There may be some lawyerly logic behind this move that, as an average news follower, I absolutely fail to see, but how can the Vatican defend withdrawing a request enjoining dissemination of a German magazine's grossly offensive doctored photos of Benedict XVI on the front and back cover of a recent issue, after the Vatican had easily won its temporary injunction?
Vatican withdraws legal suit against
a German satirical magazine for
offensive photoshopped B16 cover
VATICAN CITY, August 30 (Translated from ASCA) - The Vatican has taken a step back: After having obtained a temporary injunction last July that directed the German satirical magazine Titanic to withdraw from dissemination in any form an issue that featured front and back covers with offensively photoshopped images of Benedict XVI, the Holy See made the following announcement through the German bishops; conference:
After ample consultation, the Holy See has decided to withdraw its demand for an injunction against the magazine Titanic. At the same time, further legal action will be examined with a view to effectively counteracting attacks against the dignity of the Pope and the Catholic Church.
Using the headline, "Hallelujah at the Vatican- The source of Vatileaks is found", the cover featured a full-length frontal photo of the Pope on the front cover with a large yellow stain on his cassock, repeated on the back cover with a rear-view photo, this time featuring an icky brown stain on the cassock.
[By any standard of civility, that is simply not acceptable, even if it is meant as 'satire', because it is malicious and obviously unrelated to the event in question. And it is all the more offensive because the person held up to unfounded ridicule is a Head of State, even if the magazine publishers may not think that being spiritual head of the Catholic Church does not exempt the Pope from outright disrespect..]
According to the magazine publishers, the yellow stain was, in fact, Fanta, a soda that is known to be taken by the Pope on occasion.
[Quite apart from the fact of how ridiculous that 'defense' is - the question is not what the magazine used to create the stain but that they even thought of creating it at all - I am upset that in all the reporting about this cover, I have not seen one report - not even this - which points out that the Pope drinks Fanta orange, which is conspicuously orange-coloured, not yellow! That may be a 'trivial' detail but not when it openly contradicts a preposterous claim by the editors.]
When the issue first came out last July, Secretary of State Mons. Angelo Becciu immediately contacted a German law firm in Hamburg to examine what legal action could be taken. The immediate result was the temporary injunction against Titanic issued by the Hamburg court.
Subsequently, the Archbishop of Bamberg, proposed the urgent passage of a law that would protect religions from blasphemous acts.
[It ought to be more wide-ranging. The offensive cover was not blasphemous in the strict sense - but it was an open offense against the dignity of a Head of State, which, I believe, is prosecutable in most civilized countries, and therefore, should already be covered by existing law.
BTW, does this now mean that Titanic is free once again to disseminate its cover online and in all the ways that it can?