http://www.thejournal.ie/a-holy-mess-bishop-and-td-weigh-on-on-controversial-ucc-exhibit-161807-Jun2011/
A holy mess: Bishop and TD weigh on on controversial UCC exhibit
23/06/11 2,122 Views 58 Comments Share38 Tweet19
Alma Lopez's Our Lady print
Image: AlmaLopez.net
CATHOLICS IN THE US are being urged to participate in an ‘E-protest’ over a controversial exhibition which opens at University College Cork today.
The Bishop of Cork and Ross and a Fine Gael South Central TD have already criticised the exhibit – entitled Our Lady and other Queer Santas – which showcases the work of Mexican artist Alma Lopez.
It features an image of the Virgin Mary dressed in a floral bikini with her hands on her hips. She’s held aloft by a bare-breasted angel.
Bishop John Buckley has said that it is “regrettable and unacceptable that the exhibition seeks to portray the mother of God in such an offensive way” reports the Examiner. Bishop Buckley said that:
Respect for Mary, the mother of God, is bred into the bones of Irish people and entwined in their lives.
Lopez’s work is going on display as part of an event being run by the Mexican Studies Centre at UCC’s Department of Spanish Studies. The centre has organised a conference on Chicano culture, which refers to US citizens of Mexican descent. Lopez will also speak at the conference and launch her book Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez’s Irreverent Apparition. She’ll screen a documentary called I Love Lupe, which details how Chicana artists have integrated the Virgin Mary into their own art.
There has been a significant amount of online criticism of the exhibition. The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property is accusing UCC of hosting “non-stop blasphemy” by allowing the “self-avowed lesbian” Lopez to display her art. The America Needs Fatima site urges people to tell UCC how shocked they are by signing a petition.
Cork Student News reports that Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer has criticised UCC over the exhibit for allowing “any one set of beliefs to be ridiculed”. He says that promoting religious tolerance is crucial and that the university must afford others the opportunity to “present an alternative and balanced point of view”.
On its Facebook page the UCC Atheist Society comments that it’s “interesting to see a government minister comment on the supposed controversy. One would think that he would have better things to be doing when you consider the current economic situation in the country”.
Ireland introduced blasphemy legislation in 2009, which defines blasphemy as “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matter sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherent of that religion, with some defences permitted”.
What do you think? Is UCC right to allow this exhibition to take place?
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Emer McLysaght
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Comments (58 Comments)Leave a comment
paul cotter
8 days ago #
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16 22
mary is the mother of jesus not god
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Richard O'Callaghan
8 days ago #
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12 5
How many angles on the head of a pin?
Mick Dolan
8 days ago #
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11 5
Christians are required to believe in the divinity of Jesus.
Dave Minogue
8 days ago #
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5 13
What about the holy trinity and the shamrock etc? Didn’t she give birth to a shamrock?
Louise Bermingham
8 days ago #
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7 54
lots of art is controversial or not to your own tastes, if you don’t like the idea if the exhibition don’t go see it, but don’t smoother others artistic expression, its possible in this case the artist is just as devout a catholic as all those denouncing her and she sees it as a celebration of mary in her own way
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Paul McMahon
8 days ago #
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11 58
That Bishop Buckley quote is straight from the dark ages.
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Seán O' Cheafarcaigh
8 days ago #
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9 32
The Last Supper was controversial when it was first unveiled. Most religious art is. IN 100 years this painting will probably be viewed as a masterpiece
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David McDermott
8 days ago #
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15 50
Haha hilarious. Maybe Mary liked to wear a bikini in the summer. Lol. Religious idiots in a tizzy over nothing. It’s a picture. It won’t hurt your make believe fantasy land!!
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Paul Ryan
8 days ago #
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13 39
Someone should tell John Buckley to chill and that there’s no such thing as god, santa claus, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy…
Reply
Seán O' Cheafarcaigh
8 days ago #
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4 20
No Easter Bunny? Where does my chocolate eggs with price tags come from?
Brian Ward
8 days ago #
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5 36
It’s funny but if the Bishop and Buttimer had said nothing there would be no controversy. I would never have known about this exhibition only for the fact that all these other people are giving out about it.
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Gort Alainn
8 days ago #
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27 36
The interesting fact is that if a work of art were ridiculing Muslim religious icons, there would be public outcry and protests, but since we now live in a world where religious tolerance equates to complete intolerance, anything anti-Christian is deemed good, worthy and secular. Tolerance is about respect, not sectarian mockery, whether you ascribe to one faith or none. (The red thumbs to this post will prove my point that while we like to think we are tolerant, we are in fact complete bigots at heart.)
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John McGuirk
8 days ago #
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17 12
Precisely. If this was a painting of a sexualised Muhammad, and lunatic Muslims were threatening to blow up UCC, the poll results at the top of this page would be exactly reversed.
Dave Minogue
8 days ago #
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7 15
I think the Muslim faith is just as bull shitty as the Christian faith. God wrote it on a wall over night? You go to heaven and get rewarded for being good on earth with all the virgins your karma can afford? It does sound like fun though. The best religion is Hinduism because they’re clearly making it up as they go along.
Gort Alainn
8 days ago #
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8 10
Dave, I’m not advocating any religion. All I’m saying is that people are entitled to religious freedom, and society has a responsibility to respect that. Would we prefer to be like the French?
Dave Minogue
8 days ago #
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12 29
Yeah actually I would. All religious faith is stupid. Seeing people flock to a church to bend over for some asexual virgin preach about life each sunday is idiotic. Watching women walk around dressed like shit ninja’s is also stupid. Eating substantiated bread believed to be the ‘spirit’ of a dead communist is just taking the piss out of you or whoever else believes in this tripe. Religion is fucking stupid, regardless of where it comes from. Religion is for the desperate and the weak and we should be helping them as opposed to letting them continue to look like fucking idiots every sunday.
Take that bishop for example, he’s all worked up over this picture. We should get him professional help. He’s clearly projecting some repressed emotions, probably to do with his mother, onto an inanimate object. In fact he’s dedicated his whole life to this shit and we’re just going to sit back and say ‘oh this irrational behavior is ok because it has been institutionalised and woven itself into our culture’.
And what if it doesnt stop with him shouting at pictures? What if he was cutting his wrists too? Or locking up young women for having babies out of wedlock? We’d say ‘hold on a second, this guy has psychological issues and a danger to himself or society’ and we’d probably call in a psychiatric specialist, have him assessed and hopefully we could get him rehabilitated. But no. Because this guy has been brainwashed into thinking that zombies exist and spent years on his knees in a seminary and learned to climb the ranks of this clinically deluded international criminal organisation we have to say ‘let the man speak’.
I gotta do some work and stop all this procrastinating.
Andrew Brennan
8 days ago #
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1 6
Nonsense – you obviously get your news from the Diocesan news sheet. ‘Tolerance’ is a strange word – you should be wary of using it – did cardinal Sean Brady show ‘TOLERANCE’ for the crimes of his clergy colleague Reverend Father Brendan Smyth when he forced two children, who had been raped by Reverend Father Brendan Smyth, to take oaths of secrecy? After all Brady didn’t offer any help to the children and Reverend Father Brendan Smyth continued his rapacious regime for another 18 years after these oaths were administered. Remember Dundalk Garda Station was only yards from where Brady administered these oaths and brady didn’t see fit to report these crimes. Raping a child is anti-Christian. Brady’s church and Bishop Buckley’s church showed TOLERANCE for clergy who had raped children. I bet you’d be just as upset if this collage depicted clergy raping children.
Jaclyn Ellis
7 days ago #
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1 2
If you can’t see the difference between an artist with a fair bit of privilege commenting on the religion of people who in this society have less privilege, in a way which raises echos of western imperialism and colonial stereotypes of the ‘east’, and an artist experiencing multiple intersections of oppression commenting on tensions between her own religious experience and her queer identity you are an idiot. Check your own privileged before you complain about being a victim.
Ciarán O' Driscoll
8 days ago #
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0 53
Down with this sort of thing…
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Tom Gallagher
8 days ago #
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0 45
Careful now
Cags David Cagney
8 days ago #
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6 34
What’s wrong with ridiculing the ridiculous?
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Soylent Green
8 days ago #
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9 44
“…a self-avowed lesbian” and this is supposed to mean what exactly? As if being a lesbian in and of itself is a crime.
The doctrine of ‘Mary, mother of god’ is relatively new (totally fabricated). Saying its in the bones of all Irish people is incredibly offensive to me.
I’ll go see this now just because the bigots are upset.
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DoctorProfessorHarry
8 days ago #
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7 24
This is art created to represent the artist’s beliefs and philosophies and, in that respect, no different from a religious hymn or the stained glass of a cathedral. Just because a certain sector may not like this art doesn’t mean that others should be denied it.
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Cathal Henry
8 days ago #
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3 19
Hasn’t he seen Father Ted condemning it will just make it more popular.
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francesca walsh
8 days ago #
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6 14
How do they know it’s the Virgin Mary?
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Mick Dolan
8 days ago #
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6 12
Precisely. The photograph is just that of some woman in a bikini. Saying that she represents the mother of God is like saying a picture of a rothweiler represents the mother of a Yorkshire terrier.
Fergus Cafferty
8 days ago #
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7 22
Buckley, the Church hierarchy is littered with rats who covered up pervert priests by moving them around. Rooting these scumbags out (assuming you’re not tainted)should be enough to keep you both occupied and enraged, but obviously a picture of a milf upsets you more. Why? How about we purge the lot of ye, and start again with normal married men and women priests, and a new look Mary for the recruitment posters?
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Gunnar Dangle
8 days ago #
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5 9
Wow! Looks like the HOT! Nun in Nacho LIbre !
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Joseph
8 days ago #
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2 6
As somebody else pointed out, Jesus did not declare himself God. It was the Church “fathers” who put him in that
dubious role. Secondly, that is clearly misogynist, the old Gnostic damnation of the body included.
And there is a older bestseller from the 90′s, a decent and thourough critique, giving a good insight into
how that sexual moral came into existence a long time ago. That moral is, when closer looked at, pretty Godless.
http://socratesbooks.blogspot.com/2008/11/decent-critic-of-church-religion-and.html
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Mad Gerald
8 days ago #
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3 16
I have just run off a tasteful little number showing Muhammad in his Y-front underkaks greeting Bin Laden on his arrival but I can’t fit in all the virgins so I need a bigger canvas.Who do I call at UCC for assistance
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Gort Alainn
8 days ago #
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14 11
Is this any different from displaying the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons? Would they be acceptable for UCC to display? Would people think that is appropriate in the context of tolerance of people’s entitlement to hold that such images are sacred? Is that what a tolerant society does, or is it merely the actions of bullies who wish to trod on people’s beliefs? Whether we believe in Christianity, Islam or any other faith, we must respect people’s entitlement to hold these faiths, and treat their customs accordingly. We no longer think it’s appropriate to climb ‘Ayers Rock’: we now call it Uluru out of respect for the native Aboriginal people; not because we share their beliefs. Sadly (for humanity), it seems quite fashionable to bash Christianity of late, generally by people who think they are more enlightened and thus entitled to do so. I’m sure I don’t need to refer to historical examples where this kind of ‘enlightenment’ led to gargantuan errors of judgement. Tolerance is about society’s acceptance co-existance of all people’s faiths, beliefs, idiosyncrasies – not intolerance and ridicule for any.
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Tricia G
8 days ago #
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1 17
Tolerance does not mean tolerating those ideas, opinions, art etc that doesn’t offend you. It’s tolerating the ones that DO.
So yes, I would absolutely support an exhibition of Muhammod pictures. I condemn those that use violence, threats and “stop insulting my irrational beliefs” in an attempt to censor other peoples expressions.
officialpodge
8 days ago #
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1 13
A religion is an ideology and shouldn’t be exempt from the same criticisms that any other ideologies receive. So I take it you want to see this art exhibition banned. Would you be in favour of banning an exhibition that criticised or ridiculed Karl Marx because it might offend the sensibilities of communists?
People showed plenty of respect to religion in this country back in the ‘good ol’ days’ and there was plenty of ‘blasphemous’ works of art banned. If the ways of modern democracy aren’t to your liking, perhaps you could find a nice theocracy somewhere for yourself.
Pat Campbell
8 days ago #
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16 9
I’m beginning to think this site is for twisted minded headbangers and if you don’t mind but I’m out.
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Shane McKenna
8 days ago #
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10 11
“Respect for Mary, the mother of God”, is, fairly patently, a daft start to any sentence.
People should always be ridiculed for their belief in gobbledygook – that’s how it’ll be evolved out of us.
Meanwhile, promoting religious tolerance should only extend to not having your stupid head smashed in for it.
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Alan Hayes
8 days ago #
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5 17
The bishop Finds this presentation of Mary to be offensive. Does he think Mary didn’t have flesh? Or is it the choice of floral design bikini that offends him? What if it was an all in one, would it be ok then Bishop?
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Pat Timlin
8 days ago #
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3 13
Don’t see what the fuss is about. Blasphemy is a victimless crime
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Mad Gerald
8 days ago #
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5 7
Repeatedly in the journal comments we see Christian and Jewish values mocked and jeered at and some of the comments go to great lengths to smear those who hold such values and yet there are no signs that these values have been replaced by anything better.Even in the comments regarding Lowry’s folly in the bog there are smart-arsed comments and yet the alternative seems to be plain and simple yobbery. Can any of the obviously highly intellectual boys and girls who make these comments show how society has been improved in recent years by this new order?
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Tricia G
8 days ago #
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3 17
My life is immeasurably improved by the weakening of the Catholic Church in Ireland. As is my gay cousin’s. The morals that generally go with Secular Humanism are far better then the sexist, bigoted nonsense that is put forward by monotheistic religions like Christianity, Judism and Islam. I’m guessing you’re a straight white male who doesn’t have a notion about “privilege”.
Mad Gerald
8 days ago #
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6 6
I did not mention the Catholic Church and you have not answered my question.I did say “the alternative seems to be plain and simple yobbery. Can any of the obviously highly intellectual boys and girls who make these comments show how society has been improved in recent years by this new order?” I am happy that you your life has improved immeasurably and your guessing has nothing to do with the question posed, if I was a black one-eyed,one-legged lesbian the question is still valid.I thank you.
Helen Powers
8 days ago #
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3 4
Methinks Mr Minogue is getting quite worked up about his own opinion! Cheers,
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Tricia G
8 days ago #
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0 11
Let me put it this way. I would MUCH RATHER live in this decade then any orchid previous ones. Because, yes, even with the problems our society has, it’s still a far far better time to live then even 20 years ago. And it’s not religious values that will improve it further, it’s reason, education and cooperation.
Eithne O'Connor
8 days ago #
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2 6
I do not see the picture as offensive in itself. It is of a fairly attractive woman modestly covered in flowers.. that is how women look in reality, it is not overty sexual,so what is the problem? It is not how Our Lady is traditionally portrayed, but that does not make it ‘offensive’ .On the other hand if was hanging in my local Church, instead of being part of an art exhibition, I would have a problem.
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B Collins
8 days ago #
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2 11
I find some of the comments above regarding religion unnecessarily offensive.
History has proven that, in the wrong hands, organised religion is a corruptible force used to control large numbers of people. Agreed.
Ireland has been burned particularly badly by the Catholic Church. Its actions in selfishly covering up child sex abuse and creating an environment that allowed it to fester for decades was utterly deplorable. Agreed.
However, there are a lot of intelligent and compassionate people in the world who are religious or spiritual.
It is unfair (and, frankly, very insulting) to brand people as being somehow regressive, intellectually deficient, or unevolved simply because their personal beliefs are not strictly scientific.
I find the comments of Messrs McKenna and Minogue, whose *highly* sophisticated vocabulary describes religion and its practitioners as “stupid”, “fucking stupid”, “idiotic”, “daft”, “gobbelydegook”, “weak”, and “desperate”, to be almost amusingly hypocritical. You could even call it aetheistically sanctimonious.
It is as narrow-minded, austere, and unenlightened a stance as that of the Catholic Church when Galileo suggested that the Earth orbits the Sun (he was imprisoned and called a heretic).
People are entitled to believe or not believe in whatever they want, but this is civilized forum (or was, last time I checked) and I don’t think it’s too much to ask to show some respect.
As regards the exhibition:
Art is art. It is a form of social commentary. The Church doesn’t like it? What’s new. There’s a lot they don’t like. It is not deliberately crass and in any case it’s in no position to preach about what is offensive and immoral.
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Brian Mahon
8 days ago #
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3 9
This is ridiculous. The Bishop’s comments are incredibly backwards. He doesn’t speak for me or many others in this country when he tries to incorporate Irish people into his argument. The same goes for the TD. I’d love to see them try and invoke the blasphemy laws. Show how outdated and insane they are.
I don’t give two hoots about what religion this painting is supposedly offending. I also increasingly feel that Christians use the ‘well if it was the Muslims’ argument all to easily. If it was something depicting Mohammed and there was a speech to be given then I would want to listen to what is being said before making any judgement instead of jumping the gun as is being done here. The debate is about Chicano culture for crying out loud.
All religions/political views/ philosophies should be put under the same microscope. Bar none. Not even the ‘Muslims’, a massive generalistaion by the way, as if all Muslims ascribe to the exact same ideas. And I feel that, regardless of this particular controversy, Irish people of course are going to criticise the Catholic Church more. Why you ask? Oh I don’t know, years of abuse of children, repressing peoples sexuality, banning books and films. Get real if you think Irish people are going to equally criticise other religions failings. We were, and continue to be, more affected by the actions of the Catholic Church than any other religion. The most salient example at the moment is the patronage of schools.
Let this woman have her say at the conference and get over yourselves.
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Jeff
8 days ago #
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4 4
She is a hottie, I can see why god had to get him some of that.
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Liz O'Donoghue
8 days ago #
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2 3
Eh Back to the painting …. It’s awful
Andrew Brennan
8 days ago #
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1 7
The artist has been harassed wherever she has exhibited ‘Our Lady and Other Queer Santas’ and this harassment has been led by bishops and archbishops and … what’s the phrase … oh yeah … ‘high value Catholics’! Coincidentally these bishops and archbishops are the same cohort of ‘religious’ people who facilitated child abuse by clergy and who were complicit in covering up the abuse. Where was the public condemnatory statements from bishops and priests when their clergy were found to be abusing children. Indeed when did any of them report incidences of child abuse to the civil authorities. When cardinal Sean Brady was a 36 year old priest he forced Oaths of Secrecy on at least two children who had been raped by his clergy colleague Reverend Father Brendan Smyth .. Brady did not call doctors or nurses for these two children and the place where he forced these children to take the Oaths of Secrecy was only yards from Dundalk Garda station. I hope people go to this exhibition, if only to show this cohort or ‘religious’ people that they can no longer speak with any authority on morality or blasphemy …. or indeed Art!
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Simon Prunty
8 days ago #
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1 6
Absolutely! Couldn’t agree more. They have no moral authority whatsoever.
Ciarán Ferrie
8 days ago #
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0 2
It’s worth reading the artists’s perspective on the reaction to her work:
http://www.almalopez.net/OR/artstate.html
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Gerard Murphy
8 days ago #
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6 4
Buttimer: Stick to what you are paid to do – running the country.
Bishop: Go back and spout your nonsense to your flock of deluded sheep, the rest of us are free to do what we want.
B. Collins and her ilk: You are offended? Boo hoo. You’ll get your rewards from your creator when you’re sitting on a cloud plucking on a harp. The rest of us live in the real world.
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C Murray
8 days ago #
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1 2
Since Dermot Ahern of the Fianna Fáil party in concert with John Gormley’s Greens
criminalised blasphemy as part of the 2006-2009 Defamation law (enacted by Mary Mac Aleese
July 23rd 2009) does this mean that a religious and a political leader have accused an artist
of a criminal offence for which there is a fine of 25,000 euros and the right of Gardaí to access
her premises?
1. This is an appalling and imo xenophobic attack on another culture.
2. This demonstrates to me how lightly some politicians wear their colours,
when FG/Lab should be campaigning to remove this criminalisation.
3.This demonstrates to me that Ahern knew what he was about by exploiting
Ireland’s refusal to engage with issues of blasphemy and criminality that have
mocked our pretence as a cultural country which welcomes visual and poetic
arts.
http://www.irishpen.com/wordpress/2011/04/27/pen-international-endorses-irish-pen-centres-campaign-against-irelands-blasphemy-laws/
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Abban Dunne
8 days ago #
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0 1
Down with this sort of thing!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cnd_jdPeWSU/S_rvAH_VxEI/AAAAAAAAAAM/P4LgqQo5a3k/S1600-R/down-with-this-sort-of-thing1.jpg
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Christine Murray
7 days ago #
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0 1
there is something really two-faced about how we have conducted ourselves on the international
stage and in the Dáil. I think there is a lack of will to confront issues that may agigtate controversies:
http://www.irishpen.com/wordpress/2011/03/18/urgent-need-for-irish-constitutional-referendum-on-blasphemy/
I wrote about how Fianna Fáil historically accused Georges Rouault of ‘blasphemy and incompetence’
because his art (which was deeply catholic) did not appeal to the state (de V era) , this just indicates
how the state should butt out and if they wish criminalise arts, then by all means follow through
with such accusations or stop beating people with tired old sticks to rathcett up local aggressions.
Please
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Robert Northall
7 days ago #
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1 3
Exodus 20:4-6 You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my Commandments.
(There is idolatry in the Papal system so the second Commandment has been deleted or sometimes it has been absorbed into the first. All remaining Commandments are therefore shifted along one count.)
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Christine Murray
7 days ago #
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1 3
In Ireland an accusation of blasphemy carries the weight of a criminalisation. I believe that those who seek to
lead people should be aware of the laws that they passed and enacted in January 2010, before they use
lax and incompetent language against a work of another’s creation.
I wonder how far and how deeply conscious we are about how such laws are used to coerce
expression of any artist ? Evidently our current politicians and church leaders need to read up on
what was voted for and its historical root-base in censorship.
(historically the charge of blasphemy was paired with that of incompetence, which I’d say
is an issue of taste and not a theological issue, afterall Ahern conveniently sited blasphemy
in ‘Outrage’ as opposed to definition)
Andrew Brennan
7 days ago #
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1 5
In response to Cork bishop John Buckley’s description of Alma Lopez’s digital image of Our Lady of Guadalupe wearing a floral bikini and with her hands on her as ‘offensive’ & ‘unacceptable’ I decided, as a show of support for Alma Lopez and UCC, to create my own little digital image.
TITLED: Our Buckley of Cork & Ross. http://fav.me/d3jtqaf
Numéaliné Simpetar
3 days ago #
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2 0
I cannot read Alma Lopez’s mind or heart – but her words in the reported interviews (e.g. Examiner, 23 June) do not add up.
She is surprised at the adverse reaction to her mockery of Our Lady from Catholics in Cork? Hmmm, what could possibly be offensive about a bare-breasted angel at The Woman’s feet?
If an Englishman objected to a depiction of a crowned woman on the English throne, wearing only a bikini of English roses, and with a bare-bosomed chambermaid, what other motive could he possibly have than that he finds a woman’s body offensive? I suppose you have a point there, Alma.
Are we not a little tired of these insults in the name of Art? Might I respectfully suggest that she will never show an “inoffensive” similar picture of Fatima, Mohammed’s favourite daughter?
Ms Lopez has been banned from several venues in the USA. Shame on the UCC for allowing her to hijack the seminar on the beautiful Mestizo culture.
The Aztec priest class executed annually at least 50,000 inhabitants of the land: men, women and children, in human sacrifices to their gods. In 1487, in a single 4-day-long ceremony for the dedication of a new temple in Tenochtitlan, some 80,000 captives were killed in human sacrifice. These practices were widespread for centuries in that part of the world. [Ref: c.f. http://www.sancta.org/nameguad.html etc]
Our Lady came from Heaven to clean the place up. After the apparitions, there was a huge explosion of joy. Whole tribes presented themselves for Baptism, to place themselves under the true God and the Queen of Heaven: Coatlaxopeuh– “She who crushes the Serpent”. I hope that Ms Lopez will think a little harder on these things.
Mise le meas
Le gach dea-ghuí
Micheál
https://sites.google.com/site/catholictopics/theological-issues/blasphemy