Maybe They Could Display Him In Ray Nagin's Chocolate City

A Manhattan art gallery has canceled its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked (anatomically correct) Jesus, after an outcry by Roman Catholics.

The sculpture "My Sweet Lord" by Cosimo Cavallaro was to have been exhibited for two hours each day this week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.

The display had been scheduled to open on Monday, days ahead of Good Friday when Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus. But protests including a call to boycott the affiliated Roger Smith Hotel forced the gallery to scrap the showing. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights had called for a boycott of the hotel, writing to 500 religious and secular organizations.

"This is an assault on Christians during Holy Week," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the league, which describes itself as the largest U.S. Catholic civil-rights group. "They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the prophet Mohammad naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan," she said before the cancellation.

The archbishop of New York called the sculpture "scandalous" and a "sickening display. This is something we will not forget," Cardinal Edward Egan said in a statement.

Matthew Semler, the artistic director of the gallery, said the work was not irreverent. "It's intended as a meditation on the Holy Week," Semler said of the sculpture, which depicts Jesus as if on the cross. Easter Sunday, this year April 8, is celebrated as the day of Jesus' resurrection.

Daily Dude readers can go here to check out the frontal view. According to the artist, Cosimo Cavallaro, offers are already pouring from those who (presumably) would like to see the confection in their Easter baskets.