Posted on 04/18/2002 7:49:12 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
A newspaper cartoon satire of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, captioned "Celebration of Spring at St. Pedophilia's," has readers up in arms over what they say is an unfair and bigoted attack against the Catholic religion.
The parody, drawn by famed cartoonist Pat Oliphant, shows a gang of priests chasing a crowd of preteen altar boys down the steps of a church.
In the drawing one bystander comments, "I'll go tell the Bishop." Another responds, "The Bishop has first dibs." A third onlooker remarks, "If I was the Pope, I'd marry a few of them off."
The cartoon's full caption reads, "Celebration of Spring at St. Pedophilia's - the Annual Running of the Altar Boys."
The cartoon sparked outrage in Las Vegas, Nev., where it ran in the Wednesday print edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Las Vegas talk show host Mark Edwards devoted his entire Wednesday morning program on KDWN to the controversy.
"This is the most distasteful cartoon that I have ever, ever, ever seen!" the radio talker, who is Catholic, told NewsMax.com later in the day. "I'm very upset about this."
Curiously, the Oliphant cartoon does not appear on the Review-Journal's web site - and has apparently been yanked from the cartoonist's own web site-archives, where a complete compendium of his drawings is available going back for months.
Oliphant is one of the most widely syndicated cartoonists in the country. But it's unclear how many newspapers decided not to carry his "Spring at St. Pedophilia's" out of fear of offending Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.
Edwards said he personally complained to editors at the Review-Journal, who defended their decision to run the cartoon by invoking freedom of the press.
One letter to the editor writer complained to the paper Thursday, "Your decision to run the Pat Oliphant editorial cartoon 'The Annual Running of The Altar Boys' was wrong..... I just do not need the Review-Journal to make me feel like I am a part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy."
Sheesh...
:) ttt
Oliphant catoon paints with broad brush in attack on Catholics- All Bishops are pedophiles
2. When you give you enemies an opening like this, what do you expect them to do?
Our local hysterical liberal newsrag yesterday had just as scummy attempt at defiling the Catholic Church. Too bad the hypocrite mainstream press does not adhere to their own self righteous admonishments to their readers about not blaming all of the followers of Islam for the suicide murdering of innocent Americans.
How would that further their political interests?
America has been willing to overlook the political abuse of minorities for too many decades, maybe the attempt to deface religion will awake a few.
It doesn't insult just the members of the hierarchy who did evil things. It insults all Catholics everywhere. How would you feel about a cartoon which implied that all Americans liked to adulterate with the hired help? After all, Billybob Clinton did it, so it must be okay to imply that all Americans are as depraved as he is, right?
Anti-Catholicism is the only prejudice that is alive and well and approved by the mainstream in America, on both the Left and the Right. The popular media says things about Catholics they would never say in a million years about blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, liberals, conservatives, Englishmen, Swedes, Egyptians ...
I have to agree with you there
Not only is Oliphant a bigot, he's an ignorant bigot. Those "priests" aren't wearing Roman collars. They're dressed as Protestant clergy.
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