Surprisingly, it was a Catholic museum! The mind reels:

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 episode is being described as the equivalent of the Mohammad cartoons fiasco, and it is indeed identical in every way, except for the facts that it was the Catholic museum itself, that chose to host these obscene paintings, and the protests have been entirely peaceful and non threatening. Basically, a lot of people saying, “Hey! This ain’t right!” But other than that….yeah…just the same!

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.

Surprise??? “Huh! People don’t like to see obscene depictions of their Lord and savior? Gee! We did. not. see that coming!” ….Puhleeeese!

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.

Nobody disputes Hrdlicka’s right to explore his sick fantasies in art. Just…how about not displaying them in a CATHOLIC MUSEUM????? Did the perverted works of a communist and atheist really seem like a good fit for a Catholic museum?

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

Here’s the debate we should be having…Should the museum’s director be shit-canned over this obscene garbage, or be demoted to head janitor at the now disgraced museum? I’d vote for the latter, provided he isn’t put in charge of what goes on the bathroom walls.

“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.”

Fair enough, fair enough. So, how about that picture of Jesus and the 12 disciples crawling all over each other at The Last Supper? Idiot!

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.

There were no women in the Da Vinci painting. That explains why he has Jesus and the 12 “cavorting” all over each other? Dang! Is that what guys really do when there are no women in the room?

This whole thing is the result of crass thinking, diseased imaginations, and a total failure to discern logical outcomes. Of course people would be offended by this. There is no point to it other than to offend. Spark debate? What debate? Did Jesus and his disciples have sex at The Last Supper?

Shut. Up.

The point of the Mohammad cartoons, (and Fitna) was to spark debate. Is Islam an inherently violent religion? These artists were genuinely brave to present us with these works because their lives are now danger because of them. Point well made.

The Mohammad cartoon protests escalated into violence resulting in more than 100 deaths. Protesters set fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, stormed European buildings, and desecrated the Danish, Norwegian and German flags in Gaza City. A number of Muslim leaders issued death threats.

What are the Christian protesters going to do? Fast? Pray the rosary outside of the museum? Forgo bingo at St. Stephan’s Cathedral until the archbishop of Vienna has the entire display removed from the museum?

If artists and curators want to feel brave, cutting edge, and relevant, let’s see them produce something deemed offensive to Islam to spark a debate, and we’ll talk.

You can view some of the images at Vox Humanae. Good lord.

Here’s the museum website.

Protest Email here.

Fausta says:

That the Catholic hierarchy would allow such display of pornography at a Catholic museum shows that the moral compass of Europe has disintegrated to the point where even religious authorities, who are called to lead in matters of morality, can not distinguish between right and wrong.

Political correctness and moral equivalence have supplanted a moral compass. Because of that, the EUropeans have become their own worst enemies.

Agreed. The fact that the Austrian church acquiesced to this abomination is the most disheartening part of this story.

Hi Ace readers. Behave yourselves, now…

Hat tip: Geoff