The Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Willin has prepared a series of photographs, one of them depicting a Last Supper with Jesus and a group of what appear to be transvestites. The figures are arranged in a reconstruction of the Leonardo mural. The exhibition has been controversial. Pope John Paul cancelled an audience with the Protestant Archbishop Hammar of Uppsala for supporting the exhibit – which has been touring for ten years – and allowing it to be shown in churches across Sweden. Speaking as a gay man who is also a Catholic, I find the pictures in bad taste rather than offensive but I would not bother to go and look at them. I can understand, however, why some Christians would definitely be offended. They do not conform to the imagery that people are familiar with. But what is the artist actually trying to say? If the message is that Jesus came to save sinners, that is not unorthodox - on the contrary. My own parish, being where it is in the centre of Brighton, has more than its...
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