Banksy's new sculpture: Cardinal Sin

Banksy spoke to the BBC about his brilliant and funny new sculpture, Cardinal Sin, at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. He made it by gluing bathroom tiles to the face of cardinal bust, to give the effect of a mosaiced photograph.

I love everything about the Walker Gallery -- the Old Masters, the contemporary art, the rude girl in the cafe. And when I found out Mr Walker built it with beer money it became my favorite gallery. The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity -- the lies, the corruption, the abuse.

Juxtpoz says the piece was "made in response to the child abuse scandals that the church seems to be known for these days."

Banksy's new sculpture: Cardinal Sin

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Stay tuned to find out which commenters are more offended by this artwork than the Catholic Church’s handling of its sexual abuse scandals.
- zebbart
  
  On the contrary, we’re finding out who is more interested in taking the piss out of the Catholic Church than in preventing child sex abuse.
  - Mark_Frauenfelder
    
    Nice try! Art is a very effective means of taking action. Banksy’s artwork could go a long way in raising awareness of the Catholic Church’s shameful coverup.
    - Brainspore
      
      …and why didn’t Picasso try to do something about those violent fascists during Spain’s civil war instead of sitting around making silly paintings like “Guernica?”
    - zebbart
      
      Maybe in 1998. But this is so long after the point when the Catholic Church’s sex scandals have been cliched as a punchline for morning zoo radio that this is not going to raise anything more than high fives from fellow Church haters. Anyway I was criticizing not the art, but your preemptive dismissal of critical comments of a certain type. Calling out anti-Catholic bigotry in this art or the supporting comments no more precludes offense at the Catholic Church’s sex scandals than taking the piss out of the Catholic Church precludes interest in actually preventing child abuse.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        So what’s your brilliant idea for dealing with the abuse that’s still happening?
      - Mark_Frauenfelder
        
        “Calling out anti-Catholic bigotry in this art or the supporting comments no more precludes offense at the Catholic Church’s sex scandals than taking the piss out of the Catholic Church precludes interest in actually preventing child abuse.”
        
        I’m flattered that you think I’m smart enough to understand what this means, but after reading it five times, I’m still stumped.
      - zebbart
        
        Sorry, that was poorly written. You commented that some people would be more offended by the art than the sex scandal, as if taking offense at the art and focusing on that here would imply lack of offense at the scandal. And so I (sarcastically, which is a risky form in text) implied that being interested in taking the piss out of the Catholic Church implied lack of interest in preventing child abuse. But neither is the case. Expressing one’s offense at this art would be appropriate here (if perhaps wrong-headed), and people who want to express that offense with reasonable criticism of the art should not be shamed into shutting up about it because ‘what about the kids’.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        So what have you done to stop child abuse, zebbart? Or do you just criticize other people who try to tackle the problem?
      - C W
        
        “So what’s your brilliant idea for dealing with the abuse that’s still happening?”
        
        Complaining about the complainers! The most productive form of protest known to humankind!
      - zebbart
        
        Antinous, the only thing I can think of is donating to RAINN. I don’t know what else I can do besides call out obfuscation and advocate more rational and evidence based understanding of the problem. Any suggestions? Should I NOT call out obfuscation that leads to less effective and less complete solutions?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Should I NOT call out obfuscation that leads to less effective and less complete solutions?
        
        When you haven’t done anything to stop the problem and your only effort is to circle the wagons around the abusers, then you are nothing but an apologist for institutional child abuse. You are the culture medium in which the disease grows.
      - zebbart
        
        Circling the wagons around the abusers? I say try and prosecute them all, priests bishops even the pope if there is grounds! And reform the systems with strong mandates to prevent abuse and quickly identify and prosecute the abuse that will still happen. But recognize that it is a society wide problem and reckon with the whole if it. It seems to me you and Banksy are circling your partisans around a favorite whipping boy (guilty as it is), thereby shielding the much wider set of abusers.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Since when is it necessary to address every single abuser on the face of the earth in the interest of fairness? Banksy is doing something; you are not. Except for making excuses for the institution that supports abusers at its highest level. Somebody who has done absolutely nothing about the problem and has the gall to criticize those who have is an apologist for abuse and a supporter of the abuse structure.
        
        You are the reason that abuse exists. You are no different than the parishioners who refuse to believe anything bad about their priest and think that the rape victims are lying. You are no different than the bishops who ship priest-rapists to another diocese to continue raping children. You are so desperate to cling to the pretense that your Church is somehow magical and godly that you’re willing to go into a public forum and try to shut up the people who are trying to shed light on the problem.
        
        You are shameful.
      - OgilvyTheAstronomer
        
        “Calling out anti-Catholic bigotry in this art…”
        
        Is that a bit like (to riff on Brainspore’s reply) calling out anti-Fascist bigotry in the “Guernica”?
      - zebbart
        
        “Is that a bit like (to riff on Brainspore’s reply) calling out anti-Fascist bigotry in the “Guernica”?”
        No. There is no anti-Fascist bigotry in Guernica, there is no history of ant-Fascist bigotry and oppression in the English speaking world, and the Catholic Church is not comparable to the fascist movement or the Spanish Nationalist coalition. Guernica dramatized the experience of victims of the Nationalists, engendering sympathy them and outrage at the horrors of war. It did not make a snidey mockery of a faceless symbol of all members of the Nationalists, and it was not meant to engender derisive laughs at the lowness of an group of ‘others’. While it references actions of the Nationalist allies, it is hard to interpret it as singling the Nationalists for condemnation. It doesn’t even reference them or fascism. It leads one to feel the weight of all war born by all people, and our common guilt and sorrow for war. It does not lead one to feel morally superior. And anyway there is a difference between bigotry and criticism. Art that attacks fascists (or Catholics/clergy) for their specific and defining ideas or acts would be valid criticism. Art that condemns all fascists (or Catholics/clergy) for the crimes of a few, crimes that are no more common among fascists than among other groups, would be bigotry. If this piece had been about Cardinal Bernard Law I would not think it was bigoted. If it had portrayed the suffering of abuse victims of certain Catholic clergy I would not think it was bigoted. Guernica was specific in its reference, broad in its applicability, humane in its message, and fair in its accusation. Totally opposite of Banksy’s piece.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        there is no history of ant-Fascist bigotry and oppression in the English speaking world
        
        The fascists would disagree with you. The BNP in the UK is constantly complaining that they’re oppressed by the government, as do the neo-Nazis across Europe and the rest of the world.
        
        the Catholic Church is not comparable to the fascist movement or the Spanish Nationalist coalition
        
        The Catholic Church supported Franco and gave his regime legitimacy.
        
        Please stop commenting if you’re just going to make shit up.
    - zebbart
      
      I split this off because it is firmly in TL;DR territory. TL;DR Sex abuse is not a Catholic problem, and implying it is hurts kids. It’s also a dick move and non-rationalist.
      
      That said, I will say there are three reasons why linking the Catholic Church with sexual abuse of children is wrong. From least to most important:
      
      1. It is false. While of course there have been hundreds if not thousands of cases of sexual contact between clergy and minors, and dozens if not hundreds of cases of this being discovered by other clergy and not adeuately acted upon, as far as I know, and I have studied this, there is no evidence that abuse or covering up is any more prevalent in the Catholic Church than in any other social institution that puts children in contact with adults, whether that is families, churhces, sports, scouts, schools, etc. So anyone interested in truth for its own sake ought to reject this kind of stereotyping.
      
      2. It hurts Catholics. This fits right in the hundreds of years old pattern of anti-Catholic bigotry in English speaking countries. Granted it’s not much of a burden anymore, but it is offensive for the same reason that the implication that atheists are immoral is offensive, and it does have a negative impact on Catholic’s social relationships.
      
      3. Finally and many orders of magnitude more importantly, this kind of stereotyping helps keep the vast majority of child abuse, which is not by Catholic clergy, secret. Because of the media sensationalism and the art and the jokes about priests fondling kids, sexual abuse of kids and its cover up as an institutional problem is largely thought of as a Catholic problem. So when people try to explain the problem they say, Is it because of celibacy? Is it because of patriarchy? Is it because of superstition? Well, the evidence available indicates that it is not a Catholic problem but a human problem, so the causes must be much deeper and the solutions much broader. But that has been the narrative, so while the Church was reeling under lawsuits and prosecutions in the early 2000′s, scrambling to mandate super restrictive rules that would make it impossible for an adult to even be alone with a kid in order to save face (cynically) or just prevent any more harm (hopefully), institutions like Penn State didn’t change. Why should they? It’s a Catholic problem. Coincidentally I was a student at PSU in 2002 taking a grad class in American Caholicism with Philip Jenkins, one of the pre-eminent experts on the first wave of Catholic child abuse scandals. Maybe if Penn State had paid attention to his informed take on the issue they would have realized, ‘Hey, it’s not the Catholic Church that’s fucked up, it’s all of society or maybe all of humanity, and if we don’t want to end up like them we will take major action immediately’, well maybe Sandusky wouldn’t have been alone with that boy in the shower later that year. Needless to say Penn State isn’t the only other institution that needed to learn a lesson from the Catholic Church’s bad example and take action before more abuse happened and was covered up in their own organization. It’s everywhere, and I think art like this lowers awareness of the scope of the problem by raising awareness of a particularly sensational and exciting to anti-Catholics instance of it. Certainly we should talk about the Catholic Church, but as a case study of all our social institutions, not as a pariah worthy of purile ridicule.
      - millie fink
        
        I have studied this, there is no evidence that abuse or covering up is any more prevalent in the Catholic Church than in any other social institution that puts children in contact with adults, whether that is families, churhces, sports, scouts, schools, etc.
        
        sources plz
      - zebbart
        
        Sources that there is no evidence? I keep looking for evidence can’t find it. How do you cite that? Do you have evidence that abuse and cover up is more prevalent in the Catholic Church? If not then it is pure bigotry to believe so. The closest thing I can give you to a don’t take my word for it is what Prof. Philip Jenkins was writing at the time I studied under him. Certainly he was able to investigate the issue at the time a lot more thoroughly than I, and had a lot more incentive to get the right answer. As best I can find out nothing much has changed about the state of our knowledge on the issue since then. In 2002 he wrote, “My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination — or indeed, than nonclergy.” http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/comm/20020303edjenk03p6.asp (That was published two days after McQueary claims he saw Sandusky raping a boy in the shower.) But since it’s discussions like this that make me keep looking again for new info, here is another source with more citations: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
      - Mark_Frauenfelder
        
        I wouldn’t be surprised that the Catholic Priests on average, don’t sexually abuse children any more or less than other groups.
        
        But that isn’t what this artwork is commenting on. This artwork is criticizing the cover ups. The Catholic Church is enormously wealthy and has paid hush money to the families of children who were sexually abused by priests. Other sexual predators don’t have a rich and powerful organization with many devout followers to defend them from prosecution. (The Church has paid out $2 billion in settlements so far).
        
        The leaders of the Catholic Church failed to report these priests and instead protected them, and some of them continued to sexually assault other children.
        
        Here’s an article from the NYT with more details:
        http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church_sex_abuse_cases/index.html
      - C W
        
        “Sex abuse is not a Catholic problem, and implying it is hurts kids. It’s also a dick move and non-rationalist.”
        
        It’s not exclusively a Catholic problem, but it’s an INSTITUTIONAL problem in Catholicism, which is a group that’s used its authority to enable child-rapists to avoid prosecution, repeatedly.
        
        None of what you’ve brought up states that it’s NOT a Catholic problem.
        
        “It hurts Catholics.”So does child-rape.
      - zebbart
        
        Mark I don’t think that hyper link worked. I tried googling for it but the NYT has tons of articles about the abuse scandal.
        
        Again I’m mainly going off of what I learned with Dr. Jenkins here, but a big reason we have the idea that the Church harbored many more abusers is precisely because the Church had money and records. The money gave lawyers an incentive a the records gave lawyers the means to ferret our many more cases once one abuser was found (when the initial charges were valid, there were almost always more to be found). Since your small town upstart Pentecostal Church has no money and a different unaffiliated pastor every few years, one pastor’s trail of victims were a lot less likely to be rounded up and taken to court as plaintiffs. I’m not a victim but I would think the billions in settlement money are one thing that make the Church’s abuse a little bit better of a situation for the victims. The victims of uncles, soccer coaches, school teachers didn’t get either the vindication or the compensation.
        
        As to the covering up, again, is there any reason to believe the covering up was more prevalent in the Catholic Church? I’d really like to know, because all I know now is we don’t know and can’t say. But whether the Church was worse, it seems society as a whole has a problem with covering up abuse. The Sandusky case (which included more knowing adults than just the Penn State officials), the Syracuse case, the school for the deaf case, the Morman boy scout case, tons of families… like rape it seems like our society is afflicted with such a degree of squeamishness and denial when it comes to sex crime that covering up or just turning away seems to be a deep and widespread instinct that needs to be systematically confronted with means that override our natural tendencies.
        
        If Banksy had named a specific man as the target of his satirical art I think that would be valid, but using the word and image “cardinal” is just a stand-in symbol for Catholic hierarchy as a monolith. The brush he paints with is either too broad in smearing the whole Church, or not broad enough in leaving the rest of our institutions unquestioned. And again, the biggest problem with that it is not that it is dumb or mean, but that it impedes the kind of widespread social reforms that are necessary to stop abuse and cover up.
      - zebbart
        
        CW, can you provide evidence that it is more of an institutional problem in Catholic Church than otherwise? If it is, I really want to know. But whether it is worse in the Church, I think we have enough anecdotal evidence to say that it is a problem for institutions generally. Not just abuse, but covering up too. It IS a Catholic problem, but as far as I can tell only in so far as it is a general social or human problem.
      - Mark_Frauenfelder
        
        I hear what you are saying but I’m not buying it. I think Banksy’s piece is excellent criticism of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of its sex abuse scandal.
        
        Banksy has as much right to criticize the Catholic Church for covering up child rape as you do to defend it. I’m siding with Banksy on this one.
  - millie fink
    
    What? Taking the piss out of the Catholic Church is a way of calling attention to child sex abuse, and more to the point, to the Church’s horrific denial/covering up of child sex abuse.
    - davidasposted
      
      Uh…
      
      How many people remain unaware of the Catholic Church’s child rape scandals its clumsy attempts to justify and/or cover it up? How many people would be shaken into awareness of the scandal by viewing Banksy’s piece?
      - millie fink
        
        Is the only point of satiric art to shake people into awareness of something they hadn’t been aware of before? (Answer: no.)
      - C W
        
        If it’s still angering you for the wrong reasons, there’s still a need.
      - davidasposted
        
        So what would you say is the point of this piece of ‘satiric art’?
- zombienietzsche
  
  I don’t much care for Banksy, but this was funny.
- chaopoiesis
  
  I’m offended by Banksy, Catholicism, sexual abuse, and the tiny scroll bar in this comments section.
  
  Art’s pretty good though…
millie fink

“At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity — the lies, the corruption, the abuse.”

Thing about Banksy is, he’s so good with images AND words.

Cardinal Sin–ha!
http://www.paradea.org/notes/ Teirhan

I’d rather be irritated by the fact that that cross appears to be suspended from a single line of rosary beads instead of a loop than offended by the sculpture!

when i first looked at it I thought it was a commentary on that “a different shade of blue” chiptune album cover thing.
- Adam Ellch
  
  The other side of the necklace is going underneath the cloth.
Benjamin de la Pena

wonder if Banksy knew that there was a real life Cardinal Sin
- GawainLavers
  
  Poor Cardinal Sin is no doubt rolling in his grave. Banksy couldn’t not know about him, the BBC tried to work him into a headline weekly while he was alive.
Brainspore

Nice. Now I’m wondering why nobody thought of using that effect to replace the “fig leaf” zones of classical full-bodied sculptures.
- eldritch
  
  Actual “Classical” sculptures didn’t originally have fig-leaves. Literally every statue with such a leaf that dates to Roman or Greek times was originally nude.
  
  Then the Catholic Church got a hold of the statues and had the fig leaves added for the sake of decency and religious propriety. I kid you not.
  - http://twitter.com/matthjones Matt Jones
    
    I believe said items were chipped off and are still stored somewhere.
    - LydiRae
      
      Someone has the most interesting closet ever.
      - Brainspore
        
        Actually I hear there are are collections where you can ask the caretaker nuns to show you drawers filled with old disused genitalia.
        
        Be careful how you phrase the request, though.
  - Brainspore
    
    Yeah, I know… I just couldn’t think of a concise term for “classical-style full-bodied nudes as re-interpreted by prudish Christians.”
  - http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my
    
    There’s a lot of dick in the Vatican Museums today. (See the Laocoön, the Belvedere Apollo, and the Sistine Chapel, for example.) Prudishness comes and goes. Nearly all of the censored statues have been restored.
    
    Anyway, it’s not quite true to say that “every” Greek and Roman statue with a fig leaf was originally nude. The fig leaf was introduced in the late Roman period, and there are Roman statues with original fig leaves — Hercules of the Theatre of Pompey, for instance (also from the Vatican Museums).
Navin_Johnson

Looks just like a classic Shakespeare bust actually.
- http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my
  
  Good heavens, you’re exactly right! It’s Shakespeare with a skullcap and rosary. Wow.
  
  What I want to know is, how far away do I have to be from it before the face looks normal?
eldritch

It’s funny, because the original true meaning of Christianity was rather interesting stuff.

Open commensality, communal ownership, mutual respect, gender equality, pacifism, anti-Imperialism, anti-Materialism, anti-Institutionalism… and that’s not even including the theological aspects.

All of which is the exact opposite of what the Church as an institution has stood for since the time of Constantine.
robuluz

That is some nice work. It’s very literal, but it’s got that apparent casual simplicity where everything just knits together nicely.
hypersomniac

Should’ve put a Penn St. jersey on him.
http://echofox3.blogspot.com efergus3

So simple yet so brilliant. I may not like/agree with all his work, but the man is definately a great artist.
SCAQTony

I think he should have carved it but what do I know? He got where he is by “value added defacing.”
- millie fink
  
  I’m no expert either, but AFAIK, “art” means “concept” now, not “craftsmanship.”
  - Brainspore
    
    If it makes you feel better the experts are no closer to agreeing on a definition for “art” than anyone else.
    - millie fink
      
      the anointed “experts” are no closer
      
      fixed!
    - Godfree
      
      Truer words were never spoken.
Teller

Inspired idea using the tiles. Cardinal Sin, perfect. But Banksy doesn’t know much about the true meaning of Christianity. No matter, the Catholic Church’s shameful end-runs brought all of this fury on itself. So that’s just too gd bad. More importantly, I support anything that draws attention to and exposes the kind of men who are attracted to boys enough to abuse them. It’s an awful, sickening, degenerate crime.
- millie fink
  
  But Banksy doesn’t know much about the true meaning of Christianity.
  
  Irrelevant. It’s a piss take on the Catholic Church’s coverup of its abusers, not on Christianity.
  
  Edit–Oh, you’re talking about his quote instead of his art. Maybe. In which case, maybe quotation marks in his quote around “Christianity”?
  
  Nah. I still think it’s clear that like the artwork, his quote is also satirizing those whose actions contrast so mightily with the tenants of their professed faith.
  - Teller
    
    Banksy: “At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity — the lies, the corruption, the abuse.”
    
    I know what the piece is about, I like it and the idea behind it. His idea that sexual abuse/cover-up is the “true meaning of Christianity” is not accurate is all I’m saying.
    - millie fink
      
      K.
      
      See my edit above–funny things happen here time-wise.
      - Teller
        
        Got it. Thanks.
Monty Miller

Yeah yeah, molestation is bad, but the real issue here is how this is what now passes as fine art. The entire process of having the idea, gluing bathroom tiles on, and then calling the museum to ask them to display it may have taken him a grand total of 40 minutes.
- millie fink
  
  So the more time it takes to produce art, the better it is?
- Brainspore
  
  If you were familiar with the works of Banksy you’d know that he has made a career out of mocking the concept of “fine art” in general and art museums in particular. Also this is a gallery, not a museum.
- Teller
  
  I get what you’re saying. If you had thought up the same idea and spent the same 40 minutes and called the museum – Monty who? That’s life in the art world. Banksy’s got juice. But it’s a good, provocative piece regardless, no?
  - Brainspore
    
    Also this isn’t a museum, it’s a gallery. Most any gallery director would be completely nuts to turn down the chance to exhibit work by a contemporary artist as popular and marketable as Banksy.
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  And sadly he isn’t the one who thinks what he does is high art.
  He made a painting mocking the people paying tens of thousands for his work.
  He wants to convey a message, and I’m pretty sure he scored.
  
  Of course you probably think that Grandma Moses paintings look like crap paint by numbers some 10 yr old can bang out.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski

It just ain’t cool to post something, and then the first comment as a trolling taunt. Just close comments if you’re that touchy.
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

I don’t care what religion you are, but keep in mind that if you’re donating money to the Catholic church, you’ve got blood on your hands.
- zebbart
  
  Well, but you’ve also got a lot of aiding the poor, healing the sick, and enriching people’s lives on your hands. If you participate in any large organization you’ve got blood on your hands.
  - http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir
    
    You’re promoting a false equivalency here — not all large organizations have a problem with child molestation. Why support a group that actively covers up the criminal actions of their members?
    
    There’s plenty of good groups out there who aid the poor and the sick without molesting children.
    - zebbart
      
      You have a point, but it’s complicated. More complicated than just saying anyone who donates to the Catholic Church has blood on their hands. Granted if an unaffiliated person were just looking for the best charity to help the poor and the sick they might find ones with less risk of child abuse, though that would take some deep scrutiny. A year ago a person who wanted to help disadvantaged kids in State College, PA might have chosen The Second Mile over the Catholic Church. Frankly the Catholic Church now might be safer than other organizations of comparable size and community integration just because it has gone through the scandal and taken a beating. For pure charitable giving you might be able to verify that Doctors Without Borders or Partners In Health is safer, but for that matter you can also specific Catholic organizations or Catholic Relief Services and know that the money is not going to any bishops or anything, if it suits for other reasons. But I don’t think you can compare a Catholic contributing to their parish to a person giving to a charity. I think of it more like public schools, or the government. I think it is a pretty safe bet that a comparable amount of child abuse is done by school teachers as by priests, but who would say that therefor anyone giving money to public schools has blood on their hands? Likewise the US government arguably has murdered tens of thousands of people in the last 10 years alone, but I would not say that anyone who pays taxes has blood on his hands. Or rather, I would say that we all have blood on our hands, and that that is an inevitably part of being in society and all we can do it try to fix it. So sure, one way would be to withhold funds so as to dismantle an irredeemably corrupt organization. But some organizations, like maybe public schools, national governments, and for some people churches we need to have, and so we need to fix them rather than abolish them. And even just on the charity level, the Church does so much good charity and community work that to simply abolish it now would leave a gaping vacuum that would not be filled by other organizations, just as abolishing the public school system would or abolishing the government and its services would. Obviously not on the same level, at least in the US, but globally there would be a major loss of good work for probably decades. So I think a Catholic can in good faith contribute to the Church knowing that it helps thousands of times more people than it harms, that it can and is being reformed, and because it is an important part of their life that provides valued services, just like any other organization (or business for that matter) that might be harboring some abusive people.
      - http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir
        
        You’re missing the point here — there wasn’t just ONE scandal. The Catholics had systemic sexual abuse, turned a blind eye to it for decades (centuries?) and actively covered it up.
        
        Making false equivalencies to other organizations doesn’t disprove my point. But the thing is, people give money directly to the church. It’s voluntary, and unlike taxes you really have no control over what’s done with the money.
        
        And I’m not saying Catholic organizations haven’t done good; I’m saying other groups have also done good, without all the bad. There’s absolutely no reason to donate to a church that has conspired against its own children.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        …the Church does so much good charity and community work that to simply abolish it now would leave a gaping vacuum that would not be filled by other organizations…
        
        That same church is also killing millions when the Pope goes to Africa and deliberately talks people out of using condoms. There are plenty of charities that don’t go around telling people that they’ll spend eternity on fire if they don’t follow their sexist, homophobic, hateful rules.
BookGuy

I just want a Minecraft mod where all the creepers look like this.
Grey Devil

Color me completely unimpressed. I absolutely get the concept, and in fact i love it… but seeing it executed as it is i’m just not really feeling it. Would’ve liked it better as a painting, or in some other medium i suppose.

However, Banksy’s work is more about the conversation than anything. So i suppose its successful that we’re all here talking about the church and priests.
Ambiguity

Banksy spoke to the BBC about his brilliant and funny new sculpture…

I’ll give it clever, but brilliant?
http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11

I’m finally impressed by something Banksy has done. Right on.
Bevatron Repairman

As, I suppose, one of a handful of regular commenters here who is a (semi) practicing Catholic, I’ll say this: nothing about this art offends me. So if that was Bansky’s attempt — to offend me — it’s a failure. There’s very little about the hierarchy of the Church *itself* that’s sacred, so plastering some pool tiles on a statute of an old cardinal is pretty pointless.

I doubt, Mark, that you’ll find very many rank-and-file Catholics who are in anyway offended by this bit of art or feel the Church has clothed itself in anything but shame when it comes to its handling of the sex abuse scandal. There are a few loudmouths out there who claim to speak for the Catholic masses (e.g., Bill Donahue of the Catholic League) who haven’t the slightest idea what most Catholics think of how the Church dealt with it.

That said, the Catholic Church — at least at the Diocesian level and within the Orders — has a pretty damned robust means of investingating sex abuse allegations. Whatever His Holiness B-16 may or may not do, at the ground level, there’s a very active approach to rooting this stuff out with less institutional due process one would expect even of WalMart.
- millie fink
  
  at the ground level, there’s a very active approach to rooting this stuff out with less institutional due process one would expect even of WalMart.
  
  Yeah, well, there’s a lot at stake, isn’t there?
- robuluz
  
  As another one of that particular handful of commenters, I think that’s well said. I probably like the artwork a little more than you, I’m certainly not offended by it. I think it’s clever and, like a lot of good art, deceptively simple. But it crystalizes the key point at the heart of this issue, and is provocative in a very constructive way.
  - BunnyShank
    
    I’ll go one further and add there are many practicing Catholics and clergy that are yelling “Exactly. Thank you.” when they see this sculpture.
- millie fink
  
  I wonder if Banksy has ever actually self-identified as an “artist.” Seems to me that the nobler title of “activist” is more apt. Maybe it’s others who insist that he’s an artist. Or take offense for various reasons and claim that he’s not.
Genre Slur

YAWN — clever, yet poorly executed. I’d rather look at a well done sketch of the concept than a ‘slapped-together’ pastiche. This illustrates what I don’t like about ‘celebrity’ and ‘art’. If it’s punk, don’t pretend the piece deserves the pearl necklace…
Genre Slur

It crystallizes laziness of behaviour in relation to quality of thought. If it had crushed beer cans and empty fried-chicken containers as a context/frame, I’d double it’s grade.
Genre Slur

Maybe add a ‘pearl necklace’…
Genre Slur

Best part of this whole excerpt (for me) is this: “At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity — the lies, the corruption, the abuse.” Awesome. The man deserves full marks for the comment!
- robuluz
  
  Wow, I’m completely opposite to you on this one. That comment came straight out of a SNOG lyric to me, it sounds like a 14 year old atheist. The actual work is the height of elegance in comparison.
  - Genre Slur
    
    Come on, the crushed beer cans and fried chicken bits would really bring out the deep underlying desires of why someone wants to hold power. Imagine being a Cardinal — sitting there quaffing expensive booze-drinks, eating the finest cooked birds, all while a nice young boy kneels, waiting for the Holy gift of a divine pearl necklace…
Genre Slur

“Support your local pedophile — attend a Catholic Church.” http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist/33508
- robuluz
  
  See, you kind of went and demonstrated how subtle and nuanced Banksy’s piece is there, by way of contrast. Was that on purpose?
  - Genre Slur
    
    Totally colour commentary that was. I was about to sit down and watch Polanski’s Frantic whilst imbibing in good Quebecois beer. I just sort of sprayed. I dig on the Banks, I wish the tiles drew out of the face is all –pure selfishness. His quote almost made me wet my pants — that excerpt NEEDS to become stencil graffiti everywhere in north america, and bits of the uk and europe. And africa, and south america…..
GIFtheory

OT: has anyone else been burned by the ‘post as’ button eating your comment after you log in, instead of logging in and posting it? Extremely frustrating.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It was similar with Movable Type. Most of us copy our comments before hitting submit, just in case.
- Layne
  
  Yeah – but as Antinous said – just gotta copy it ahead of time in anticipation of a refresh. It’s probably better for formulating your point, anyways.
EH

Some Catholic nutter is going to take a hammer to this eventually.
- tw1515tw
  
  This is in England, a place where the Prime Minister’s aide said “we don’t do religion”.
http://twitter.com/jmtd Jonathan Dowland

A lot of confusion/ignorance about the difference between Christianity and Catholicism here.
http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

“Banksy spoke to the BBC about his brilliant and funny new sculpture, Cardinal Sin,”…. I agree the sculpture is very clever and thought provoking, but there’s nothing “funny” going on about the sexual abuse countless people have suffered at the hands of the church. Even if you’re mocking the perpetrators, you’re also making light of the deep pain victims suffer. I hope Banksy wasn’t going for “witty” while appointing himself some sort of representative of the victims. It may have just been poor writing by Mark. I work with some children who are victims of sexual abuse, and jokes like that creepy old man on Family Guy, “funny uncle” and whatnot just leave a bad taste in my mouth.
- Layne
  
  I suppose you can’t be too hard on people for trying to diffuse some of the evil of sexual abuse with humor. Just like a “lovable drunk” stereotype doesn’t really address the seriousness of someone who’s struggling with an addiction. Maybe part of the humor is the incredulity of all of it.
  
  If only abusers were so easy to point out in a crowd. At least you’re helping those kids try to overcome the abuse – that’s a much more important thing to stay focused on.
- http://twitter.com/thedailyswarm The Daily Swarm
  
  there’s nothing brilliant about it either.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  Pity poor you if you don’t understand the power of finding a way to laugh at a deeply corrupt institution.
  - http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade
    
    I’m not finding the power to laugh about the very existence of sexual abuse against children, let alone institutional corruption that made it so rampant. There are some things that just get beyond what can be funny for me. I’m okay with being Miss Butthurt on this.
http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

Yeah, it must just be a Catholic thing, because we all know nobody at a secular institution — like, say, a State University — would engage in a long-term child-abuse cover-up.
- http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade
  
  When what happened at Penn State goes worldwide, let me know. However, you are right. Most sexual abuse gets covered up by institutions- and families.
Sam Jelfs

I like the idea, but the actual work is bland, uninspiring and poorly executed… bit like most things ‘Banksy Ltd” churns out.
- Layne
  
  It’s still better than Wyland or a Thomas Kincaid.
http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

davidasposted: “So what would you say is the point of this piece of ‘satiric art’?”

To jump on a bandwagon late in the game.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  A work of art isn’t worthless because it address something that happened in the past. In addition, a work art of art isn’t worthless because it isn’t the first to comment on something that happened in the past.
  
  And you are even applying your invalid argument in a flawed way because the extent of the Catholic Church’s child rape coverup is ongoing news.
  
  Further, what would be wrong with “jumping on the bandwagon late in the game” in this case? Do you think everyone should just stop working on a problem because it’s persistent? I hope more and more artists jump on this particular bandwagon to help the church fix itself.
  - Ambiguity
    
    A work of art isn’t worthless because it address something that happened in the past. In addition, a work art of art isn’t worthless because it isn’t the first to comment on something that happened in the past.
    
    While this is true (and I happen to personally agree), if one is going to look at it within the context of modern art — where the concept and idea are often given precedence over execution — one has to admit that often being first is almost the only thing that matters.
    
    “Hmm. He may not be the first person doing big, silver sculptures of balloon-poodles, but his are so much better than anyone else’s!”
    
    I think this is pretty silly (all the more so because most of the avant garde are really just dada-wannabes, so they’re even failing by their own criteria), but it’s what we have today in the “art world.”
    - Mark_Frauenfelder
      
      I’m talking about whether or not it’s important for an artist to be the first to comment on a news or historical event, not the first to create a wholly original work of art.
      
      But if being first is the only thing that matters in modern art, then who was the first artist to glue bathroom tiles to a statue’s face?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Further, what would be wrong with “jumping on the bandwagon late in the game” in this case?
    
    Particularly since the bandwagon is still rolling down the street. When they park it permanently, we’ll stop jumping on it.
Layne

Not to say the Catholic church don’t deserve some justice, but is the problem really that we don’t *know* about the abuse at this point? Maybe the more difficult issue is why they haven’t been dragged from their offices and subjected to prosecution. Who bears the blame for that? Some people are still willing to rationalize any good the church does against the evil they struggle to obscure. Seems a bit of a stretch to call this a response to the abuse. It’s a clever piece – mashing up the pixelization effect with a piece of old art, but what’s the thematic tie-in to abuse?
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  “what’s the thematic tie-in to abuse?”
  
  It’s a symbol for the church’s cover-up.
http://twitter.com/nesnora nesnora

What about a cardinal lemon-party fresco? Too obvious?
tonbo

re: the idea that focusing on the catholic church ignores institutionalized sexual abuse… google “educator sexual misconduct a synthesis of existing literature” by the Dept. of Education, and the amount of children abused by teachers and school staff numbers seems to be in the single digit percentage points… OF MILLIONS OF STUDENTS IN THE U.S. “Only one study (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994) has examined school district response to allegations. This study is limited but documents that investigative skills of school administrators are poor. In many cases, no formal investigation was conducted. If a police investigation did occur, districts often failed to do their own reporting in terms of violations of district policy or Title IX requirements”

“In an early study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York, all of the accused had admitted to sexual abuse of a student but none of the abusers was reported to authorities and only 1 percent lost their license to teach (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994). All of the accused had admitted to physical sexual abuse of a student but only 35 percent received a negative consequence for their actions: 15 percent were terminated or, if not tenured, they were not rehired; and 20 percent received a formal reprimand or suspension. Another 25 percent received no consequence or were reprimanded informally and off-the-record. Nearly 39 percent chose to leave the district, most with positive recommendations or even retirement packages intact.”

Nope, no institutionalization here.
HenrikSundstrom

My associations on this piece of art has almost nothing at all to do with religion, but I like it (the piece) very much.

However, I would like to comment in saying I find it satisfying with news like this:
http://newsthump.com/2011/12/16/banksy-to-create-new-sculpture-of-dutch-priest-sodomising-children/
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_M7WXBMZAAOYLJGIJYWSMUN2EWA Greg

Of course there really WAS a Cardinal Sin. He was a political activist of some note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Sin