I am Proud to be a Catholic

“Because zeal for your house consumes me, I am scorned by those who scorn you.

I have wept and fasted, but this led only to scorn.” Psalm 69

This blog entry is in defense of my faith.  I don’t have any high opinions about my writing abilities, especially when it comes to spiritual matters.  At the very least, though, I hope that by putting these words out there, someone, somewhere might read them and understand. 

I don’t know why supermodel Joanna Krupa would claim to be doing something any good Catholic should do, when she posed completely nude for a PETA advertisement, with only a cross covering her essential body parts.  I don’t know how she, as a “proud Catholic” could possibly make a decision to use a rosary in another PETA ad, in which she is topless.  How much pain must it cause our pure Mother Mary, to see her gift to us used in such a fashion?  The representation of the cross, the rosary, these are indeed gifts to us, to help us keep our feeble human minds focused on attaining heaven.  They are not cheap tricks, to catch the eye and make more believable the cause of these crude pictures.  They are gifts.  We as Catholics, which apparently includes Ms. Krupa, should be treating these symbols of a cross and a rosary with the most precious of care.  They should instill in us a desire for Christ, for the sanctity of the saints.  Instead, they are used.  Used to promote a cause that, while absolutely worthwhile in and of itself, is cheapened by the tawdry means to which it resorts.  Animal cruelty is terrible, I know.  But what is frustrating to me is the way this woman tries to defend her actions, saying “But I, like many, see no clash or contradiction between a partially nude body and a cross.”   (Let me just point out- I cannot even tell if she is using a cross or a crucifix in this picture.  There is no clearly defined body on the cross that she is holding (maybe because her hands are covering it?).  However, it’s being referred to as a crucifix in almost every article I have read about it.  So let’s take it from that standpoint.)  First of all, this is a strange statement to make for a Catholic.  Is she trying to say that since there is a body only partially clothed on the crucifix, then that makes her ad okay?  It’s strange, because she is not partially clothed.  She is nude.  The crucifix is her covering.  Secondly, as Catholics, we should not be viewing a crucifix as a cross with a partially clothed body on it.  When we look at that body, are we really supposed to be noticing the clothes in that manner?  The idea of the crucifix is to REMEMBER.  Remember who that body is.  It is Christ, the Son of God, come down to earth to suffer and to die for our sin.  The point is to look at that crucifix and UNDERSTAND.  Understand exactly what transpired that day.  The heart of Jesus was pierced.  His body was broken.  A crucifix is an icon for Catholics of Good Friday, when the Lord God allowed His Son to be killed.  For us.  For US! 

And this woman is using this symbol to emphasize her sexual appearance.

Another quote from her that filled me with sadness is about the very nature of being nude.   Earlier this year, Krupa defended nudity by saying the human body is a work of art. “I think worrying about going topless in a photo shoot or film is really ridiculous,” she told Fox News. “And the fact is, Pope John Paul said, since we were born naked, it is art, and it’s just showing a beautiful body that God created.”

Here is an excerpt from the article in which there is a better explanation of the poor misquoted late Pope John Paul than I could ever write:

Krupa’s suggestion that the late Pope John Paul II endorsed photographs of half-naked women because they depict “a beautiful body that God created” is simply wrong,” said Joan Frawley Desmond, a Catholic journalist who studied at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.

Desmond added, “For the Pope, the human body has been created by God as a priceless ‘gift’ of one spouse to another. Great art respects this ‘truth’ and treats the naked human form with dignity. In contrast, the casual display of the naked body transforms this inestimable ‘gift’ into ‘public property.’”

Let’s just be straight here, Joanna.  Let’s tell the truth.  You are not glorifying a naked body in this photo.  You are naked because you are a sex symbol and PETA, being not completely idiotic, knows that in today’s culture, sex sells.  There is no dignity in your nakedness here. There is no art.  You are nude, most likely photoshopped, and selling a sexual image to get your ad across.  The fact that you are doing so using Catholic articles is just another highlight of how little you understand your professed faith.

There are a few other quotes I could address, like the one about how the Church should be working to save helpless, defenseless animals (Sorry dear, we’re too busy working for helpless, defenseless babies.  You know, the human kind?), but I really don’t want to make this a mercilessly long entry.  Maybe I will talk about them in another entry at a later time.  I don’t know why this affected me so badly, when there are countless other slurs occurring against the Church as well.  Maybe it’s because she is a model, and I love fashion?  Maybe it’s because I get passionate about my faith?  I don’t know.  I have a feeling I am not done writing about this.  It is still burning in my soul.  I am praying for Joanna and for all the people out there who might read her words and thusly misjudge my humble, loving, mighty faith.  I am proud to be a practicing member of the Catholic Church.