Fr. Z's Blog

No, this is not about the Occupy Wall Street idiots, with their roasted beat with goat-cheese and spinach salads.

A friend sent me a note about this fun story from Breitbart.

You know that something has gone dreadfully wrong when young people are defending the image of Our Lord from desecration and their bishops seem to prefer to stand back and defend free speech.

French far-right Christians besiege Jesus excrement play [Well… there it is!]

Paris police have arrested around 20 Christian fundamentalists [Oh, really?  Hugonots?  Nah… read on.] who burst into a theatre and threw stink bombs to protest against a play featuring the face of Christ drizzled with fake excrement.

Police made the arrests at the Theatre de la Ville, on the banks of the Seine near Notre Dame cathedral, during a performance of “On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God”, directed by Italian [figures] Romeo Castellucci. [Coward.  He didn’t write a play about the desecration of an image of Mohammed, did he.  Feeble attempt to shock the middle class, as I take it.  But the protesters, were perhaps not so middle class.  Read on.]

The play, which runs until October 30, is the story of an incontinent man being looked after by his son.

A copy of a huge portrait of Christ by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina [Wonder which.] hangs at the back of the stage and appears to be covered in excrement towards the end of the performance.

After days of trying to get in, the protesters on Wednesday “entered the theatre and threw stink bombs into the auditorium, shouting: ‘Enough Christianophobia!‘” a police source told AFP.  [Wonder what that was in French.]

France’s ministry of culture blamed the demonstration on members of the Institut Civitas, which in April protested US artist Andres Serrano’s renowned “Immersion Piss Christ” photograph in the southern papal city of Avignon. [Good for them.]

Civitas head Alain Escada said: “Our mission is to spread the word about this performance and to organise a response.”

[Here’s the money quote….  and it just gets better every time you read it!] A spectator described the protesters as “very young people who are very angry but very well dressed.” Faced with a police cordon, they throw eggs and oil at the theatre and those going in, chanting in Latin or praying on their knees.  [They were, therefore, not French bishops.]

The association of French Roman Catholic bishops on Tuesday condemned “the violence perpetrated during recent performances… France’s Roman Catholic Church is neither fundamentalist nor obscurantist (opposed to enlightenment).”  [Who else but French bishops would use the word “obscurantists” to distance themselves from defending images of the Lord even as they are being desecrated.]

Dramatic luminaries including Juliette Binoche and Michel Piccoli have joined a committee to support the theatre, while Civitas has called for a mass demonstration “in Christ’s honour”.  [I will never like Juliette Binoche movies again!]

“It’s insulting at the end of a scatological play to sully the portrait of Christ by making people believe that it’s faecal matter that has dirtied it, wounding so many believers,” the Insitut Civitas said on its website.

You decide.

Let’s first look at it this way:

Now let’s see it this way:

Chose your best answer and give your reasons in the combox, below.

DO NOT engage each other in the combox.  Let everyone have their say.
Do not respond to them or engage them.