Well, here's an interesting twist to the whole "we should be able to display any religious symbols we want" argument that has been plaguing us for years.
Despite fighting every year around Christmas time for the right to display religious-specific decorations and signs, Catholics began protesting the display of a chocolate Jesus set to be held at an art gallery this Friday (Good Friday).
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Chocolate Jesus Display Shut Down After Catholic Outcry
By Melanie Hunter
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
March 30, 2007
(http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070330d.html)
(CNSNews.com) - A Manhattan art gallery cancelled plans Friday to exhibit a life-sized naked Jesus made out of chocolate during the Easter season after news of the exhibit ignited anger among the Catholic community.
The "My Sweet Lord" display was created by artist Cosimo Cavallaro and made out of more than 200 pounds of chocolate. It shows Christ stretched out as if on the cross.
"The media have reported that a so-called 'work of art,' manifestly intended to offend the Christians of our community, will be displayed during Holy Week in the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan," Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, said in a statement.
"It is a scandalous carving of Jesus Christ allegedly made out of chocolate. What the Roger Smith Hotel would hope to achieve by this sickening display, no one seems to know. The Catholic community is alerted to this offense of our faith and sensitivities. This is something we will not forget," Egan added.
As a result of the outcry, the hotel shut down the show, which led the Lab Gallery's creative director, Matt Semler, to submit his resignation. He said critics of the display haven't even seen the show and "jumped to conclusions completely contrary to our intentions."
Semler said the display was "intended as a meditation on the Holy Week."
"The cowards at the Roger Smith Hotel, who were brazen enough to tease their trash to selected media sources over the past few days, have shut down and are refusing to talk to the press," said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, in a statement on the group's website.
"But the artist has decided to go his own way. He is now inviting everyone to eat his chocolate Jesus," Donohue added.
"The Roger Smith Hotel is morally bankrupt. It is the goal of the Catholic League to make it financially bankrupt as well," Donohue said, announcing a direct mail campaign calling for a boycott of the hotel.
"These organizations represent millions of Americans across religious lines, as well as those who belong to non-sectarian groups. All of them can be counted on to never hold a conference at the hotel. And more -- they will let all of their allies know about this incident," he said.
"The Roger Smith Hotel will rue the day it sought to declare war on Christian sensibilities," Donohue added.
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I'm unclear, and perhaps if you're Catholic, you can enlighten me. How was this offensive? And what made everyone so sure that it was the intent of the Roger Smith Hotel to purposefully offend the Catholic Community by displaying this chocolate statue?
Personally, I would have thought that the invitation to eat the statue of Jesus would be more offensive. But, I guess people have to get their underwear into a knot for one reason or another.
..because they probably view the whole thing as a form of mockery to their religion and God, but I think they are going overboard with the whole protest of the hotel. The hotel should just issue a written apology and the organizations should move on with their lives. Yes, it was wrong in one sense, but art can be anything, and who are we to say the artist's intentions were wrong? We might not like the Mona Lisa because it shows a woman instead of a man (or, like many speculate, a man dressed as a woman), but you don't see feminist groups protesting the Louvre. They should just get over the whole thing, instead of ruining the careers of innocent people employed at the hotel.
11) Thou shalt be a big old hypocrite.
percivale
That got a giggle.
Conformity is the jailor of freedom and the enemy of growth!~JFK
Your title so matched your blog. To the article. That is just stupid...people just want to start arguements.
Conformity is the jailor of freedom and the enemy of growth!~JFK
If anything carving a chocolate Jesus seems pro-Christian to me. It illustrates the destruction of the Christian meaning of Easter in favor of marketable sweets and fluffy bunnies. By juxstaposing those two concepts of Easter the artists seems to be taking a stance that many Catholics have taken.
He could be poking fun, of course, but I think he is still poking fun at both sides. I guess it pretty much boils down to people not liking when someone who isn't in their group talks about their group, no matter what they say.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.