Can you hear the smugness of the editor and the publisher as they each defend besmirching and mocking Catholics?
A skimpy two-piece bathing suit, an overflowing bust, sunglasses and frosty margarita perched in her left hand.
Seems more like an apt description of a college girl in Cancún than an artistic depiction of a religious
icon, but this is exactly how one alternative weekly newspaper in New Mexico has portrayed the image of the famed Virgin of Guadalupe on the cover of its summer guide. The front page of The Santa Fe Reporter, which has the voluptuous virgin surrounded by a shirtless cowboy and a beer drinking hiker, has drawn the ire of a number of Catholics, who voiced their disapproval to the paper.
“If your intent was to in effect slap Catholics across the face, by putting forth this public depiction of Our Lady as a party girl, during the very week that we honor her as our patroness, then I can only say that from my perspective, you succeeded,” wrote the Rev. Adam Lee Ortega y Ortiz, the rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, in a letter to the editor. “I must voice my outrage and disgust at the decision to depict Our Lady of Guadalupe in such a demeaning manner. I am personally and professionally insulted by the cover.”
The icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe has become an important religious symbol in both Mexico and throughout the southwestern United States, especially among the region’s various Latino communities.
In response to the uproar, The Reporter’s editor Alexa Schirtzinger defended the paper’s choice in a blog post, saying that it “reflected not just the diversity of activities we would recommend readers pursue this summer, but also the diversity of our city.”
“As a staff, we developed a concept we thought would offer a different take on the city's cultural and extracurricular landscape,” Schirtzinger wrote. “Rather than creating rifts, we hope to foster an honest discussion about different interpretations of culture and the imagery that accompanies it.”
And if readers were wondering what type of margarita the cartoon virgin was drinking: "With all the uproar about the depiction of her drinking alcohol, clearly it was a virgin margarita," the Reporter's publisher Andy Dudzik told Fox News Latino.
"Rather than creating rifts, we hope to foster an honest discussion..."
What a complete crock of fecal matter.
If it's an honest discussion they seek, perhaps the Santa Fe Reporter can next courageously foster dialog about the differing interpretations of culture by drawing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in some demeaning and blasphemous way.
That would get them the attention they so clearly seek and would go along way toward reflecting the diversity of the city the Santa Fe Reporter pretends to represent.
Right?
Right.
H/T to Mr. Shea.
