"Passion" nun to be beatified.

The movie that's causing a big buzz in Hollywood, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, is based on biblical texts as well as the writings of German Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, a woman who Catholic News Service reports is on her way to sainthood. Emmerich was a 19th-century nun and stigmatic who wrote of her mystic visions in the book The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a book that "add[s] detailed episodes to the gospel account of Christ's suffering and death."

Some scholars say that the contents of the book are anti-Semitic, and some Vatican experts dispute whether Emmerich actually wrote the book. Pope John Paul II is said to have taken an interest in Emmerich's life and cause for sainthood.