[lit-ideas] speaking of poking (fun)...Mike will like this one
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 08:44:25 EST
_Click here: Satirical Humor Aimed at the Vatican Strikes a Nerve - New York
Times_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/world/europe/18pope.html?hp&ex=1163912400&en=c7aec193e0181abc&ei=5059&partner=AOL)
"Satirical fundamentalism" just isn't a term you hear every day....
Julie Krueger
("a smile is never a sin???)
ROME, Nov. 17 — Perhaps it is his good looks, or his work in the
ever-so-serious _Vatican_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org)
, but for whatever
reason, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, _Pope Benedict XVI_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benedict_xvi/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
’s
secretary, has suddenly found himself the butt of jokes in the Italian news
media.
In one radio skit, Rosario Fiorello, a comedian, portrayed Monsignor Gänswein
dining at a brand-new restaurant called “the Last Supper,” where “one
portion of fish was shared by 20.” He used a cellphone with Handel’s
“Hallelujah”
chorus as its ring tone.
The pope himself is also subject to ribbing. On Tuesday night, in a
television skit, the comedian Maurizio Crozza impersonated Pope Benedict being
a mite
touchy about comparisons to his media-darling predecessor, _Pope John Paul
II_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/_john_paul_ii/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
, who was frail for years before his death. “Could
Pope Wojtyla do this?” he barked to two attendants, bursting into song and
tap dancing. “Or this?” he added, juggling three oranges.
The popularity of the satire appears to have unnerved Monsignor Gänswein, who
reportedly told the Italian news agency Adnkronos that he hoped the
impersonations “would stop soon.” He did not object to satire, he said, but
the
spoofs “offended men of the church.”
They also struck a nerve with L’Avvenire, a newspaper owned by the Italian
Bishops’ Conference, which accused the comedians of “satirical
fundamentalism.”
In a front-page editorial on Friday, the paper complained that the jokes had
been unwarranted. “Perhaps there is the secret intention to see if the church
will respond like some Muslims responded to the satirical cartoons or to
articles that criticize Islam, to then scream scandal,” wrote Carlo Cardia,
an
author who writes about the Catholic Church and a professor of ecclesiastical
law at the University of Rome. The Catholic newspaper has said that it does
not want to engage in polemics about whether it is acceptable to poke fun at
the pope.
Satire is going to be about people who are “part of the ecclesiastical star
system,” Gianluca Nicoletti, a television critic for Radio 24, said in an
interview. “It’s going to touch the weakest points.”
The previous pope was the subject of some jokes, though not to this extent.
As the humor has heated up, mainstream newspapers have jumped into the fray to
defend the right to make jokes about religion. It is “hard to resist”
spoofing a pope “who seems to have been raised in libraries and not among
people,”
wrote Francesco Merlo, a columnist for the daily paper La Repubblica.
Gaspare Barbiellini Amidei, a writer for Corriere della Sera, the biggest
Italian paper, said that at the very least the jokes should be funny, and not
offensive.
But some Italians have taken offense at jokes like one that Luca Borgomeo,
the president of an association that serves as a watchdog of television
entertainment, recalls the comedian Paolo Rossi telling on national television:
The
Holy Trinity won a free trip and had to decide where to go. God the Father
said he would like to go to Africa, Jesus to Palestine, and the Holy Spirit to
the Vatican. Asked why, the Holy Spirit responded: “Because I’ve never been
there.”
“This is a blatant lack of respect,” Mr. Borgomeo said. His group is
threatening to boycott sponsors of shows that joke about religion.
Mr. Crozza declined to comment on the criticisms, and Mr. Fiorello could not
be reached.
But Mr. Fiorello put words in Monsignor Gänswein’s mouth. In his role as the
pope’s secretary this week, Mr. Fiorello told his radio audience that “the
Vatican was not offended.”
“We’re convinced that smiles bring religion closer to the people,” he
said,
“because a smile is never a sin.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html)
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