Catholics trade Mel Gibson to Muslim fundamentalists

The Catholic Church announced today it was trading Mel Gibson to the Wahhabis, a militant Islamic sect based in Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the Vatican said.

“Given his expressed attitudes on women and Jews, we feel that Mr. Gibson will be more comfortable in the Wahhabi community,” said Monsignor Gianni Antonelli, the Vatican’s director of celebrity affairs.

Vatican insiders said that Pope Benedict XVI felt the church could ill afford to be associated with the controversial Gibson at a time when it was also receiving bad publicity on the priest-child-abuse issue.

In exchange for Gibson, the Catholics will receive Walid al-Gazar, a talented young actor/screenwriter who was sentenced to amputation of both legs and an arm recently for his Oscar-nominated short film, Babes Without Burkas, plus 160 camels.

Friends of Gibson said Saudi Arabia, where alcoholic beverages are illegal and drug laws carry the death penalty, would provide him a healthier environment than Hollywood.

Gibson, who belongs to a traditionalist Catholic sect that celebrates the Mass in Latin, refuses to eat fish on Fridays and believes Jews have cloven hooves, directed the controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, a retelling of events leading up to the Crucifixion.

Clad in a Go-Wahhabis jersey and baseball cap, Gibson appeared at a brief news conference in Riyadh, where he said he was at work on a script for his next film, Saladin: The Early Years.

“I spent many happy, productive years as an embittered, retrograde Catholic, he said. “And now it’s time to move on.”

Gibson declined to answer questions about the scathing tapes in which he cursed his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva so vigorously he had to pause and pant for breath.