There’s lots of outrage on the left over the Smithsonian’s decision to bow to political pressure and pull a video of Jesus Christ covered in ants from a Christmas-timed exhibit entitled “Hide/Seek: Difference
and Desire in American Portraiture”.

Predictably, the cries of government censorship followed. One commenter to an item that appeared on this blog wrote:  

Mr. Kennedy,
It’s reassuring to see that you as a Catholic uphold Catholic
tradition. The National Socialists (mostly good Catholics) banned works
of art as degenerate to the approval of Germany’s Catholics. It
reaffirms my world view that you would applaud the banning of nine of
the same works again by Herr Senator Boehner.
It’s nice to know somethings never change.
Heil Ratzinger.

Frank

p.s. The most degenerate piece of art in the exhibition was that short
film that had the theme that the suffering of Christ enabled Him to
share in the humanity of AIDS carriers and homosexual degenerates. What
can the Aryan Christ WE worship have to do with such race criminals?

Where to begin. First Frank implies some sort of linkage between the Catholic Church and Hitler. No doubt there were anti-Semitic Catholics in the Germany of that era and anti-Semitism is always shameful. But the Catholic Church as an institution (under the leadership of Pope Pius XII) opposed the Nazis and their treatment of the Jewish population.

From The New American (quoting Rabbi David G. Dalin, author of  The Myth of Hitler’s Pope):

Throughout World War II, he [Pius] spoke out on behalf of Europe’s Jews. When
Pius learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the bishops of Europe to
do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. On
January 19, 1940, at the Pope’s instruction, Vatican radio and L’Osservatore
Romano revealed to the world “the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny”
that the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles. 

… In
June 1942, Pius spoke out against the mass deportation of Jews from
Nazi-occupied France, further instructing his Papal Nuncio in Paris to protest
to Marshal Henri Petain, Vichy France’s Chief of State, against “the inhuman
arrests and deportations of Jews from the French occupied zone to Silesia and
parts of Russia.” 

The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly
praises him for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish
victims of Nazi terror. “A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed
since his accession,” noted the Times, “leaves no room for doubt.  He condemns
the worship of force and its concrete manifestations in the suppression of
national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race.” 

Pius
XII’s Christmas addresses of 1941 and 1942, broadcast over Vatican radio to
millions throughout the world, also help to refute the fallacious claim that
Pope Pius was “silent.” Indeed, as The New York Times described Pius’ 1941
Christmas address in its editorial the following day, it specifically applauded
the Pope, as a “lonely” voice of public protest against Hitler…. The Pope’s
Christmas message of 1941, as reported by The New York Times and other
newspapers, was understood at the time to be a clear condemnation of Nazi
attacks on Europe’s Jews.

So, it would be nice if these subjects could be debated on the issues at hand and not by carting out unfair insinuations about the Church and Catholics as a whole.

And, the issue, as Frank sees it, apparently concerns government banning of art. Well, I’m with him on that point. I don’t want to see the government banning art (or any form of free speech) either — including art that offends Christians.  I just don’t agree that that is what is being done here.

While the exhibit itself has private sponsorship, it is being held in a tax-payer funded institution. What the Smithsonian decides to host and not host is a matter of taste and judgment, not censorship.  If the institution hosted a reverential exhibit entitled “Christmas: Christ is the Lord” I’m guessing that many of the same people who are now fretting over censorship would be urging that the plug be pulled on that one.

Also, if government institutions are not allowed to exercise such judgment, would the Smithsonian be required to host a racist or anti-gay exhibit simply because it obtained outside sponsorship?

Finally, Frank asserts that the “art” (which, of course, is in the eye of the beholder) depicts how “the suffering of Christ enabled Him to
share in the humanity of AIDS carriers.”

Well, I don’t know the actual motivation of the artist but I can’t help but think there are other ways of depicting Christ’s compassion for AIDS sufferers — ways that would actually draw Christians toward greater understanding and empathy for the disease’s victims. Could the artist really have been surprised that many Christians would find this portrayal offensive? And, if offense was the point, I have to ask what purpose that serves. 

I would certainly hope that, if the artist sought to depict Mohammed’s compassion toward AIDS victims, he would find a means of doing so that would be more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims.

Offense for offense sake does not tend to lead to understanding.