Pope Censorship A Drag

Pope Benedict XVI will not be making an appearance at Milan-based Palazzo della Ragione’s Art and Homosexuality exhibit.

The Catholic Anti-Defamation League raised such a holy stink over sculptor Paolo Schmidlin’s “Miss Kitty” that curator Eugenio Viola had to remove the piece, postpone the show by three days and print new catalogs. “It was made clear to us that it would be better to remove the pieces,” he says.

The League described the sculpture – which features a tit-touching Benny in a stole, a blindfold and a loincloth – as a “vulgar offense against Christ’s vicar and the feelings of Roman Catholics”. They also objected to another piece showing Premier Roman Prodi chatting with a transvestite whose face had been replaced by Jesus Christ’s.

Don’t worry about Mr. Schmidlin, though, Italian television personality and politico Vittorio Sgarbi already bought “Miss Kitty”. He’s a braver man that we – the idea of a half-naked Benedict – even a replication – scares us something awful.

Here are some of the other images from the Art and Homosexuality show, which runs through September 16th. See the entire gallery here.