The Church was indignant, and rightly so - to them, the exhibit was blasphemous worthy of condemnation which could only be tempered by burning the artist at stake. There were religious zealots echoing the stand of the church.
But seriously, in this land were CCT gets 20B in government fund couldn't care more. Even if the church informs them, they would not care. Art. Blasphemy. Sacrilege. These are all greek to them. In fact, it didn't made such an impact like when the public got wind of the "com-pajero" bishops.
But why did CCP budge? They should have been shielded with all these indignation. Art.not art. It was in a gallery, where people may or may not go. Was it ministerial for them to display the work? Was there a prior restraint, in effect, should there be a censors group to check if the material to be displayed would shock the sensibilities of the good members of the society?
If it was tasteless, then don't go.
If it was sacrilege, shouldn't the bishops pray over the artist to exorcise him of the demon that guided the former's idle hands?
The bottomline is - the artist did not coerce anybody to go and salivate over his artwork. So there's your freedom of expression- if you don't like sacrilege - don't go.
UPDATE: interesting that no less the Pnoy himself has argued that CCP is government owned, hence funded with government money; thus, it cannot offend the religious feelings of the 80%+ Catholics. Also funny is how they make an analogy at how Muslims would react if it were Allah's or Mohamed's image.
LESSON: We cannot appreciate the beautiful if we don't know what's ugly. We cannot fully appreciate what's godly if we don't know what's stygian. It's more admirable if the so-pure-very-celebate priests and nuns and the very-gad-loving-never-been-chismosas of the church would make that exhibit as their example of what not to do, and explain why.
