Hutton Peter Gibson (August 26, 1918 – May 11, 2020) was a writer on sedevacantism, World War II veteran, the Jeopardy! grand champion for 1968, and the father of 11 children, one of whom is the actor and director Mel Gibson.
Gibson was a critic both of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church and of those Traditionalist Catholics who reject sedevacantism, such as the Society of Saint Pius X. He claimed that the Second Vatican Council was "a Masonic plot backed by the Jews".
Early life and family
Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the son of businessman John Hutton Gibson (1884–1937) and Australian opera singer Eva Mylott (1875–1920). His maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants to Australia, while his father, who was from a wealthy tobacco-producing family from the American South, had Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. He was raised in Chicago. His mother died when he was two years old and his father died when he was nineteen. Gibson supported his younger brother, Alexis, who died in 1967. He graduated from high school early, at age 15, and ranked third in his class.
According to Wensley Clarkson's biography of Mel Gibson, Hutton Gibson studied for the priesthood in a Chicago seminary which was operated by the Society of the Divine Word but he left the seminary because he considered the modernist theological doctrines which were being taught there disgusting. However, in 2003, Gibson stated that he really left the seminary because he did not want to be sent to New Guinea or the Philippines as a missionary.
After serving with the U.S. Army as a Signal Corps officer at the Battle of Guadalcanal, Gibson married Irish-born Anne Patricia Reilly on May 1, 1944, at the Catholic parish church of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Brooklyn, New York City. They had ten children and adopted another one after their arrival in Australia. As of 2003, Gibson had 48 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. From early 2006, he resided in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh after moving from Australia to Houston, Texas, in 1999,
Railroad lawsuit and move to Australia
In the 1960s, Gibson worked for New York Central Railroad. In the early morning hours of December 11, 1964, he slipped off a steel platform which was covered in oil and snow
Gibson said in 2003 that the move to his mother's native country was undertaken because he believed that the Australian Army would reject his oldest son for the Australian Vietnam War draft, unlike the U.S. Army.
At the October 1976 Annual General Meeting of the Latin Mass Society of Australia, Gibson resigned as secretary after loudly and continually claiming that the See of Peter was vacant due to Pope John XXIII's convention of the Second Vatican Council, and accusing subsequent popes of therefore being heretical antipopes.
Quiz show contestant
In 1968, Gibson appeared on the Art Fleming-hosted version of the game show Jeopardy! as "Red Gibson, a railroad brakeman from South Ozone Park, New York". Gibson won $4,680 and retired undefeated after five shows, in accordance with the rules of the show then in use. He was invited back to appear in the 1968 Tournament of Champions, where he became the year's grand champion, winning slightly over one thousand dollars more, as well as a two-person cruise to the West Indies. Art Fleming observed on the October 18, 1968, episode that the Jeopardy! staff had difficulty informing Gibson about his invitation, for Gibson had decamped with his family to County Tipperary, Ireland. In 1986, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Gibson had recently won $100,000 and an automobile in a TV quiz program.
Beliefs
Gibson was an outspoken critic of the doctrine, leadership, and practice that arose after the death of Pope Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council. He disseminated his views in a quarterly newsletter called The War is Now! and self-published three collections of these periodicals: Is the Pope Catholic?, The Enemy is Here!, and The Enemy is Still Here!
Gibson was especially critical of Pope John Paul II, whom he once described as "Garrulous Karolus the Koran-Kisser". His allegation that the Pope kissed the Quran is corroborated by a FIDES News Service report of June 1, 1999, which quotes the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, Raphael I Bidawid, as having confirmed to the news service that he was personally present when John Paul II kissed the text, which is sacred to Muslims: