Chocolate Jesus causes religious groups to melt with anger, rage

The Catholic Church has long accepted the humble cracker as a perfectly acceptable… The Catholic Church has long accepted the humble cracker as a perfectly acceptable representation of Jesus’ flesh. But what if it actually looked like Jesus and was made of chocolate? Now that’s crazed blasphemy of the worst kind, according to groups like the Catholic League.

A new standoff between the art world and the Christian right has emerged over a massive milk-chocolate sculpture of a naked Jesus, arms spread as if crucified, which was intended to be shown on the week leading up to and including Easter. The piece is entitled “My Sweet Lord,” and it’s the latest in a series of unusual food sculptures by artist Cosimo Cavallero. Enraged conservative Catholic groups managed to put up enough clamor to have the exhibition cancelled before it even began.

Cardinal Edward Egan called it a “sickening display.” Bill Donohue, the head honcho of the Catholic League and America’s pre-eminent voice for conservative Catholics, called the piece “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.”

What I wonder is, what particular aspect of Cavallero’s piece made it so profoundly offensive to the protesting Catholics? Was it the chocolate or the anatomical correctness? And is the image of Jesus au natural really that horrific?

While it’s not quite on the same level as the Christian right’s vilification of Hollywood, the modern art world has certainly had its fair share of clashes with religious hardliners. In particular, the chocolate Jesus controversy calls to mind Andres Serrano’s famously divisive artwork “Piss Christ,” which was a dramatic photograph of a small, plastic, crucified Jesus submerged glowing brilliantly in a golden glassful of Serrano’s own urine. It was a landmark case, highlighting the very difficult balance of preserving freedom of expression and minding various religious thresholds of blasphemy on the other.

The fury over the chocolate Jesus apparently escalated to the point where the hotel that planned to host the exhibition became the subject of death threats. And understandably, the hotel wasn’t going to risk death for a giant confection.

Being an anti-censorship, art-loving, atheist-leaning agnostic, my default opinion is to side with freedom of expression. I feel that if something offends your metaphysical reality that much, then just put it out of mind. Don’t bother yourself with it and don’t look at it. It’s not like Christians were forced to look at “Piss Christ” or the cocoa-Jesus, or like the Danes took their Mohammad cartoons and mailed them to everyone in the Middle East.

But therein, perhaps, lies my bigotry. I can continue to spout my secular opinions here, but it’s never going to find common ground with the religious viewpoint. I can’t find any way to identify with deeply-held religious views, or the kind of seething passion that evidently comes about in people like Bill Donohue when he sees things like a naked Jesus made of chocolate. I just don’t have a religious bone in my body. I was raised atheist, and the only churches I’ve ever set foot in are cathedrals because I think Gothic architecture looks cool. But being a huge relativist about most things, I do feel somewhat conflicted about being so numb to religious sensitivities.

I’ll even make a na’ve attempt to relate to the angered Catholics in this chocolate-Jesus episode by trying to think of scenarios involving analogous depictions of figures I really admire, and imagining if that could make me anywhere near as mad. Would it enrage me if say, somebody made an exhibit featuring a chocolate, naked rendition of Frank Zappa? A chocolate Bill Watterson? Hmm