Vatican removes controversial image from council website

The Vatican has removed the controversial Venus Restored (1936) by Surrealist artist Man Ray from the website of its Pontifical Council for Culture. The image, a plaster cast of a nude torso - with no head or face, no arms and no legs - tightly bound with rope, was intended to draw attention to its annual plenary assembly on Women's Culture: Equality and Difference. It succeeded more than expected.

The assembly took place last month, between February 4th and 7th.

The image provoked international outrage from Catholic women's groups in particular, who saw it as reflecting what Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests says is "the Vatican's patriarchal, dysfunctional view that holds women in spiritual bondage".

“This image denigrates women’s bodies and souls and reflects a deep misogyny in need of healing and transformation.”

‘Endorses male fantasy’

Writing in The Irish Times, Soline Humbert of the We Are Church Ireland group said the image "endorses and perpetuates what it depicts: a male fantasy of power over women".

Ms Humbert said it was “a perversion of the Gospel that this headless dismembered bondage female image represents women”.

On Valentine’s Day Ms Humbert and others took part in a protest over the image at the papal nunciature on Dublin’s Navan Road.

However, despite such protests, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, decided not to remove the image.

“It speaks clearly for one of the central points of the document: many women, alas, are still struggling for freedom . . . their voices and intellect often unheard . . . their actions unappreciated,” the cardinal said.

The new image on the council's website for last month's assembly is The Sacred Hour [First version] (1907) by Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. It depicts four ladies sitting demurely.

Ms Humbert commented to The Irish Times that “Venus Restored is now Venus Removed . . . ”