‘During a radio interview with La Zanzara (“The Mosquito”) in 2014, famed Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani discussed a hypothetical situation in which an alien landed in the country and walked into a Catholic Church for the first time.
Oblivious to religious beliefs, he said, the alien would notice a bloody Jesus on a cross, tortured saints, nude angels… and be horrified by what it was seeing. Hell, a club devoted to masochism wouldn’t be nearly as disturbing!
Imagine to be an alien who has just landed in Italy. You enter in a beautiful Catholic church, without knowing anything about religion. You enter and you see a bloodied man hanged and nailed to a cross, an altar with naked babies flying, Saint Bernard [he meant Saint Bartholomew] without the skin… I believe that a masochist club wouldn’t be such at the upfront.
He said in that same interview that the Church was a “men-only club” and that he had been molested by a priest when he was a child.
For all that, Toscani (above) was charged with blasphemy, which is still a crime in Italy. In 2006, the law changed… but only to include blasphemy against non-Catholic religions as well. This week, a judge handed Toscani a fine of €4,000 (roughly $4,452 USD) and compared his rhetoric to that of a radical Muslim imam.’
Read more here: Italian Who Compared Catholic Church to Masochism Club Convicted of Blasphemy
Oblivious to religious beliefs, he said, the alien would notice a bloody Jesus on a cross, tortured saints, nude angels… and be horrified by what it was seeing. Hell, a club devoted to masochism wouldn’t be nearly as disturbing!
Imagine to be an alien who has just landed in Italy. You enter in a beautiful Catholic church, without knowing anything about religion. You enter and you see a bloodied man hanged and nailed to a cross, an altar with naked babies flying, Saint Bernard [he meant Saint Bartholomew] without the skin… I believe that a masochist club wouldn’t be such at the upfront.
He said in that same interview that the Church was a “men-only club” and that he had been molested by a priest when he was a child.
For all that, Toscani (above) was charged with blasphemy, which is still a crime in Italy. In 2006, the law changed… but only to include blasphemy against non-Catholic religions as well. This week, a judge handed Toscani a fine of €4,000 (roughly $4,452 USD) and compared his rhetoric to that of a radical Muslim imam.’
Read more here: Italian Who Compared Catholic Church to Masochism Club Convicted of Blasphemy
