CHRIST CONTINUES TO SUFFER WITH HIS PEOPLE.(MAIN)

Byline: ANDREW GREELEY

``The Passion of the Christ'' is a celebration of the bloody suffering of Jesus, a fundamentalist interpretation by a man who rejects the Second Vatican Council.

It is not, contrary to claims, a literal interpretation of St. John's Gospel, but is based on the ``revelations'' of a 19th-century mystic. It is a film about torture, legitimated because it is the torture of Jesus. ``Passion'' is a glorification of sadomasochism.

For most of the first millennium of Christian history, the church spread a veil of modest discretion over the physical suffering of Jesus. It respected the privacy of his final hours and celebrated the empty …