Oliviero Toscani convicted of contempt of religion. He had compared the church to an S&M club

He will have to pay four thousand euros in fines to photographer Oliviero Toscani: following some of his statements on the radio program La Zanzara, on May 2, 2014, he had been sued by some Catholic associations, to which the judge agreed, convicting Toscani for vilification of religion. The photographer had expressed himself in very colorful tones about religion, saying that entering a church one sees “one nailed to the cross, an altar with naked children flying, that other one bleeding, there is something for everyone,” and that therefore “the Church looks like an S&M club.” And again, for Toscani the Vatican is “the largest homosexual organization and the largest macho association in the world,” and John Paul II had been branded as a pope who “made disasters” because of his opposition to condoms.

The photographer, however, does not stand for this and announces that he will appeal “to the Constitutional Court and also to the European Court,” as he declared in an interview in Repubblica, “in the name of freedom of opinion.” “I am secular, I am a photographer,” he said in the interview. “In that broadcast I simply told the impression that it would make to a Martian, and therefore to someone who does not have our cultural elements to understand, to enter a Baroque church with all that blood, the pierced saints, the naked angels, a man nailed to the cross. It was an aesthetic discourse but from what I read in the judgment I don’t have the skills to judge not having a degree in philosophy, religion or art history.”

Toscani also reiterated his position, “to an extraterrestrial that place full of statues of wounded and bleeding people would have looked like a masochists’ club. Those are strong words, but that was a provocative broadcast, terms, concepts must be framed in the context, in this case aesthetic, and place in which they are used.” The photographer, however, also said he has very good relations with the friars of Assisi and with Cardinal Ravasi, and that he also participates in meetings with Church representatives: “confrontation interests me,” Toscani said, while firmly affirming his secularism.

Oliviero Toscani convicted of contempt of religion. He had compared the church to an S&M club

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