EXCLUSIVE: Mel Gibson and crew offer powerful prayer for protection on set of ‘Resurrection of the

Fri Oct 17, 2025 – 8:00 pm EDTFri Oct 17, 2025 – 8:25 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of Faith and Reason, John-Henry Westen, Father Charles Murr, and Frank Wright discussed the prayer the cast and crew of “The Resurrection of the Christ” are reciting for protection while filming that Mel Gibson shared exclusively with LifeSiteNews.
The panel also discussed Jim Caviezel being recast for the highly anticipated film, Pope Leo getting caught on a hot mic telling American bishops to raise their voices about immigration, Leo appointing Cardinal Blase Cupich to the Pontifical Commission of the Vatican City State, and more.
Westen read a prayer Mel Gibson has shared with LifeSiteNews, which the cast, directors, producers, and entire crew of “The Resurrection of the Christ,” the much-anticipated follow-up to his 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ,” are reciting as they begin filming in Rome. The prayer invokes the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Michael the Archangel, and the apostles to preserve everyone involved in the movie from both spiritual and physical harm during filming.
The host noted that the prayer shows Gibson is taking spiritual warfare seriously.
“I can tell you from the inside that Mel Gibson is taking extremely seriously the idea of the spiritual warfare that goes on behind the scenes,” he said. “In fact, when I exchanged notes with Mel over a year ago with regard to ‘The Resurrection,’ he was talking about the spiritual battle entailed with filming.”
The opening text of the prayer is as follows:
Queen of Heaven, most blessed among women, who art crowned with the stars and clothed with the sun, look with favor, we pray, on these thy children who seek to glorify thy Divine Son. Graciously send thy defender, Michael, to protect all involved in this holy project from the attacks of Satan, and to preserve them from every spiritual and physical harm.
Westen urged listeners to join Gibson and his crew in saying this prayer so that this film will be just as effective in evangelizing people as “The Passion.”
Earlier in the episode, the panel discussed Pope Leo’s “hot mic” remarks against Trump’s immigration policy while meeting with a U.S. bishops delegation earlier this month. In the clip, the American pontiff told the bishops that the one area where he wishes U.S. bishops had a stronger voice is “defending migrants.”
READ: Left-wing US bishop says Pope Leo supports his efforts on immigration
Westen said it makes his blood boil that the Holy Father is more concerned with immigration than with the onslaught of abortion and LGBT propaganda in his native country.
Murr agreed, emphasizing that the pope’s comments and the American hierarchy’s unwillingness to speak out about abortion, same-sex “marriage,” and other serious moral issues is a betrayal of the faithful, which likely is due to government funding.
“We all feel betrayed because this is where you want the Church to stand strong, and this is where they’re the weakest. And it’s so obvious that it has everything to do with the money they’ve been receiving and are going to receive,” the priest said.
“I know many of the people, I remember many mornings standing out (with them) saying the Rosary in front of an abortion mill, and I know their zeal, their spiritual strength,” he added. “(Their zeal has) got to be deflated by such things; they’ve got to be hurting to hear such things. What can I say? You just continue on, you continue on doing what is right, and hopefully one day our pope and our bishops will follow suit.”
Wright underscored that the Vatican is promoting the United Nations’ “Replacement Migration” agenda instead of the Catholic faith.
“This is, in fact, an international agenda, and it has been announced openly as such for decades,” he said. “It serves a very obvious economic purpose of supplying a wave of ever-hungry consumers to make the line go up, which is replacementism as well. It completely undermines human dignity in a second order.”
“It’s tragic that the Church would do this, especially at a time when … the United States is the global hub of the criminal international trade in babies, surrogacy,” he added. “(Surrogacy) is fueled by IVF, which itself has been found to kill perhaps 2.5 million unborn every year, or twice as (many) as abortion itself in the U.S. alone.”
READ: LifeSite launches new campaign to end surrogacy worldwide
The journalist continued: “There is a fight here, there is a fight here that we can, and I believe we will win, and it would be far better to hear the Vatican’s voice on that rather than this highly political issue, which is basically part of the global agenda.”
For the full special prayer the crew of “The Resurrection” is offering for spiritual protection, plus more discussion of Pope Leo’s “hot mic” comments on Trump’s immigration policy, and much more, tune in to this week’s episode of Faith and Reason.
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