Chicago Catholics to Protest "Blasphemous" Cartoon -- September 25

The Illinois Leader ^ | September 20, 2002 | The Leader - Chicago Bureau

[Preston Noell]

Please join this protest in Chicago on Wednesday, September 25th, 11:30 to l:00 pm.

Chicago Catholics Protest "Blasphemous" Cartoon

Friday, September 20, 2002

By The Leader-Chicago Bureau - Chicago Reader's cartoonist Garret Gaston focus of protest

During lunch hour on September 25, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) will publicly protest a recent cartoon published in The Chicago Reader. Catholics and other faiths plan to demonstrate across the street from the paper's downtown Chicago office at shortly before noon on Wednesday to voice their outrage with Garret Gaston's cartoon, "Papal Makeover," a piece the TFP calls "blasphemous."

link to cartoon: http://www.illinoisleader.com/content/img/f2062/Papal.jpg

On June 21st, The Chicago Reader, a 130,000-reader weekend newspaper, published a cartoon with the Pope dispensing "red hot birth control pills," saying, "we were just kidding about Original Sin" and suggesting immoral actions in the confessional, proposing a "new recipe for communion" using chocolate chips, among other images offensive to Catholics.

Each Thursday, The Chicago Reader is distributed freely at 1200 locations to upper middle class, single, college-attending professionals, 59% male and 41% female. Garret Gaston's cartoons are syndicated in less than ten papers nationally, including a news source in San Diego.

Before mobilizing a network of over 200,000 activists nationwide, American TFP President Raymond Drake sent a protest letter, asking The Chicago Reader for an unqualified apology and a written commitment that it will never again publish such blasphemies.

"This blatant, filthy mockery of the Papacy and the Church is a grave insult to God and to all Catholics" wrote Mr. Drake in a letter to the editor published by The Reader. "Facing these blasphemies we have no other option than to stand up and defend the honor of God and our Catholic Faith."

Gaston is known and has won awards for his "alternative" style in cartooning. And in a letter to the editor in reply to a reader condemning the cartoon, Gaston wrote, "I was actually calling through my comic strip for its readers to consider that the church has as little business promoting sexual behaviors as it does condemning them," and that if the reader "feels that as a Catholic [he] is being unfairly persecuted by a licentious cartoonist, I suggest he try being sexually persecuted by a powerful religion that professes to be the mouthpiece of God."

The Reader has not apologized or responded to the TFP's demands.

C. Preston Noell, head of the TFP's Chicago Bureau asks, "If this cartoon does not awaken our holy outrage, can we still consider ourselves Catholic?"

Noell is heading up the protest in Chicago. "We have been successful in the past in effecting the media," Noell said. "TFP is sending out 500,000 anti-blasphemy cards that will be returned to the Chicago Reader and we are planning next week's rally to held in front of The Chicago Reader's offices at Illinois & State Streets in downtown Chicago."

If the rally does not effect change in policy, other tactics may be used to influence the publication, Noell said.

"We may begin pressure on the paper's major advertisers," Noell said. "Perrier Water, Loyola University and United Parcel are all major advertisers in The Chicago Reader. We have asked for an apology and a promise to not print another cartoon of blasphemous nature. We will push until we protect our doctrine from these attacks."

Noell encouraged anyone to attend the rally and everyone to check the TFP's website to email the Chicago Reader a protest letter directly by visiting their website at http://www.tfp.org or by calling the TFP's Chicago area office at 847.692.2585.

"We hope that another 'Catholic backlash' will occur as it did in Disney's movie Dogma that bombed a year or so ago. We know that if there's enough outrage, we will turn this around."

[KS Flyover]

Here's a downsized version of the cartoon for easier viewing.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

Is it legal to hunt liberals for sport yet?

[Petronski]

PING!

Please e-mail the Illinois Leader at: letters@illinoisleader.com

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Is it legal to hunt liberals for sport yet?

Only on a "catch-and-release" basis.

[concerned about politics]

I think what the cartoonist is trying to say is that the church has become the church of political correctness rather than stick to the Holy word . The homosexual scandle has earned them this cartoon and the ridicule that goes with it.
Putting Christ in the picture, I feel, was the part that went too far. He had nothing to do with it. He was the one who warned them about liberalism over 2000 years ago. Had they listened, they wouldn't be the butt of jokes today.
Jay Leno has some really funny jokes. He's still telling them!
By not speaking out against homosexually and their gay priests, and starting a gay outreach program instead, the church has earned anything the public chooses to throw at it. I have no respect for it myself.
I can see why Catholics would be offended, but when the priests were caught molesting boys, the word was "forgiveness." So where's the "forgiveness" for this cartoonists? He only drew a picture!

[Carry_Okie]

I would agree that the cartoon appears to attack hypocrisy, but certainly not from a position advocating a return to historic values. The "artist" appears to have the attitude that if the Church's central values don't attract a following that they have no intrinsic appeal and are therefore vacuous. That being so, then he suggests, 'Why not go all the way?'

In a different light, I would tend to agree. The essential principles of the life, death, and life of Christ were (and are) indeed compelling enough to build a global Church. It is my opinion that the Church of Rome diverged from those simple essences centuries ago, maybe around AD 300. Catholic doctrine and canon law have become convoluted and bureaucratic, certainly not in the spirit of entering the kingdom of God as a little child. The permissiveness that it allowed to infiltrate the Catholic academy has rendered many of its historic teachings somewhat empty.

I actually think things have improved under John Paul. He at least understands that an unambiguous moral stance may be the more compassionate policy and of more personal value, as if people realize that they do need direction and limits, just like a child.

Fancy that.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I say we send the cartoonist to a muslim country and tell him to draw offensive cartoons of mohammed. That will be fun to watch.

[Pietro]

"...being sexually persecuted by a powerful religion "

I'm wondering how this person was "sexually" persecuted.

This being America we all have the freedom to express our opinions, even idiots such as this. We also have the freedom to hit them where it hurts, in their wallets.

[NYer]

"This blatant, filthy mockery of the Papacy and the Church is a grave insult to God and to all Catholics"

Thanks for posting this story. PINGing the catholic list.

[Desdemona]

I think what the cartoonist is trying to say is that the church has become the church of political correctness rather than stick to the Holy word .

While you are correct, please remember that this has been a VERY painful year. This is somewhat rubbing it in and it hurts. Although, it is good that there are visible signs that the laity is not as apathetic as the media would like us to believe.

[general_re]

From the "Trying too hard to be Ted Rall" dept....

Gaston, whose "La Petite Camera" runs in the Chicago Reader and the San Diego Reader, won first place among cartoonists whose work appears in fewer than five AAN papers.

[two23]

"This blatant, filthy mockery of the Papacy and the Church is a grave insult to God and to all Catholics"

I would think that homosexual pedophiles and the efforts of the church to cover it up by offering money to the victims is also an insult to God and all catholics.

[Orual]

... won first place among cartoonists whose work appears in fewer than five AAN papers.

It is unfortunate that this crude, adolescent cartoon is being given more exposure than the five "alternate newsweeklies" could have ever provided. Better to ignore it than to draw attention to it.

[BlueNgold]

Freedom of speech and religion go both ways. I have found that most times protesting something like gives it (a) more audience, and (b) more legitimacy. In light of the recent bad press for the catholic church saying that satire like this is an offense to the sensibilities of the church is not going to register with a lot of people.

[Revelation 911]

Mister Puerile signed up 2002-09-23.

hey Preston - looks like youve got a buddy -ya both signed on today & win the new lexus

re: the article - looks suspiciously like vieled Catholic bashing / rebelrousing by the newbie

[Romulus]

I would agree that the cartoon appears to attack hypocrisy, but certainly not from a position advocating a return to historic values.

I perceive some internal contradiction in the cartoons. On one level, the cartoonist is having absurdist fun with the idea of a consumer-driven church -- this I suppose being the final stop on the hypocritical road the Church has supposedly taken. On another level, he seems to be suggesting that this degradation is just what's needed for an organisation that's done so much to frustrate and expose he "progressive" agenda that he'd like to see enacted.

Flannery O'Connor observed that "it's a Protestant habit to condemn the Church both for being authoritarian and foe being not authoritarian enough."

I might add that it's an adolescent habit to condemn adult hypocrisy while longing to get into the game oneself.

[Mo1]

I say we send the cartoonist to a muslim country and tell him to draw offensive cartoons of mohammed

Works for me

[Valin]

So what's the answer to this sort of thing?