Apr 7, 2008 / 16:49 pm
A display at the Cathedral Museum in Vienna, Austria that features obscene depictions of the apostles and demeaning portrayals of Christ has provoked anger and calls for the exhibit to close, Reuters reports.
The Cathedral Museum of Vienna had put on a retrospective exhibition honoring the 80-year-old artist Alfred Hrdlicka. One of the pictures contained what Hrdlicka described as a “homosexual orgy” involving the apostles at the Last Supper. Another artwork depicting the Crucifixion shows a soldier simultaneously beating Christ and holding his genitals.
Within a week, the Church removed the picture of the apostles from the museum, following the orders of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn.
“"This has nothing to do with censorship, rather [it] corresponds with the understood ‘reverence for the sacred’," the cardinal's spokesman said in a statement.
"It is also an act of respect towards those believers who feel this portrayal offended and provoked them in their deepest religious sensitivity," the spokesman continued.