http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/archives/2285 A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:10:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/archives/2285#comment-9538 Peter Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:05:42 +0000 http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/archives/2285#comment-9538 <blockquote>Villanova is a Catholic university for heaven’s sake! There should be no need whatsoever to justify a tasteful pro-life statue, especially one with of Mary and Jesus.</blockquote> Wrong. Personally, I think the statue is quite attractive, but if nobody had told me it was supposed to be "pro-life," I wouldn't have derived that message. It looks more like "pro-cuddle-your-baby" to me. Shoot, I may not have even figured out that it was Mary and Jesus. But I'm not offended at all. Even knowing that it's intended to be "pro-life" I still see no need to pull that message from it, because it's <em>art</em> and putting explicit, objectively incontrovertible, conceptual messages in art is pretty hard. But the moment you start saying that Catholics at a Catholic university shouldn't have to justify what they're doing, you've crossed into that bizarre realm where Catholics get to assume that whatever they do for the sake of their religion is automatically a-okay. Nope, sorry, that's not cool. Come to the same conclusion if that's where it leads you, but don't say the process of worrying about sensitivity or justifying your actions can be bypassed simply because of your religion. Villanova is a Catholic university for heaven’s sake! There should be no need whatsoever to justify a tasteful pro-life statue, especially one with of Mary and Jesus.

Wrong.

Personally, I think the statue is quite attractive, but if nobody had told me it was supposed to be "pro-life," I wouldn't have derived that message. It looks more like "pro-cuddle-your-baby" to me. Shoot, I may not have even figured out that it was Mary and Jesus. But I'm not offended at all. Even knowing that it's intended to be "pro-life" I still see no need to pull that message from it, because it's art and putting explicit, objectively incontrovertible, conceptual messages in art is pretty hard.

But the moment you start saying that Catholics at a Catholic university shouldn't have to justify what they're doing, you've crossed into that bizarre realm where Catholics get to assume that whatever they do for the sake of their religion is automatically a-okay. Nope, sorry, that's not cool.

Come to the same conclusion if that's where it leads you, but don't say the process of worrying about sensitivity or justifying your actions can be bypassed simply because of your religion.]]>