… a letter to the editor in the Plain Dealer yesterday complained about the disrespect shown to Catholics by the Non Sequitur cartoon strip by Wiley that had appeared the previous Wednesday. The letter began:
I thought the mass media were in agreement that insults based on race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation or creed have no place in civil discourse. Apparently, the creator of the comic strip “Non Sequitur” believes the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics don’t deserve such consideration.
I read the cartoon page religiously (hah!) and never miss that particular strip and could not recall anything that was particularly outrageous. So I went back and looked and here it is.
The strip is amusing but seems pretty tame to me when it comes to offending religious sensibilities. Wiley is adopting the familiar comic trope of reversing conventional wisdom, this time in the context of the Catholic church’s leadership being old and male. Furthermore, this kind of delusional grandiosity is typical of the Danae character who believes that not just the Catholic church but the whole world should listen to her.
This one part of a series of five strips based on Danae’s ambition to be the next pope and you can see them all beginning here.
If they’re upset about this, then apparently the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics haven’t read Matthew 5:10-12.
How dare you question the gravitas of the head honcho of the world’s most prominent tax dodgers club? I will sic a loose canon onto you for that.
Think that they’d find this character wanting to be the pope.at all offensive?
Sounds like the mentality behind the anti-blasphemy law proposals. While individuals may deserve respect, ideas do not -- particularly if they are deserving of ridicule. Bad ideas deserve to be treated as such. Criticizing them is not a hate crime.
The religious think respect is a one way street, and they get to drive a steamroller.