Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Virgin and Sex Shops

Tee hee, this has been occuring just up the road from me:

Pilgrims to a holy shrine in Portugal are being given free maps of the site that show the Virgin Mary on one side and adverts for sex objects and aphrodisiacs on the other.

The maps, thought up by an advertising company, have raised eyebrows among the Catholic faithful and ire from the authorities at the popular Sanctuary of Fatima.

"The map is not official and makes the wrong use of the picture of the Virgin Mary," a shrine spokeswoman said on Friday.

"The Sanctuary is saddened and will carry out the necessary measures to end its distribution."

Portugal is still at a really rather confused time about sex and sexuality. There's a lot of it about of course, but it's still a nominally Catholic society.