Uptight Ottawa Catholics outraged that Archbishop allowed giant robot spider on cathedral roof

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/02/nation-of-scottish-bankers.html

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Compagnie La Machine and Royal de Luxe aren’t the same organisation.

Compagnie La Machine is behind La Princesse (the spider; apparently using the name ‘Kumo’ in Ottowa) and The Sultan’s Elephant, whilst the giants (Little Girl, her dog Xolo, her grandmother and the diver) are assisted by Royal de Luxe.

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Can’t wait to see this in person someday.

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Some friends in Ottawa posted pics of this on the FB. (I have friends both in Ottawa, Canada, and Ottawa, Kansas)

I think it’s neat and supports the arts. The church actually has a rich history supporting and preserving the arts. Most of it is religious in nature, but not all of it. They have a lot of art from various cultures preserved through the Dark Ages.

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Meanwhile the followers of Lolth, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, were more than happy to host a crucified man at THEIR house of worship.

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What would Jesus do?

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Too bad. I know my long drift along, but not aboard, the Catholic Church stems not from crappy, content-free 1970s CCD where the central message of the Gospels was presented as “I’m okay, you’re okay”, but rather from the lack of mechanical spiders. Deus ex (arachnae) machina!

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ETA seriously the Archbishop should give a non apology along the lines of I am sorry some of you have had your sense of fun removed but we are not going to let that ruin it for the rest of us.

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several Catholics were shocked

Oh noes, not several.

Yes, they surely did not have to face the terrifying might of the several.

This is pure headline fodder. And as usual, it’s working, isn’t it? This delightful spectacle made its North American debut this past weekend and got nary a mention here, but it’s newsworthy now because several Catholics were shocked.

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@doctorow I am going to be giggling all day at the actual URL for this one.

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No flies on the Archbishop.

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Even the catholics are puritan in the USA.

I mean, these are clearly just arachnophobes using the concept of sacrilege to legitimize their fear, right? People love to use religion (among other belief systems) to try to turn their quirks into public policy. Sometimes I wonder how many anti-vaxxers are actually just afraid of needles, and have worked themselves into a pseudo-scientific lather to avoid having to have their children get shots.

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Fixed it for you.

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This brings up an interesting question. Is there anything in the New Testament about the arts?

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9 Now a man called Simon had for some time been practising magic arts in the town and astounded the Samaritan people. He had given it out that he was someone momentous,
Acts of Apostles - Chapter 8

:joy:

On a more serious note:

10 We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.
Ephesians - Chapter 2

This was in the time before the internet though … the things I’ve seen there make me doubt that statement.

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Burn it with fire. Little known fact, Jesus hates spiders.

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To be fair, “art” does tend to be a rather generous category…

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Ooooh suuure,
Put a cross on the top a Government Building, and lets see who looses their sense of humor :wink:

-a former catholic

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Unclear. Not sure graven images and the like were a big hit with Judaism at the time.
But then again JC is depicted in some circumstances as opposed to pedantic, literalist adherence to the scriptures.

And we Catholics do tend to have a soft spot for certain types of graven images.
Makes me wonder if this could be construed as some sort of Franciscan morality play: Sister Spider tying to live closer to God.

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