Pope Francis has once again stunned Catholics as he welcomed photographer Andres Serrano to the Vatican.
Serrano is the creator of the controversial “Piss Christ,” in which he submerged a model of Jesus Christ on the crucifix in his own urine.
Pope Francis welcomed 200 artists to the Sistine Chapel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vatican’s collection of contemporary art.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation; I am happy to be with you, because the Church has always had a relationship with artists that can be described as both natural and special,” the pontiff told the artists, including Serrano. “A natural friendship, because artists take seriously the richness of human existence, of our lives and the life of the world, including its contradictions and its tragic aspects. This richness risks disappearing from the view of the many specialized disciplines that respond to immediate needs, but find it difficult to view life as a polyhedron, a complex and multifaceted reality.”
Breitbart News reports, “When ‘Piss Christ’ was exhibited in 1989, some 50 U.S. senators and 150 representatives complained that the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) had financed the exhibition and the NEA’s budget was eventually cut as a result.”