Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Benedict XVI lands in Washington with GAY secretary

Here are the GAY protests happening during Benedict XVI's American visit - but of course all he is doing is laughing at all of us
as we lose our voice screaming out our vain protests
and his pompous stately welcome muffles our sights and sounds.

There must be a better God than the one he represents because
he is the one having fun with his GAY private secretary
while he labels us as "morally intrinsic evil homosexuals".

And his GAY Zeffirelli movie production of his visit is in full array......

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Papal Visit Provokes Array of Protests

By DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 13, 2008; 12:46 PM

NEW YORK -- Pope Benedict XVI may not see them or hear them, but aggrieved Roman Catholic activists hope his U.S. visit this week will help them draw attention to issues ranging from the ordination of women and gay rights to sex abuse by priests and the Vatican ban on contraception.

The groups have planned vigils, demonstrations and news conferences to press their causes as the pope visits Washington and New York. On Monday evening, the eve of his arrival, supporters of women's ordination will host what they are calling "an inclusive Mass" at a Methodist church in Washington, presided over by Catholic women _ including two who were recently excommunicated.

"We cannot welcome this pope until he begins to do away with the church's continuing violence of sexism," said Sister Donna Quinn, coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns.

Participants in the service will include Rose Marie Hudson and Elsie McGrath, who were excommunicated last month by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis because they were ordained as part of a women-priest movement condemned by the Vatican.

"In the face of one closed door after another, Catholic women have been innovative, courageous and faithful to the church," said Aisha Taylor, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference. "They continue to make a way where is none."

Gay Catholic activists, who plan to demonstrate Tuesday along the papal motorcade route in Washington, have compiled a list of statements by Benedict during his career which they consider hostile to gays and lesbians. These include forceful denunciations of gay marriage and of adoption rights for same-sex couples.

"He has issued some of the most hurtful and extreme rhetoric against our community of any religious leader in history, and we want to call him into account for the damage that he's done," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA.

Duddy-Burke said she hopes the protests will be coupled with celebration of the gains made by gay Catholics in America in recent years. She cited the growing number of parishes welcoming openly gay members and the dozens of Catholic colleges that now have gay-straight alliances.

Another gay Catholic group, New Ways Ministry, hosted a news conference at which speakers conveyed what they would tell the pope if they had the opportunity. The speakers included Gregory Maguire, author of the best-selling novel "Wicked," who along with husband Andrew Newman is raising three adopted children as Catholics in Massachusetts, the only state to allow same-sex marriages.

"We invite you to spend a day, a meal, a weekend with us," Maguire said in his message to the pope. "We don't want to serve as a poster-family for gay Catholics. ... We will just be ourselves, in all our confusion, aspiration, need and joy."

Another divisive issue being raised this week is the Vatican's ban on contraception. Gay rights groups and others say the ban undermines programs promoting condom use to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In a conference call Monday organized by Catholics for Choice, four Catholic theologians will be examining the impact of the 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae," which defined the Vatican's opposition to artificial birth control.

"Catholics wonder why there's this huge disparity between what the hierarchy says we should do in regard to contraception and what Catholics on the ground actually do," said Catholics for Choice president Jon O'Brien.

He termed the ban "a great tragedy ... a policy that lacks compassion and understanding."

Asked about the prospects that Benedict might reconsider the ban, O'Brien replied, "I do believe in miracles."

Monday, April 7, 2008

GAY Jesus Last Supper Art in Austria

A painting by a famous Austrian artist depicting a homosexual orgy of the Apostles has been swifly removed from an exhibition at a museum at Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral but protest continues over other pictures said to portray a homoerotic vision of Christ's crucifixion.


Visitors read the description of Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka's bronze "Hommage a Pasolini" during the controversial exhibition "Religion, Fleisch und Macht" ("Religion, Flesh and Power") in Vienna's Cathedral Museum (Dommuseum) April 1, 2008. The museum has come under fire after displaying artworks including a homoerotic version of the Last Supper, which was later removed from the exhibition. The museum says the works are provocative but not blasphemous and that the exhibition was not supposed to be offensive. Picture taken April 1, 2008.



Erotic Jesus sparks art debate in Austria

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL0157328520080407?sp=true

Monday April 7, 2008

By Sylvia Westall

VIENNA (Reuters) - They knew it would be risky to exhibit a homoerotic version of Christ's Last Supper, but curators at museum of Vienna's Roman Catholic Cathedral weren't ready for a barrage of angry messages and calls to be shut down.

The source of the dispute, which Austrian media has dubbed Vienna's version of the Mohammad caricature row, is a retrospective honouring Austria's cherished artist Alfred Hrdlicka, who turned 80 earlier this year.

But not everyone has been wishing Hrdlicka a Happy Birthday. And the Cathedral Museum's director and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna, have both come under fire from some museum visitors and Catholic websites.

The Church hastily removed the main picture, "a homosexual orgy" of the Apostles as Hrdlicka describes it.

But the protest has continued, much to the surprise of the small Cathedral Museum which is nestled down a narrow street in Vienna's historic Gothic quarter.

The museum's director defends both Hrdlicka's work and his decision to host the artist's controversial versions of biblical imagery in a museum tied to the Catholic Church.

"We think Hrdlicka is entitled to represent people in this carnal, drastic way," Bernhard Boehler said in his small museum office, across the street from Vienna's imposing St. Stephan's Cathedral.

He said the museum never intended to offend people but that art should be allowed to provoke a debate.

"I don't see any blasphemy here," he said, gesturing at a Crucifixion picture showing a soldier simultaneously beating Jesus and holding his genitals. "People can imagine what they want to."

Boehler says that picture drew particular criticism from some visitors, along with a sculpture of Jesus on the cross without a face or loincloth that some Christians found offensive.

But the most disputed work was 'Leonardo's Last Supper, restored by Pier Paolo Pasolini' which showed cavorting Apostles sprawling over the dining table and masturbating each other.

Hrdlicka says he represented the men in this way because there are no women in the Da Vinci painting which inspired it. Pasolini was a controversial Italian filmmaker and writer who was murdered in the 1970s.

The exhibition has attracted fierce criticism on religion blogs in Austria, Germany and even in the United States, with bloggers denouncing it with terms such as "blasphemy" and "desecration."

"The exhibition should never have taken place. The Director should apologise to Catholics worldwide for this," an article on conservative Catholic website kreuz.net said.

In the United States, conservative columnist Rod Dreher wrote on his widely read religion blog "I wouldn't have guessed that, given his reputation, a man like (Cardinal) Schoenborn would have stood for this abomination for half a second."

The museum took down the Last Supper piece at Cardinal Schoenborn's request just over a week after the 'Religion, Flesh and Power' exhibition opened, leaving a blank black wall at the entrance to the display.

"This has nothing to do with censorship, rather corresponds with the understood "reverence for the sacred," the Cardinal's spokesman said in a statement.

"It is also an act of respect towards those believers who feel this portrayal offended and provoked them in their deepest religious sensitivity."

The diocese says the museum's decision to show Hrdlicka's work does not mean it identifies with everything it portrays.

Hrdlicka agrees but points out that the Last Supper piece was not intended as a swipe at the Catholic Church.

"There was such a reaction to its physicality. For me it was quite surprising the museum wanted to show the piece in the first place," he told Reuters by telephone.

"If the Cathedral Museum is having problems now, it's not really my affair, it's for the Cathedral Museum to deal with." He said overall he was pleased with the display and praised the director for being "strong".

A communist and atheist, Hrdlicka has said the Bible is the most thrilling book he has ever read and that religious imagery forms a central core to his work.

Boehler says the angry emails he has received remind him of how some reacted to Mel Gibson's 2004 film "The Passion of The Christ". In his opinion, critics of the film's violence and physicality also missed the point.

"The Crucifixion was brutal and it would be a lie to say everything in our world is nice," he said, pointing out that Hrdlicka is an anti-war activist who has seen the effects of Nazism and violence first hand.

"We in Europe have been affected by this and it influences how we see (Hrdlicka's) work."

Boehler, like Hrdlicka, says the art debate can be compared to the Danish cartoon row, where an image of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban enraged some in the Muslim world who saw it as blasphemous.

The angry reaction to Hrdlicka's work has only been verbal and the museum says some Christians have been balanced and support the exhibition, despite disagreeing with the artist's approach.

Curator Martina Judt said the exhibition was meant to prompt this kind of balanced reaction. The museum wanted to show that controversial works inspired by religious imagery can be discussed without taboo.

"People have said the Catholic Church has become a lot more liberal," she said. "But in the end, the reactions show this perhaps isn't the case."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)