- will NOT come back if he melts
I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the chocolate Jesus controversy. A world-renowned artist, who most of us have never heard of named Cosimo Cavallaro, created a sculpture of Jesus on an invisible cross that he was to put on public display in New York City. It’s made entirely out of milk chocolate. 200 pounds worth. If you were to eat it, not that anyone actually would, you would consume 485,460 calories. However, it’s not the weight or the calories that people seem to be upset about. Many people don’t like the sculpture because; well they really don’t seem to know why. They just don’t.
Cardinal Edward Egan of the Archdiocese of New York described it as “a sickening display” in what we can only assume was a tribute to mothers everywhere who have been giving a similar speech to their young children about over-consumption of candy since the Easter Bunny first showed up with all of those baskets. Yes, Cardinal Egan, it would be a sickening display, but only if you ate too much of it. In an even more ridiculous over statement, Bill Donohue, who is the leader of the Catholic League, an organization that, according to my research (which consists mainly of making things up) is sort of a religious Justice League*, called the sculpture “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” In rebuttal, Justice League spokesperson Superman called Mr. Donohue’s statement “one of the worst assaults on human intelligence, ever.”
The art gallery that was scheduled to display the chocolate Jesus, which is formally titled, “My Sweet Lord” has been swamped with angry phone calls and emails from outraged Christians, some of who threatened the life of the artist. Apparently, the Catholic League had no comment about whether or not death threats are any kind of assault on Christian sensibilities.
Superman said it might be.
Now, it could be that Cosimo Cavallaro’s reputation plays a part in how people perceive his work and in trying to figure out if he is showing proper respect to Jesus and His followers. The truth is, Cavallaro’s previous work has been somewhat odd. He covered a New York City hotel room in mozzarella cheese, covered a house with five tons of pepper jack cheese and decorated a bed with 312 pounds of processed ham. O.K., so maybe he doesn’t show the proper respect for hotels or homes or beds, but the chocolate Jesus actually looks pretty good (and not in a tasty way). It’s a serious sculpture. There are no bunny ears sticking out of Christ’s head. He’s not holding an Easter basket and he’s not smiling. The thing that seems to have Cavallaro’s detractors upset is his choice of medium. “My Sweet Lord” is made out of chocolate, which I should point out, is a universally loved confection, unlike plaster, marble or steel, which is what most other sculptures of Jesus are made of. I think that depicting Christ in a substance almost everyone associates with enjoyment and pleasure and happiness is more fitting than a material that is hard, inflexible and nowhere near as attractive. Also remember, it could have been worse. Just think, what would Processed Ham Jesus look like?
*The Justice League is a fictional group of superheroes, which includes Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and others.