Friday, July 17, 2015

Anymous Performance Art Festival, Plzen, Czech Republic, May 2010



The church touches.

FILM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFj6Pdcb1gE

The scandal with molesting chidren in Catholic Church spread around the globe like an infection and thousands of catholic priests were put in front of a court.
I asked the girls from the art school in Plzen to participate in my guerrila performance in the gothic catholic cathedral in Plzen. I asked them to molest me while standing on the altar. The church attendant atack me and destroyed my alternated sign based on the verse from the bible and expelled the whole group from a cathedral.
Performance caused the media scandal and the local bishop filled several claims of criminal complains against me. As a result the local cultural council cancelled formally approved grant given to the festival organizer based on the illegal bishop political influence. The public divided into two camps. First being critical against my piece calling it desecration of a cathedral and the other one supporting my criticism of a church and organizing a public collection of money to reestablish the lost grant money.
I offered the bishop a meeting. But only under condition to hold the meeting in the pub over beer. Bishop who underestimated the number of my supporters (Czech Republic is statistically the most atheistic country in the world) agreed with the place of the meeting.  I spent with him two hours of the exchange of the opinions over several beers. The media people were observing us from the remote table.
First I introduced myself as a militant atheist the condition that was caused by my experience with the brainwashing function of religions in the USA.
He was very offended by my alternation of “ the saint bible text” in the performance. I argued that bible is only a fiction and pure nonsense not a scientific historical document and any artistic text alternation is completely fine. I told him that if he preaches the lines from this fiction and wants the churchgoers to believe them he is disseminating the lies. 
Bishop proceeded with the complain about by me supposing broken code of behavior in the church. I argued that church is for me a regular private building like any other pub in the city and I am not required to know the internal rules of behavior. Especially if that building is opened to the public.
Than I expressed my opinion that until the celibacy is removed from the Catholic Church the child molesting will automatically continue. Bishop strongly disagreed and argued that celibacy has no connection with molesting. I replied citation: “ There must be semen flowing from the ears of the young priests”.
Bishop told me that the pope established recently the policy of “zero tolerance” of child molesting in the church. I replied that I think it will continue since the child molesting by the priests has continued for the centuries. I cited the sentence told to me years ago by the Roma leader: “ Oh the priests have been always fucking our children”
Than I asked the bishop who seemed to be intelligent and educated if he believed in the nonsense of impregnation of Mary without intercourse and entering sperms into an egg. He watched around and almost secretly told me that he think that it was a scientifically proven case of very rare impregnation of a women which has been recorded by science. I started to laugh and strongly disagreed.
The performance cased the general discussion about child molesting in the Catholic Church and I hope turned many people with the temptation to join the church.

Video of the Performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFj6Pdcb1gE