The Vatican took 400 years to absolve Galileo for his outrageous Earth revolving around the sun claim and this week L’Observatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, has forgiven John Lennon for his “Beatles are bigger than Jesus" quip and it took just 40 years. With such an obvious display of progress in the Catholic Church, maybe it’s time to give some other blasphemers a little Christian forgiveness?
Vanessa Redgrave: Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils depicts sex-crazed nuns, tibia bone masturbation and the sexual assault of a statue of Christ — blasphemous images that caused the film’s stars to be threatened with Italian jail-time. But give Redgrave a break; she claims to be on a neo-Nazi hit-list.
Monty Python: The Life of Brian made a heavenly host of clergymen hot under their dog collars but at least the British comedy troupe brought the varied denominations of Christianity together. Ireland, Norway and err… Devon banned the film.
Andres Serrano: All it took for artist Serrano to cause a scandal was to submerge a plastic crucifix in a glass of his own urine. Still, after affronting the powers that be, Serrano’s Piss Christ went on to win a National Endowment for the Arts award in 1989.
Gerard Reve: Dutch author Reve was prosecuted for writing about making love to God in the re-incarnated form of a three year-old donkey. He later escaped the wrath of God’s earthbound authorities and the WSPA.
Martin Scorsese: Outraged Christians bayed for the blood of Scorsese when Christ was shown to have a less than platonic relationship with Mary Magdalene in the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. But surely the greater sin was the casting of David Bowie in the role of Pontius Pilate?
Sinéad O'Connor: When O’Conner shredded a photograph of Pope John Paul II on SNL in 1992, actor Joe Pesci commented that if he had hosted the show he would have given her “such a smack.” Coming from a man who has used baseball bats, vises and fountain pens as instruments of torture (on film), the fury of The Lord pales into insignificance.