VATICAN CITY
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
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”.
s women’s bodies and souls and reflects a deep misogyny in need of healing and transformation.”
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