Das Popen is pissed at this!!!!

Mein Gott! They are mocking my invisible man!!!!! Take it down!!!!

But the Museum said, NEIN herren! No way!

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian museum Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition.

The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 meter 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Called "Zuerst die Fuesse," (Feet First), it wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

Kippenberger's works have been shown at the Tate Modern and the Saatchi Gallery in London and at the Venice Biennale, and retrospectives are planned in Los Angeles and New York.

Museum officials in the northern bi-lingual Alto Adige region near the Austrian border said the artist, who died in 1997, considered it a self-portrait illustrating human angst.

Pope Benedict, who is German himself and was recently on holiday not far from Bolzano, obviously did not agree.

The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl, president of the regional government who opposed the sculpture. Pahl released parts of the letter, which said the work "wounds the religious sentiments of so many people who see in the cross the symbol of God's love."

Pahl, whose province is heavily Catholic, was so outraged by the sculpture of the pop-eyed amphibian that he went on a hunger strike to demand its removal and had to be taken to hospital during the summer.

"Surely this is not a work of art but a blasphemy and a disgusting piece of trash that upsets many people," Pahl told Reuters by telephone.

"This decision to keep the statue there is is totally unacceptable. It is a grave offence to our Catholic population," he said.

"Art must always be free and the artist should not have any restrictions on freedom of expression," Claudio Strinati, a superintendent for Rome's state museums, told an Italian newspaper Thursday.

After hundred of years harassing and killing people that didn't think like them, the Catholic Church has no business anymore telling people what to do with their lives.
Go worship your invisible man in peace and leave the rest of us alone!
I think the sculpture is funny as heck!

Contest is CANCELLED!

I knew it was too good to be true!

Priest cancels nun beauty contest

An Italian priest who said he wanted to hold the world's first beauty contest for nuns has decided to cancel the project, saying he was misunderstood.

Antonio Rungi said he had never intended to put sisters on the catwalk, but had wanted to erase a stereotype of them as being old and dour.

He had wanted to hold the contest online on his internet blog.

Father Rungi said he changed his mind after the local religious authorities expressed their displeasure.

"My superiors were not happy. The local bishop was not happy, but they did not understand me either," Father Rungi told Reuters news agency from the town of Mondragone, near Naples.

"It was interpreted as more of a physical thing," he said. "Now, no one is saying that nuns can't be beautiful, but I was thinking about something more complete."

He said he had intended to showcase the good works that nuns do, especially in education and health care, so as to boost interest in religious vocations.

"We have to draw more attention to the world of nuns, who are often not sufficiently appreciated by society," he wrote in his blog.

"Nuns are - above all - women, and beauty is a gift from God," he told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper before he cancelled the project.

He had wanted nuns to send their photos to him, so that internet users could then choose the winner.

Father Rungi said the idea of the contest had been put to him by nuns themselves.

This happened because there was no swimsuit portion of the contest!

Image courtesy of The Redbarn Theater.

Man falls while praying, sues church for 2.5 million dollars

Seriously...I'm not making this up.

Quoth AP...

"A man has filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against Lakewind Church of Knoxville, Tennessee for failing to have catchers available during a church service. According to the lawsuit, Matthew Lincoln, a 58-year old recording engineer, was slain in the Spirit when touched on the forehead by a visiting preacher named Robert Lavala. Lincoln claims that the fall aggravated a degenerative disc condition that he had had in his neck and back.

The lawsuit claims that Lakewind negligently failed to provide catchers when it knew or should have known to do so."

Hallelujah brothers!!! Praise the Lord and pass the bucket!!! I want some money, Lord!!!!!