RTE apologizes for comedy sketch depicting God as a rapist

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/03/irish-state-broadcaster-apologises-over-tv-comedy-depicting-god-as-rapist

Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTÉ, has apologised after an outcry over a television comedy sketch that depicted God as a rapist.

A countdown show on New Year’s Eve included a mock news report about God being the latest prominent figure implicated in a sexual harassment scandal.

“The 5bn-year-old stood accused of forcing himself on a young Middle Eastern migrant and allegedly impregnating her against her will, before being sentenced to two years in prison, with the last 24 months suspended,” said the newsreader. “Following the news, movie producer Harvey Weinstein requested a retrial in Ireland.”

The 23-second segment by Waterford Whispers News, a satirical news website, prompted more than 1,000 complaints to RTÉ and condemnation by Ireland’s Catholic primate archbishop, Eamon Martin.

...

In a statement, RTÉ apologised and said it would respond to complaints according to statutory rules. It did not promise to remove the sketch from the RTÉ Player.

[CumbrianLefty]

"It did not promise to remove the sketch from the RTE Player" - good.

[brucejoel99]

Well, it's not like Mary had a choice.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Zeus was a rapist!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well, it's not like Mary had a choice.

Yes, she did. See Homily "In Praise of the Virgin Mother" by St. Bernard of Clairvaux; Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium §56.

I'm normally pretty relaxed about religion-related jokes, but misperceptions of this particular point really bother me, especially since this is fundamentally a crass "lol isn't rape a hoot?" joke dressed up in woke anticlerical garb. Reading the article linked in the OP made me sick to my stomach, and that doesn't often happen with dumb jokes about my religion.

[John Dule]

The guy literally killed every person on Earth except for one boat and here we are in 2021 acting like not getting consent was the worst thing he did. Clown world.

[afleitch]

The guy literally killed every person on Earth except for one boat and here we are in 2021 acting like not getting consent was the worst thing he did. Clown world.

That's not an unfair point even if it is rather...pointed.

Well, it's not like Mary had a choice.

Yes, she did. See Homily "In Praise of the Virgin Mother" by St. Bernard of Clairvaux; Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium §56.

I'm normally pretty relaxed about religion-related jokes, but misperceptions of this particular point really bother me, especially since this is fundamentally a crass "lol isn't rape a hoot?" joke dressed up in woke anticlerical garb. Reading the article linked in the OP made me sick to my stomach, and that doesn't often happen with dumb jokes about my religion.

I know that homily and having re-read it with, 'think of Abraham and David', forget your modesty, don't delay and 'open your womb to the Creator' is actually quite jarring having read it again with it's coercive language and makes me wonder why you chose that, 'plea' to make the point for you. If you read it the way others might read it you'll see why.

I understand why you are defensive on this issue; you should be. But issues of consent, leaving potential age aside, with what we know about power and choice and coercion if Christian tenets are of serious study and reflection then this is too.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The guy literally killed every person on Earth except for one boat and here we are in 2021 acting like not getting consent was the worst thing he did. Clown world.

If you're going to get hung up on treating myth as reality, consider that many people who drowned in the flood still lived far longer than anyone living today will live.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The guy literally killed every person on Earth except for one boat and here we are in 2021 acting like not getting consent was the worst thing he did. Clown world.

If you're going to get hung up on treating myth as reality, consider that many people who drowned in the flood still lived far longer than anyone living today will live.

Not to carry water for Dule on a religious subject, but this is a "those nursing home COVID deaths were old and sick already"-tier weaksauce rejoinder.

Andrew, I'll respond to your post in a bit; I'd like to reread the homily myself first because I remember getting the exact opposite impression of the power dynamics from Bernard's language but it's been several years.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The guy literally killed every person on Earth except for one boat and here we are in 2021 acting like not getting consent was the worst thing he did. Clown world.

If you're going to get hung up on treating myth as reality, consider that many people who drowned in the flood still lived far longer than anyone living today will live.

Not to carry water for Dule on a religious subject, but this is a "those nursing home COVID deaths were old and sick already"-tier weaksauce rejoinder.

Perhaps, save that if you're going to treat the Genesis mythology as literal and accurate history, then all those men and women who were drowned in the flood deserved it since all save Noah were corrupt, whereas there certainly have been righteous souls since those days that have been condemned to at most 120 earthly years.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So, I reread the Bernard of Clairvaux sermon and I understand afleitch's point against it, but I think there are two relationships going on in it, the relationship between Mary and God and the relationship between Mary and "nature" (Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem...afleitch of course as an ex-trad-aesthete will be familiar with this line!). God in this homily actually seems more concerned with her consent/assent/fiat/whatever than "nature" does; if anybody's pressuring her here, it's creation, not the Creator. I ran this take by a close friend of mine who is a devout Catholic and a rape survivor and she had substantially the same perspective on it; if she had not, I would have bowed out of this thread.

Regardless, we're discussing if Mary had a choice, not how Christian tradition feels about how she exercised that choice, and the answer to that question from both St. Bernard and the Vatican II document is unambiguously in the affirmative. How that "yes" is interpreted in the tradition is a much, much more complicated (and, yes, upsetting) question--believe me, I've sifted through more than my fair share of godawful rape-culture-y takes on it, including from female theologians like Adrienne von Speyr. I could write a whole book on my thoughts on her sh**t-tier Mariology (literally, when I wrote a paper on it in grad school the professor who graded it suggested I expand it into a book).

[afleitch]

As I've mentioned a few times in the past I think, before I exited Christianity I had moved towards an adoptionist position, so the Annunciation for me even as a non believer, is not something that I consider the early Christian community to have subscribed to.

What troubled me then, was the issue of consent in that transaction simply because of the work I was doing in my job in criminal justice at the time.

All we really have is a small passage in Luke. Here Mary is 'troubled' at the most or 'confused' at the least (διεταράχθη) by the angel, and after his platitudes that she shouldn't be afraid (which is more than Zechariah got when he questioned ) she still states in shock that what the angel has said cannot be as she has never 'known a man' then after further explanation, that this child would be the Son of God and most importantly saying that Elizabeth was in her six month of pregnancy (I'll come back to that) she then 'affirms'. But at no point does she say she is no longer troubled, afraid or confused. And that I think that's important.

This is followed of course by the Magnificat which, you probably know by now, is decidedly Marian but unlikely to have been said in that measure by Mary given it's structure and mirroring of similar 'songs' in that tradition.

Do I think Mary consented? No. Do I think in a position where she had not yet overcome her fear, then being told of Elizabeth and her six month unborn child and mindful of her very Jewish experience of the Nature of god that it wouldn't exactly alleviate that fear that she was freely consenting? No.

So even the power dynamic and potential age issue to one side, I don't think there was consent. It doesn't matter to me (of course) but there we are.

As you touched upon, some radical Christians have made the case that it wasn't consensual and it was the last callous act of non incarnate god, and if anything adds to the story and burdens of both Jesus and Mary. While I'm not sure I'd go that far theologically (simply because at the time I didn't have to) I do admire the attempt to confront it and reframe it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As you touched upon, some radical Christians have made the case that it wasn't consensual and it was the last callous act of non incarnate god, and if anything adds to the story and burdens of both Jesus and Mary. While I'm not sure I'd go that far theologically (simply because at the time I didn't have to) I do admire the attempt to confront it and reframe it.

Oh, von Speyr's treatment of the subject is significantly worse than that. You would hate it as much as I do.

I'm going to respond to the rest of your post with the observation that it relies on a reading of Luke 1 and 2 that's at once both very historical-critical-minded and yet (so to speak) "textualist", and that isn't my preferred hermeneutic for looking at scripture at all. But I'm responding with a glib observation not because I don't respect your position (I do, much more than that of the tiresome edgelords this thread is about), but just because the spirits in which we're approaching this side of the question are incommensurable.

[Samof94]

Zeus was a rapist!

He disguised himself as animals to do it.