So after I posted the last entry & finished watching American Idol meditated on the Vedas, who should show up on my TV but William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League, in full fulmination against the blasphemer Kanye West.  West's Rolling Stone cover is "pornography," spat Donohue, and he should not be allowed to curse God by "appropriating" the image of Jesus for a deviant hip-hop agenda. 

So let's get this straight.  A couple years ago Donohue denounced criticism of Mel Gibson's Passion movie as "sheer demogoguery," but once an African-American musician dons the thorns once worn by Jim Cavaziel the imitation of Christ becomes satanic porn.

OK, got it.  But in the interests of doing onto others what you would have them do to you (now where have I heard that before?), it might be good for Christ's defenders to think that maybe, possibly, it just might be that Kanye devoutly believes in the spiritual union of the believers and Christ in Jesus' suffering for humanity. 

Folks might also want to recall the iconography associated with the Church, such as . . .

the Pope, whose triregnum, or three-level tiara, has long been condemned by reformation-minded Protestants as an arrogant, materialistic and blasphemous appropriation of the Holy Trinity, and

tradtional Catholic saints.  Catherine of Sienna, for example, is here depicted wearing her trademark crown of thorns, as she has a vision of the infant Christ giving her a ring as His mystical bride.

Which, um, also goes to show that there are some religious symbols you don't want to spend too much time trying to understand.  Calling Reverend Freud!