Italian satirists target the Pope
They imitate Pope Benedict XVI’s German-accented Italian, poke fun at his secretary and even have the pontiff shooting pigeons in St Peter’s Square.
The pope and the Vatican have long been a favourite target in a country where satirists hold little sacred, but Italy’s Roman Catholic bishops and others now complain that the current crop of comedians is going too far.
“You can’t joke about the Vatican,” was the banner headline today in the left-wing daily L’Unita, which denounced a “crusade against satire” by Catholic media and conservative politicians.
“This is Catholic fundamentalism, a faithful mirror of certain Islamic fundamentalists who don’t want cartoons about Allah,” the paper wrote in an editorial, drawing comparisons to the uproar in the Muslim world by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Danish and other European newspapers earlier this year.
The popular comedian Fiorello imitates the pope’s secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, representing him as a hip, sporty and very vain prelate.
The comedian uses him to talk about the pope.
“He’s smoking like a Turk – three packs a day – to prepare for his upcoming trip to Turkey,” he had the secretary saying recently on his radio show, using the Italian expression for a chainsmoker.
The Maurizio Crozza satire on TV is stronger, with a hysterical pope shooting pigeons on his ledge over St Peter’s Square because they disturb “people who have work to do” or throwing burning candies to the “dear children” in the square.
Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference, said that Fiorello was “bravissimo, but even he has his off moments,” while it termed Crozza humour as “failed satire which is not without cowardice.”
Many commentators, both left and right, partially backed the criticism of the satire saying that Italian comedians attacking the church were picking on an easy target, while staying clear of references to Islam.
“It would be easy and rightful to champion free satire if only it were exercised impartially, in all directions,” the left-leaning daily La Repubblica wrote in an editorial.
“You can’t satirise one prophet and not the other, you can’t satirise Christ and spare, out of fear, Mohammed.”
“Between an Islamic religion that doesn’t accept even a cartoon and a Catholic one forced to feed the tired fantasies of humour there should be a middle way,” said the moderate daily Corriere della Sera.
The Vatican had no official comment, but Italian newspapers carried comments by the pope’s secretary dismissing the satire as “unacceptable” and insisting that Benedict never watched or listened to the programs.
