Last year, the Nobel Prize committee gave its literary award to an Italian anti-Catholic bigot, Dario Fo. This year the committee showed its passion for diversity by bestowing the award on a Portuguese anti-Catholic bigot, Jose Saramago. Maybe next year they’ll find a Greek or Spaniard who hates Catholicism.
Father Richard John Neuhaus said it nicely when he opined that “They’re ideologically and politically driven awards.” The target of which, it hardly needs to be said, is our religion.
Saramago’s 1991 novel, “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” was a vile attack on the Holy Family, one that the Vatican branded as “testimony of a substantial anti-religious sentiment.” His defenders said the book was a “bitter satire,” but the Portuguese government called it “blasphemous.”
The only unanswered question is: What does an embittered anti-Catholic, atheist, communist member do with a prize of $967,500? Just for the fun of it, maybe the Catholic League should ask Saramago for a donation.
