New Normal: Shit-Post on Social Media, Risk 2 Years in Jail

Believe it or not, the authorities (sic) in Austria are prosecuting a man for online postings commenting on an act of anti-Christian vandalism--the end of free speech is here

Today I must report once more on the ongoing war on Europe’s heritage, in particular the struggle by ill-disposed individuals and institutions against Christianity.

In so doing, I’ll be telling the story of an ‘artist™’ who placed a somewhat controversial (and utterly ignorant) interpretation of the birth of Jesus Christ into a church in Upper Austria. Due to the statue displaying both supremely bad taste bordering on blasphemy, it was quickly ‘vandalised’, which of course triggered frenetic reporting by legacy media outlets—until events took a strange, if not entirely surprising, turn for the worse as a case of suspected vandalism eventually morphed into a struggle for freedom of expression.

In what follows, I’m using bits and pieces from several clearly indicated legacy media pieces that appeared in the period from 1 July 2024 through February 2025, and I should ask you to keep in mind the following meta themes that run like a red thread (pun intended) through this admittedly absurd episode:

• How come ‘artists™’ who disparage Christianity get so much favourable press coverage while the same ‘artists™’ refuse to make, say Islam or—God forbid—Judaism the target of their vitriol?

• How come the very same ‘artists™’ have so little idea about the BS they call ‘art™’? In the same vein, why don’t the Church (I should probably add a ™ here, too) explain how utterly wrong the underlying ideas are?

• Finally, keep in mind that the statue was permitted to be displayed in Linz’s Cathedral of St Mary, which indicates that at least a bunch of higher-ups in the hierarchy were o.k. with what has happened.

All non-English text that follows comes to you in my translation, with emphases and [snark] added.

Act I: An Act of Vandalism, July 2024

For background in English, I’ll refer to this piece in the AP dated 2 July 2024:

Vandals have beheaded a sculpture featuring the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus that had been exhibited in the cathedral in the Austrian city of Linz and drawn criticism from some Catholics who said it was blasphemous.

Why would ‘some Catholics’ claim that the sculpture was blasphemous? Here’s a picture (courtesy of this piece from left-radical rag Der Standard) and you may see for yourself:

I would, in addition to considerations of blasphemy, also note one more thing that I have yet to see in any of the legacy media pieces I read about this case:

The above statue indicates the pain of a woman giving birth; now, having been present my daughters’ birth, I speak with second-hand experience of this very intimate and ultimately human aspect.

Yes, Mary was human, but according to the Gospel, she was also without sin, hence the notion of the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ. As far as I understand the Catholic Catechism (which may be wrong), I understand the above depiction of the pain (‘suffering’) to be blasphemous.

Mary was conceived without original sin, and hence not ‘subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin’.

Back to the AP piece.

The sculpture had been on view at the St. Mary Cathedral, Austria’s largest, as part of an art installation project on women’s roles, family images and gender equality, the Linz diocese said in a statement. It added that the incident, which occurred on Monday, had been reported to police.

The identity of the vandals wasn’t known. But Alexander Tschugguel, an Austrian traditionalist Catholic responsible for the so-called “Pachamama” act of vandalism during the Vatican’s 2019 Amazon synod, said in a social media post Tuesday that he had been contacted by those responsible.

Tschugguel praised the “Hero of Linz” and posted what he said was a statement from the anonymous vandal explaining the motivation. The statement implied that the person’s emails and calls to the diocese to complain about the sculpture had been ignored.

“Therefore, in view of this abominable and blasphemous caricature, urgent and decisive action was required,” the statement said, adding that the beheading was the fastest way to disfigure the sculpture so it no longer resembled Mary.

I propose that the statue never really depicted Mary giving birth due to the artist’s fundamental misunderstanding, whether knowingly or out of ignorance, of the underlying doctrinal considerations.

Interestingly, these notions to dot appear anywhere in this piece or the other legacy media pieces I’ve read (admittedly, this is a selection, but my point stands). Here’s how the AP piece concludes, by the way:

The episcopal vicar for education, art and culture in the Linz diocese, the Rev. Johann Hintermaier, condemned the beheading of the statue.

“We were aware that we were also provoking debate with this installation. If we have hurt people’s religious feelings, we are sorry, but I strongly condemn this violent act of destruction, the refusal to engage in dialog and the attack on the freedom of art,” the diocesan statement quoted him as saying.

The sculpture was on a pedestal in the middle of the room inside the cathedral, showing Mary sitting on a rock and giving birth. The diocese said it referred to the nativity scene in the cathedral, which is also known as the Mariendom [St Mary’s].

I suppose it’s not too far-fetched to label this comment absurd.

Speaking of absurdities, here’s a few lines from the artist Esther Strauß who conceived of this statue:

The artist who created the “crowning” sculpture, Esther Strauss, also condemned the destruction, according to the Linz diocese statement.

“Most portraits of the Virgin Mary were made by men and have therefore often served patriarchal interests,” she said, adding that in her sculpture “Mary gets her body back.” [I don’t know what to say—this is utter nonsense, but perhaps reference to yesterday’s posting about young women and mental illness might be appropriate here]

“Whoever removed the head from the sculpture was very brutal,” Strauss said. “For me, this violence is an expression of the fact that there are still people who question women’s right to their own bodies. We have to take a very firm stance against this.” [this is a typical way of ‘answering™’ a question that related to a different thing; here, we see Ms. Strauß saying something that’s got nothing whatsoever to do with whatever a statue of Mary would indicate; I also fail to see how these clear references to abortion should be something the Catholic Church should permit in its hallowed halls]

Act II: Meet the Artist, Esther Strauß

In this section, we shall meet the brain behind the statue, artist Esther Strauß.

In her portfolio (accessed on 12 Feb. 2025), there are many interesting aspects, but one thing stands out—it’s the epitaph at the top of the PDF:

Reality is in no way inferior to a story. Both are invented.

I suppose, without knowing for sure, that Ms. Strauß is a proponent of what Soviet agit-prop called Hyperrealism and what postmodernists like Jean Baudrillard call hyperreality, which is

closely linked to his idea of Simulacrum, which he defines as something which replaces reality with its representations. Baudrillard observes that the contemporary world is a simulacrum, where reality has been replaced by false images, to such an extent that one cannot distinguish between the real and the unreal. In this context, he made the controversial statement, “The Gulf war did not take place”, pointing out that the ‘reality’ of the Gulf War was presented to the world in terms of representations by the media.

Now, as a thought experiment, I’d propose the following: ‘the vandalism against the statue of Mary did not take place’ as this was not a statue of Mary due to the above-related considerations of original sin vs. her immaculate conception.

Instead, someone placed a statue of a woman giving birth in a church, which was vandalised, but we should rather have a discussion about bad taste, contemporary art™, and the intellectual capitulation of the Upper Austrian diocese.

In the same vein, consider this brief paragraph taken from Ms. Strauß portfolio:

Many of Strauß’ performances take place without an audience, including ‘The Visitation’ [orig. Die Heimsuchung]. The day after her grandmother’s funeral, Strauß goes to the hairdresser, has her grandmother’s hair cut and coloured and performs alone in her empty flat for a night and a day. ‘What my works conceal is just as important as what they reveal’, says the artist.

Is Ms. Strauß actually working? I mean, if there’s no audience, there’s also no way of knowing she actually did anything. Moreover,

each of their performances only takes place once.

And apparently, a good deal of these performances are hard, if not outright impossible, to ascertain.

Granted, some of her work is highly subversive, as this note in her portfolio indicates:

When the Austrian federal gov’t for the first time mandates masking during the Corona pandemic, I’m filling my water pistol with saliva and, water pistol in hand, trek across the half-deserted city.

In her portfolio, a sizeable share is taken up by Ms. Strauß family history, National Socialism and its crimes, and enquiries about their meaning for the present. I’m honestly unsure what, if anything, to make of her art. Or art™.

Speaking of art™, well, here’s the dedicated website about the above-related statue said to be Mary giving birth. If you’re easily disturbed by the images, be advised.

Here’s a bit from an interview about the statue and the alleged vandalism, which appeared in Der Standard on 4 July 2024 a few days after the event:

Strauß: The work was created as part of the diocese’s Donnastage project to mark 100 years of St Mary’s Cathedral. The west tower chapel was rededicated as an exhibition space and several artists were invited to take a critical look at the topic of the Holy Family from a feminist perspective [please don’t ask me why that was done]. During the tour of the cathedral in winter, we were also shown the eight-metre-long nativity scene in the crypt by Sebastian Osterrieder. There are two figures of the Virgin Mary: the Mary who is set up at Christmas, kneeling next to her child, and the Mary who enters the scene at Epiphany, with her child on her lap. I started to look at these two Marys, and so I came to the question of why, when we talk about the birth of Christ, we only think of the child in the cradle, but not of the woman who gives birth to this child [I’m a wee bit unsure, but might that have to do with ‘this child’ being the Messiah? I mean, while none of this shall be construed as disparaging women—in particular mothers—consider the rank-order of relevance].

Der Standard: And then you carved a third Mary?

Strauß: For me, my sculpture is a sister of the two Marys in the cathedral crypt, she wears the same dress and has the same cloak thrown behind her, is roughly the same size, and she is also carved from lime wood. Once I had the idea for my work, I started researching whether there were any depictions of Mary giving birth, and so far I only know of one contemporary work by the photographer Natalie Lennard, The Creation of Man, which shows Mary giving birth, but here the birth process is covered by Mary’s cloak. However, it was important to me to develop a sculpture that works with the physicality of giving birth.

Der Standard: An otherwise underexposed realism. We are familiar with the beautiful Madonnas, breastfeeding Madonnas—which is perhaps due to the fact that these historical works were created by men. Have you also looked at depictions of births outside the religious context? How widespread is the subject in contemporary art?

Strauß: There are currently more and more women who decide to have their births accompanied by birth photographers. There seems to be a desire among some women to capture these moments for themselves or to share them with other people [perhaps it’s just me, but I find this…weird]. Some of this birth photography is also shown on the internet. In feminist art history, there have been several works on the subject since the 1970s at the latest, but they have received too little attention and recognition for a long time [gee, I wonder as to why that might be…] These works are an important reference point for me. When you perform naked yourself as a performance artist or show photographs of your own naked body, it’s also about developing images that can defend themselves against patriarchal and misogynistic voyeurism [in her portfolio, there are nude pictures of Ms. Strauß performing art™; also, I don’t understand how putting nude pictures of oneself online would help]. This was also an important point of orientation for me when developing the sculpture. I was also concerned with the question of how to show that there can be a lot of power in childbirth, provided that a woman has voluntarily chosen it, but that it is just as much associated with abandonment [I’m unsure how that is supposed to work as abandonment of newborns leads to their untimely demise].

So much from Ms. Strauß on her creation. Let’s shift gears, shall we?

Act III: The State Seeks to Send a Man to Prison for 2 Years for Social Media Postings

By September 2024, police was hot on the heels of the suspected perpetrators of this heinous act of anti-art™ vandalism. As state broadcaster ORF Oberösterreich reported,

according to a report, the two suspects are a 73-year-old man from Linz and a 31-year-old man from Vienna. In addition to serious damage to property, they are also being investigated for condoning a punishable offence on Telegram. It is still unclear which of the two men sawed off the head of the statue. In any case, the perpetrator faces up to two years in prison.

Please re-read this: police has in custody two suspects but is unable to determine who did it; in addition, ‘they are also being investigated for condoning a punishable offence on Telegram’, i.e., they are under investigation for shit-posting on social media.

The punishment—‘up to two years in prison’.

Let that sink in.

A week ago, this drama shifted into higher gear, as a follow-up report by Austrian state broadcaster ORF Oberösterreich, dated 5 Feb. 2025, explains:

The sculpture of the Virgin Mary giving birth exhibited in St Mary'‘ Cathedral in Linz caused astonishment and outrage last year. Unknown persons sawed off the figure’s head. In March, a 31-year-old Viennese man will stand trial in Linz for allegedly praising the act of vandalism on social media…

During the investigation, a man from Linz and a man from Vienna were targeted by the police in September of the previous year. However, the two suspects were exonerated by DNA reports [oh, look, police dropped the investigation]. Nevertheless, one of the two must now stand trial.

Say what? Despite the vandalism and property damage charges being dropped, one of the two suspects now facts trial (!) because he shit-posted on social media.

Please re-read this again: no crime other than posting on Telegram is ‘investigated™’ by police.

And this is what the legacy media report ‘explains™’

Viennese Man in Court: Crime Praised on Social Media

The 31-year-old Viennese is alleged to have praised the crime on social networks and described it as great. The man thus became the focus of the investigation [so, while police found no evidence of that man actually being involved in any crime, they focussed on him]. If found guilty, the digital applause could result in a prison sentence [if you can believe it].

At the trial on 21 March, the 31-year-old faces up to two years in prison for incitement and approval of a punishable offence, according to the Linz public prosecutor’s office.

I’m still in awe, negatively meant, about what the indictment might reveal. As of now, this posting is already very long and I’m certain to look for the public (sic) prosecutor’s filing, but there’s one thing I’m already certain of:

This shit-load of an investigation should have never focussed on some shit-posting on social media, because a) we don’t know the exact words used (hence doubts remain about the factual basis of the indictment) and b) freedom of expression is certainly an issue here.

Bottom Lines

Yet, as I’ve written in autumn 2021, freedom of speech was on life-support back then, and its condition hasn’t improved since:

The Kiss of Death for Free Speech in Central Europe

On the contrary, if the past couple of years are any indication, traditional related freedoms—specifically academic freedom and artistic licence—are increasingly press-ganged into service of the powers-that-be.

While in the case of Ms. Strauß’ tasteless statue, I note that it was the Church that commissioned it, hence religious freedom would also be involved (questioned).

Yet, any of these freedoms come with the limitations, such as incitement to violence and property damage (which seems possibly applicable, if the prosecution can prove intent beyond reasonable doubt).

This, I’d argue, should also apply to making such a piece of art™ that religious people might consider offensive and blasphemous.

Isn’t it a bit odd that these kinds of ‘provocative’ and ‘controversial’ acts typically only disparage Christianity?

True, in this particular case, this situation is more complicated as it was the Church itself that commissioned the piece, yet it’s at the very least supremely tasteless and, in light of the immaculate conception, very much off the mark.

So, we learn another thing: shit-posting on social media might land you in jail, provided that 31 year-old man is actually sentenced in late March 2025.

Yet, the fact alone that he might be should send chills down everyone’s spine.

This isn’t mere over-reach; this is the final nail in the coffin for free speech in Europe.

Let’s see how many, if any (which is my guess), of international legacy media outlets will report on this one.

As they say, democracy dies in darkness. And silence.