is absolutely not certain that she ever wrote this,” he said. “There is a serious problem of authenticity.” (Her Vatican biography, meanwhile, calls Emmerich’s words “an outstanding proclamation of the gospel in service to salvation.”)

Emmerich will need to be credited with an additional miracle before she can be canonized, or officially declared a saint.

Gibson, who carries a relic of Emmerich with him, told interviewers she helped fill in the artistic gaps in the story as he created his film.

Several scenes from Gibson’s “Passion” _ such as Jesus being tempted by a demonic snake, an androgynous Satan figure, Pilate’s wife offering towels to Jesus’ mother to soak up his blood _ are not in the Bible but are pure Emmerich.

What troubles Jewish groups is the blame she places on the Jewish authorities, and demonic motives she attributes to the crowds.

“It cannot be contested that in addition to the aid she offered many of her co-religionists, hatred and anti-Semitism were fomented in her name,” Abraham Foxman and Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor of the Anti-Defamation League said in a joint statement this week.

It’s not just Jews who are concerned. O’Malley said the beatification will be seen, intentional or otherwise, as a “ratification” of Emmerich’s writings. “The de facto reason she has achieved worldwide fame … is because of the writings,” he said.

The Rev. Peter A. Pettit, a Lutheran who directs the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., spearheaded a letter from 100 theologians who urged caution as Gibson’s film was released on DVD on Aug. 31. Pettit said Emmerich was key to the film’s “anti-Jewish portrayals of why and how Jesus died that are factually inaccurate.”

“The fact that the Catholic Church would at this time _ knowing the impact of her work on such a problematic project as Gibson’s film _ the fact that they would move to beatify her is a real problem,” he said.

MO/RB END ECKSTROM