This image has been pulled from Bennetton’s latest ad campaign after protests from the Vatican. It’s considered to be “disrespectful” of Herr Ratzinger.
In two hundred years or even less, people happening upon this event as presently recorded might wonder how this could conceivably be so. Isn’t Christianity supposed to be all about teh love?
Indeed, the new series of ads, according to a Bennetton spokesperson, portrays
“symbolic images of reconciliation — with a touch of ironic hope and constructive provocation — to stimulate reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, when they are divergent and mutually opposed, must still to dialogue and mediation.”
Others in the series depict Hugo Chavez kissing Barack Obama and French premier Nicolas Sarkozy embracing Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.
What a commentary on the Roman Catholic Church today: that the portrayal of a kiss between two men could be considered “disrespectful.” Such a claim is itself profoundly disrespectful—but hardly surprising coming from an institution whose patent disrespect for women, gays and lesbians is a defining characteristic.
Unhate. High time, I think, for the concept to be put into practice. And the Vatican would be a good place to start.