You may think that regardless of what’s on it, the Netherlands is about the last country where it would cause controversy, but no.

In the Rijksmuseum of the Netherlands – which likes to profile itself as the guardian of national history – a 200-year-old condom with a print of a nun sitting with her legs wide open in front of three clerics has recently been placed. The image is explicit, anti-Catholic and deliberately intended to mock the faith.

Nevertheless, the Rijksmuseum calls this “a historical acquisition” and “a special example of printmaking”. But where is the line? And why is it apparently courageous to mock Christianity, but completely unthinkable to hang a cartoon of Mohammed in the same room, for example? That is exactly what Civitas Christiana is addressing. And rightly so.

You may mock the Christians — but not the Muslims

Civitas Christiana says it like it is: “Such images were deliberately used at the time to mock the Catholic Church.” The French Revolution, where this condom print comes from, was accompanied by massive hatred of the church, destruction of shrines, and the murder of thousands of nuns, priests and believers. But now there is a sexual object in a display case with a cartoon from the same period — and the curator calls it “culturally valuable”.

Then the question arises: why are Christians allowed to be mocked in the name of art history, but we never get historical context when it comes to Islam? Because a cartoon of Mohammed — even from the 18th or 19th century — would be unthinkable in the Rijksmuseum. Not because they don’t exist. But because people are afraid. Afraid of riots. Afraid of fires. Afraid of protests that are not peaceful.

Read more (Dutch)