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| Chocolate Jesus Portrayed Nude And Crucified Subject Of Scorn By L.A. Morris Mar 30, 2007 Chocolate Jesus Sparks Outrage - Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued a call to arms yesterday for fellow catholics to boycott an upcoming Easter exhibit at the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in New York on from April 1 through 7. The exhibit announced its 6-foot chocolate Jesus piece, one of the most anticipated, earlier this week, but there was no description of the Jesus depiction as naked. Worse, the lifelike depiction shows Jesus crucified, information which also was not offered in the original art show press release which the Post Chronicle published yesterday. Metro also has a photo of an unfinished 'Jesus' Artist Cosimo Cavallaro titles his work "My Sweet Lord". The Catholic League has denounced the depiction as "hate speech" and called for a boycott of the Lab Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York during the April 1 through April 7 display. The Post Chronicle was the first media outlet to cover the exhibit and sparked Donahue into action. "Choosing Holy Week -- the display opens on Palm Sunday and ends on Holy Saturday -- makes it a direct in-your-face assault on Christians." "The boycott is on." Donohue outlined his game plan thusly: "The Roger Smith Hotel is located in the heart of New York City, and it boasts on its website that its Lab Gallery 'is a high traffic, fast paced' venue. Indeed it is: the gallery is located on street level, easily accessible to the public. But it is sure bet that in the years to come there will be little in the way of high traffic coming from the Christian community. "As I've said many times before, Lent is the season for non-believers to sow seeds of doubt about Jesus. What's scheduled to go on at the Roger Smith Hotel, however, is of a different genre: this is hate speech. Donohue also made it clear that the politically-correct New York art society would never make such images of other religious figures: "All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don't react the way extremist Muslims do when they're offended -- otherwise they may have more than their heads cut off. "James Knowles, President and CEO of the Roger Smith Hotel (interestingly, he also calls himself Artist-in-Residence), should be especially grateful. And if he tries to spin this as reverential, then he should substitute Muhammad for Jesus and display him during Ramadan. Donohue made it clear he intends to take this matter to the next level, announcing plans to coordinate a boycotte between every religious organization who find this kind of activity "an assault" on their personal beliefs: "I am contacting hundreds of organizations about this assault. Our allied list contains scores of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu organizations, as well as secular groups, that share our concerns about religious hate speech and the degradation of our culture. "The only thing that those who operate the Roger Smith Hotel understand is when they get hit in the pocket book. So that's exactly where we'll hit them. The boycott is on." But not everyone seems to share Donohue's concerns. Joan Walsh of the uber-liberal Salon.com doesn't see it as a big deal. "But somehow, it wasn't nearly as disturbing as billed. It's not gory or sadomasochistic or pornographic, as Donohue's headline suggested. Chances are Jesus was naked when he was crucified, although most Catholic iconography shows him draped with cloth," Walsh writes from her perch of historical superiority. "Cavallero's "My Sweet Lord" struck me as, well, sweet. It definitely didn't scream 'NAKED JESUS--GENITALS EXPOSED--CRUCIFIED.' But then, like so much art it's a bit of a Rorschach test, and Donohue's horror at the big Chocolate Jesus gives us much more disturbing insight into his character than into Cosimo Cavallero's." Somehow this doesn't surprise us, even though we appreciate the plug Joan. But Christianity is clearly under attack these days and turning a blind-eye doesn't mean it isn't so. |
