Papal Kiss

I’m outraged! Benetton put out an ad featuring the Pope kissing the imam of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. I’m outraged … that they pulled it … after one day. Now, I must confess I’m not sure how showing the Pope kissing an imam helps sell anything, but I love it. I love it because it challenges good taste and religious sensibilities at the same time. I’m not against religion … not at all actually. I am, however, against people who put too much importance in religious symbols and leaders and rules, and not enough importance in core principles and their interaction with the real world we all live in. Doctoring a picture to have the Pope kiss an Imam is a wonderful affront to those whose focus is in the wrong place. Pulling it after one day is an affront to good sense and intelligence. Did Benetton not think people would get upset? Really? They aren’t new to controversy and people have been targeted for assassination for far less. What happened in that first day that they didn’t think would happen? Benetton officials have said that the theme of the campaign, which features the locked lips of prominent folks normally thought of as something other than friends or allies, is love between world leaders. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe they thought that all religious people operate on the premise that love is important. Love, however, isn’t easily penned in by rules, many of them hundreds, even thousands, of years old. It doesn’t stay confined by original intent. It’s heavily circumstantial … contextual. It even has a bit of a logic … and if you believe that the world was created in six days that might be a problem. If you believe that God strikes down people who fall in love with other people, then that might be a problem. It might even be outrageous.