The recent publication of controversial cartoons in the UVa student-run newspaper, The Cavalier Daily has caused an outrage by members of the Catholic community. The cartoons were published in the Aug. 23 and Aug. 24 issues of the paper.
The cartoon published on Aug. 23 entitled ?Christ on a Cartesian Coordinate Plane? depicts Jesus being crucified on grid.
Two similar cartoons were published in the Aug. 24 paper. The first one entitled ?A Nativity OB-scene? shows Joseph asking Mary, ?? how did you get that bumpy rash?? Mary?s reply is, ?I swear it was immaculately transmitted!?
The second cartoon published on Aug. 24 displays a woman calling for Jesus to help her from a car on the highway and him coming to her rescue. In the last panel the two are in the line for heaven, and the woman is chastising Jesus for presumably wrecking. Jesus? response to her is, ?B****, I ain?t never drove!?
The Catholic League, the nation?s largest Catholic civil rights organization whose functions involve defending Catholicism against assaults from the media, demanded an apology from the newspaper. ?We were informed by a student at UVa about these cartoons. We checked on it to see if it was typical of The Cavalier Daily to publish these kinds of comments that they deemed innocuous,? said Kiera McCaffrey, a spokesperson for the Catholic League.
The Cavalier Daily refused to issue an apology, stating that the cartoons were allowable under the newspapers guidelines. The policy at The Cavalier Daily is that the satire of religion and other such beliefs is allowed.
?We implemented this policy on April 24 so that we could have consistent standards on what we would publish and what could be censored,? said Michael Slaven, the editor in chief of The Cavalier Daily. ?These cartoons did not violate this policy so we did not issue an apology.?
McCaffrey however, said the newspapers actions do not show consistency.
?The Cavalier Daily stated that their policy allowed satire of religious beliefs. However, the newspaper apologized for a cartoon published in Feb. depicting Buddha and Muhammad along with Jesus. We believe that the main reason the paper apologized for that cartoon was the depictions of Muhammad. This paper claims to be about equal opportunities, but clearly has no problem taking shots against Christians while apologizing for those against other religious beliefs,? McCaffrey said.
Slaven explained, however, that, ?the previous cartoons were apologized for because they were published before our new policy was adapted.?
?We understand the controversy about the publication of the cartoons about which many have written to us over the past week. As an academic community founded by Thomas Jefferson, we also must uphold freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press,? said Carolyn Wood, assistant vice president for UVa university relations.
The cartoons have drawn mixed opinions from UVa students.
?I think that the newspaper has the right to put in whatever they want, but they need to use good judgment,? said Ryan Kelley, a freshman at the university. ?The paper shouldn?t be censored, but they shouldn?t put in things that are in poor taste.?
As a response to the controversy, Wood explained that, ?(the editors) have written a news story about the issue and have printed, and plan to continue to print, letters to the editor in an effort to give voice to opposing opinions.?
