When Satirical Cartoons Push the Limit
Within the cut below, I have quoted an article that appeared in The Vatican's semiofficial newspaper, which proposed an examination of conscience on the question of freedom of speech, in the wake of violence linked to the publication of cartoons about Mohammed. This is obtained via the "Zenit.org" news service, which is available for free for whomever wishes to subscribe.
Please feel free to comment as you feel led.
L'Osservatore Romano stated that such an examination should include the media and all countries, explicitly a Spanish case, where a theatrical performance ridicules the Pope, threatens Catholics and incites to apostasy, and a television program that explained "how to cook a crucifix."
"Is it licit, in the name of freedom of thought, to wound the religious sentiments of those who belong to a given confession?" asks journalist Francesco Valiente, in the newspaper's Feb. 6-7 Italian edition.
"Where does the right of expression begin and where does offense to the inner convictions of others begin?" he continues. "What is the borderline between satire and derision, between wit and outrage, between irony and blasphemy?
"Different levels are mixed and sometimes confused in the question: the juridical and cultural, the ethical and deontological."
"There is no doubt," Valiente adds, "that the right to express one's thought and the right to freely profess a religion are fully entitled in the fundamental and inalienable human rights recognized universally" for the past 60 years by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
At the same time, "there is no doubt that every genuine expression of the first of these rights meets with a natural -- to describe it in some way -- limit in the full and integral realization of the second," adds the author.
Satire
"Should not the much-trumpeted 'secularism' of modern society find one of its cardinal points of reference precisely in understanding and respect for the 'other's' convictions, even if they are different and antithetical to one's own?" he asks.
The article defines the pedagogic and moral function of satire with the ancient Latin adage "castigat ridendo mores" (castigate customs laughing).
The text praises satire, for example, "when it has lashed out at evil customs and denounced the injustices of every age, unmasking the idolatry of the 'powerful,' depriving it of that sacred and artful halo which often concealed vices and corruption."
But this, the author adds, has nothing to do with "low, 'sacrilegious' whims. When its target is the values and symbols of religion, of the sacred in the absolute and indefectible sense, it inevitably loses its nature and function," Valiente adds.
"Being deprived of any critical and educational objective, it becomes mere rage. It is transformed into gratuitous vulgarity," he notes.
And in the case of the Mohammed cartoons or blasphemies against the crucifix in Spain, "the artistic and cultural or simply 'satirical' value is not clear," asserts the Vatican newspaper.
The article ends by stating that what happened in Spain does not seem "to have aroused particular contempt in public opinion. However, between the excesses of the media noise and condescending silence, remains offended dignity, the wounded conscience."
ZE06020720
email this article:
http://www.zenit.org/english/send_friend/index.phtml?sid=84111
Please feel free to comment as you feel led.
L'Osservatore Romano stated that such an examination should include the media and all countries, explicitly a Spanish case, where a theatrical performance ridicules the Pope, threatens Catholics and incites to apostasy, and a television program that explained "how to cook a crucifix."
"Is it licit, in the name of freedom of thought, to wound the religious sentiments of those who belong to a given confession?" asks journalist Francesco Valiente, in the newspaper's Feb. 6-7 Italian edition.
"Where does the right of expression begin and where does offense to the inner convictions of others begin?" he continues. "What is the borderline between satire and derision, between wit and outrage, between irony and blasphemy?
"Different levels are mixed and sometimes confused in the question: the juridical and cultural, the ethical and deontological."
"There is no doubt," Valiente adds, "that the right to express one's thought and the right to freely profess a religion are fully entitled in the fundamental and inalienable human rights recognized universally" for the past 60 years by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
At the same time, "there is no doubt that every genuine expression of the first of these rights meets with a natural -- to describe it in some way -- limit in the full and integral realization of the second," adds the author.
Satire
"Should not the much-trumpeted 'secularism' of modern society find one of its cardinal points of reference precisely in understanding and respect for the 'other's' convictions, even if they are different and antithetical to one's own?" he asks.
The article defines the pedagogic and moral function of satire with the ancient Latin adage "castigat ridendo mores" (castigate customs laughing).
The text praises satire, for example, "when it has lashed out at evil customs and denounced the injustices of every age, unmasking the idolatry of the 'powerful,' depriving it of that sacred and artful halo which often concealed vices and corruption."
But this, the author adds, has nothing to do with "low, 'sacrilegious' whims. When its target is the values and symbols of religion, of the sacred in the absolute and indefectible sense, it inevitably loses its nature and function," Valiente adds.
"Being deprived of any critical and educational objective, it becomes mere rage. It is transformed into gratuitous vulgarity," he notes.
And in the case of the Mohammed cartoons or blasphemies against the crucifix in Spain, "the artistic and cultural or simply 'satirical' value is not clear," asserts the Vatican newspaper.
The article ends by stating that what happened in Spain does not seem "to have aroused particular contempt in public opinion. However, between the excesses of the media noise and condescending silence, remains offended dignity, the wounded conscience."
ZE06020720
email this article:
http://www.zenit.org/english/send_friend/index.phtml?sid=84111