Bishop calls for boycott of artist's 'sacrilegious' work

Manila, Philippines - An official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) called yesterday for a boycott of an exhibit that has been running at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), saying one of the artists presented images he believes are sacrilegious.

CBCP public affairs committee chairman Kalookan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez is referring to the works of Mideo Cruz, one of the featured artists in an exhibit entitled “Kulo,” which started June 17 and will run until Aug. 21 at the CCP. Admission is free.

Some of the works featured phallic images and condoms juxtaposed with religious icons.

“They should be very sensitive and respectful to the people…they should respect the religion of others,” Iniguez said.

When asked if the public should not patronize the exhibit, the CBCP official said “yes.”

Former Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who previously served as CBCP president, said he saw a video of the “sick” exhibit.

“The ones who did those things are sick. They are not only sick, what they did was also sickening. No one in his right mind with the proper values system would even think of doing such a thing. I wonder if those who did those desecration would allow me to do those things to them… Meaning to say, to put those items on their faces and bodies and to desecrate them with all those items, like a used condom,” Cruz said.

He believes the organizers of the exhibit “became lesser persons because of what they did.”

Ed Tirona of the Council of the Laity said, he saw on ABS-CBN a report on Cruz’s exhibit last Friday.

“They featured a supposed artist who took the liberty of scandalizing the image of Christ by disfiguring his face and sacrilegiously vulgarizing it with obscenities, ostensibly as an art expression,” he said.