Catholic League president William Donohue sent this letter today to Barbara Millstein, curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art:

From viewing the book that accompanies the Brooklyn Museum of Art exhibition, “Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers,” it is clear that most entries are worthy of much praise.  But it is also clear that the display by Renee Cox, “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” is worthy of much condemnation.  To vulgarize Christ in this manner is unconscionable.  That it was chosen for inclusion in this exhibit is morally indefensible.

Renee Cox is no stranger to Catholic bashing.  She has justified her attacks by blaming the Catholic Church for slavery—a scurrilous lie—and has on several occasions used Catholic imagery in ways that are patently offensive.  To wit: she has portrayed Christ on the cross castrated; she has appeared half naked as Our Blessed Mother holding a Christ-like figure in her work, “The Pieta”; and she has dressed as a nun with a naked women kneeling before her in prayer.

After the furor over the “Sensation” exhibition, the officials at the Brooklyn Museum of Art must have known that “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” would offend the sensibilities of many New Yorkers.  But this seems not to matter.  Indeed, you yourself treated criticisms of this display in a manner that was as cavalier as it was coarse (e.g. “There are images of this scene with dogs at the Last Supper”).

I would love to know whether there is any portrayal of any aspect of history that you might personally find so offensive as to be excluded from an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  For starters, would you include a photograph of Jewish slave masters sodomizing their obsequious black slaves?  And worry not, when contemplating your answer, just think of it as a work of high artistic merit.

I would appreciate hearing from you about this matter.

“Saving Silverman,” which opens today, has been described by reviewers in the following terms: “there are a number of laugh-out-loud moments wedged in between the gay jokes, masturbation humour and poop pranks” (Edmonton Sun); “we see Darren undergoing surgery for butt-cheek implants and reacting to shocks from electric nipple clamps.  Wayne applies a cattle prod to Judith, who’s holding J.D.’s fishnet-stocking-clad head underwater in a toilet bowl.  And then there’s Ermey defecating on a lawn” (New York Post); “It has much scatological humor” (New York Times); “PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, thematic material” (USA Today).  The reviews were horrible.

Of particular interest to the Catholic League is the film’s take on nuns.  Catholic League president William Donohue put it this way:

“Jason Biggs is the star of ‘Saving Silverman.’  He is mostly known for masturbating.  To wit: a Lexis-Nexis search linking Biggs with masturbation turns up 76 hits; this is not surprising given that he first became famous after masturbating into a hot apple pie in ‘American Pie.’  Now he’s back at it again in ‘Saving Silverman,’ only this time he finds himself in an unusually sticky situation: his girl, Judith, warns him she’ll ‘take away (his) masturbation privileges’ if he doesn’t do what he’s told.

“Now none of this would matter much to us if the movie didn’t find it necessary to depict a ‘long-lost school cheerleader crush…who, by the way, is training to be a nun.’  True to form, the would-be nun is ‘subjected to all manner of sexual embarrassment and displayed in various states of PG-13 acceptable undress.’  Vulgar nun jokes are thrown in for good luck.

“What got us was the way reviewers reacted to the movie’s coarseness.  Lou Lumenick, for example, told readers in the New York Post that the film was ‘both misogynous and homophobic.’  What he couldn’t bring himself to do was register a complaint about the Catholic bashing.  Neither could anyone else.”

The February 6 edition of Salon.com, the online magazine, features an excerpt from “The Erotica Project.”  The selection, which was written by Lillian Ann Slugocki (she co-authored the volume with Erin Cressida Wilson), is an obscene portrait of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.  With graphic detail, Slugocki depicts them performing oral sex on each other.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, responded this way:

“On December 14, 2000, I issued a news release entitled, ‘Salon.com Slugs Catholics Once Again.’  Now the struggling online magazine is back again, this time seeking to offend all Christians.  That it has succeeded in doing so is clear, though it is not clear why.  Is it because, like adolescents, they enjoy pushing the envelope?  Or is it because they see in Christianity a force that must be defeated?  No matter, the last time we checked, its stock was going for $1 a share.  The Penny Stocks can’t be far behind, but we sincerely hope they tank completely before delivering up another one of their sick statements on Christianity.

“Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece by Charles Murray on the ‘proletarianization’ of our elites.  Murray discusses the extent to which those at the top of the socio-economic scale have begun to imitate the behavior and outward appearances of those at the bottom.  In the case of Salon.com, we can take it one step further.  Marx referred to the ‘scum of the earth’ as being members of the lumpenproletariat, and that, it seems, is the proper way to understand our online savants.  The preppy boys and girls at Salon.com represent the lumpenproletarianization of our elites: they have more in common with the pimps and thugs who inhabit this social circle than with anyone else.  Save for their bottled water.”