The passion of the marriage is over.
Mel Gibson — so staunch a Catholic that he favors the Latin Mass — and his wife each filed for divorce yesterday after nearly three decades of marriage.
PHOTOS: Famous Hollywood Divorces
Catholics are strongly discouraged from getting divorced. A divorced Catholic would need to gain an annulment of their first marriage to get re-married in the church in the future.
“Throughout our marriage and separation, we have always strived to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so,” the couple said in a joint statement.
Robyn Gibson filed a divorce petition yesterday morning in Los Angeles Superior Court, and Mel — worth close to $1 billion — responded in kind hours later.
Gibson is such a conservative Catholic, he built his own church, which rejects modern Vatican II teachings.
Gibson’s church, which is not recognized by Rome, adheres to a 16th-century tradition that includes Mass in Latin, strict dress codes for women, and a spartan house of worship .
Both and Robyn checked off the pro-forma box “irreconcilable differences” on their divorce petitions.
The couple has seven children, but only one is a minor. Robyn has requested joint custody of the youngster, Thomas Rufus Gerard Gibson, who turns 10 today.
The couple got hitched on June 7, 1980, but their date of separation is listed as “to be determined,” according to Robyn’s divorce petition.
In his response, Mel, 53, said the couple has been quietly living apart since Aug. 26, 2006 — a month after the movie star was pulled over for DUI and infamously made a string of embarrassing anti-Semitic slurs.
Mel, who famously cried, “They’ll never take our freedom! in his Oscar-winning “Braveheart,” still lives near Robyn, 52, in Malibu.
Before yesterday, he had vehemently denied reports of a split.
He attended Easter services on Sunday without his wife. After Mass, People magazine reported, Gibson told some parishioners: “Well . . . she’s filed for divorce.”
Various news reports earlier this year linked Gibson with a gorgeous Russian singer, with whom he went last month to Costa Rica.
He was photographed on a beach there with a sizzling babe in a bikini.
But Gibson’s pals denied that his friendship with the singer played any role in the divorce.
Additional reporting by Terry Schermerhorn in Los Angeles