The giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro sparked chatter last week when it was fitted with a projected image of a Taylor Swift T-shirt, who launched the Brazil leg of her Eras Tour on Nov. 17. The 124-foot statue of Jesus, with outstretched arms that span 92 feet, can be seen from all over the city and beyond.
The archdiocese has offered the statue and its grounds and sanctuary for events and promotions for many years. The proceeds, including those from the recent Swift-inspired projection, go to charity—and the poor in Brazil are in great need of charity.
These considerations are why I’m still thinking about that T-shirt on Jesus. I don’t like it. (I also don’t like it when Catholic church facades are illuminated with images, a practice that is becoming more and more popular globally.) It disturbs me when we get too casual with sacred images.
When I brought the matter up with some friends, a few of them quickly called it “blasphemy.” This is an image of Jesus, who is God, and he surely loves Taylor Swift the human woman. But he’s not a Swiftie; he’s the Lord.
I don’t think it’s blasphemy. Blasphemy, strictly speaking, entails words that maliciously or carelessly insult God. As far as I know, nobody has paid to light up the statue to look like anything that the church condemns. The sanctuary’s website invites organizations to apply to use the statue for events or displays but reminds that proposals will be evaluated for whether the values expressed are appropriate.
During the pandemic, the sanctuary lit it up to make it appear as a doctor and included messages to remain hopeful and stay home. They have lit it up to support efforts against human trafficking. But not all displays are so lofty. They also lit it up to wear a soccer shirt in support of the Flamengo team. They lit it up in honor of the region getting connected to 5G service. They also projected the national colors of various countries during the World Cup, and again during the pandemic, so that at one point, Jesus was red with five yellow stars, wrapped in the Chinese flag.
Does this still seem fine to you?
But it’s for charity, some will say. Surely Jesus can handle being decorated. It’s not really Jesus; it’s just a statue; and anyway, there’s nothing wrong with soccer or pop music, and Jesus loves the poor, and he is the divine physician, and the goal is to bring hope and comfort to people who see it.
It still sets off alarm bells for me. This has been a century of great losses, and one of the greatest has been a loss of the sense of the sacred.
It’s time for a little review: Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong. Even when the thing you stole is digital.
I’ve had online material copied and distributed without permission and plagiarized many times. You know: stolen. Many of my creative friends have had their work stolen, too. That doesn’t surprise me. The amazing part is how hard it is to convince people it’s wrong.
The argument seems to be: What difference could it possibly make? It’s just . . . particles of ether, or something. It’s not like stealing something real!
But whether the stolen item is physical or digital, it always makes a difference in the soul of the person doing the stealing. Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong. And more often than you may realize, it makes a difference to the creator, and to the rest of the world, too.
I’ll beat you to the punch: here’s a hilarious spoof commercial covering this very topic:
Note that “But they made a joke about it on British TV!” is not an actual moral defense.
Here are a few of the arguments defending stealing that I’ve heard from people who ought to know better:
No, I didn’t pay you when I used your stuff, but I have a huge platform! You should be grateful for the exposure.
No, people die of exposure. People are grateful for being paid for their work. (They shouldn’t be grateful; they should just accept it as just. But most creative people will tell you, it makes us all misty-eyed when someone willingly pays us what our work is actually worth.)
No one expects construction workers or IT guys or landlords to turn over their goods or services in exchange for exposure, so there’s no reason writers, photographers, graphic designers, or musicians should do it. Or maybe they will! It’s possible. But it’s their choice to decide whether it’s a good trade. Not yours. Just like the goods and services are theirs, not yours.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
But I used your work to spread the word of God! Why would you even think of charging for such a thing? Isn’t that simony or something?
No, it’s the laborer being worthy of his wages. Because even Catholics doing work for Catholics have to eat. They can choose to volunteer, but they are not required to volunteer, and it may not be possible for them to volunteer (See above: Catholics have to eat).
Imagine a world where everything Catholic is done by volunteers. Good stuff, right? You want the official catechism to be written up by the nice lady who sets out the donuts at the 10:15 Mass, yes? And you’d like for your pastor’s vestments to be sewn by the third grade catechism class as their service project. Eh? These things are important, and you’d rather have them done by skilled professionals? Then you’ll want to find someone who’s devoted years and years to honing their craft. And to occasionally eating.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
But it’s not an actual, physical thing. It’s not like there’s less of it in the world, once I’ve downloaded my copy.
Every time you take something that’s not yours to take, and you don’t pay for it, two things happen:
One is that you sin. I know I keep saying it, but it’s true, and important.
Second is that you make things that much harder for people who have very small businesses or who are just starting out. When we allow ourselves and our children to feel entitled to free stuff, it puts newbies straight out of business. We should be grateful if something is free, but never angry our outraged when something actually costs money. With that attitude, there really will be less of everything in the world, because the little guys won’t be able to afford to produce anything.
I had no idea it was illegal or immoral. It’s just so easy to grab things that are online.
Plausible. But now you do know, so cut it out.
It can be complicated. The laws in place are not always obvious or even consistent. When in doubt, ask. Ask the person whose work it is, ask someone who has experience using intellectual property, ask a lawyer friend. But don’t just assume that anything you can download is free.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
But I took the watermark off before I used it, so.
Are you freaking kidding me? How’s this: “But I cut the security tag off, so this leather jacket is now mine.”
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
But I’d never be able to afford the price she’s charging.
That is so sad! But you could say the same about a Mediterranean vacation, an ivy league education, or a lovely lobster dinner. If a thing costs money, and you don’t have the money, then you probably can’t have the thing. You can ask the seller if he’d like to donate it, or you can ask other people to give you money to buy it, or you can find some way of raising the money to buy it. But you can’t just take the thing.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
I’d never steal from small business owners or artisans. But this is a huge business, and they’ll never even feel it.
When you steal from a giant corporation, it’s almost certainly true that the CEO won’t feel it. Instead, his employees earning minimum wage will feel it. And your fellow consumers will feel it. So that’s who you’re sticking it to. Classy!
Here’s the thing, especially in entertainment: If I download a pirated movie instead of renting or buying, it won’t make a difference to the CEO of Warner Bros. He doesn’t need a crumb of my $11.99, and neither does the billionaire movie star. But the gal who wrote the script, and the guy who did the walk-on part, and a bunch of other people whose names zip by in the credits? They probably don’t have 9-5 jobs, and they really do need every crumb. They may very well be getting through dry spells by living off royalties and residuals from past work. But if everyone is watching a pirated version of the movie they helped make, they can’t live.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
Anyway, this company supports gay marriage, while I’m here raising a Godly family [or: Anyway, this company opposes gay marriage, while I’m here raising a tolerant family.] This is my little way of sticking it to the man.
Even if it did hurt the bigwigs to steal from their corporation, we’re still not permitted to return evil for evil, and we’re not permitted to do evil so that good may come of it. A CEO who allows his corporation to do evil is responsible for the evil he has done. An individual consumer who does evil is responsible for the evil he has done. You’re not scoring points for your side by stealing from someone you consider evil. You’re just putting more evil into the world.
Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
It’s not really stealing to violate the terms and conditions I agreed to, because it’s just legal mumbo jumbo, and who reads that stuff? If they really wanted to restrict how I use this, they should have locked it down better.
So you really want to live in a world where your word means nothing, and only brute force is binding? Remember this next time you sign a contract to buy a car, and you make your payments on time, but the dealership owns a very big tow truck, so they go ahead and get their car back. Because if you really wanted to keep it, you should have locked it down better.
The fourth commandment requires us to abide by just laws, even if those just laws are written in teeny tiny script that you didn’t feel like reading before you agreed.
To sum up: Stealing is stealing, and stealing is wrong.
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Image: A fellow who just wasn’t grateful for all the exposure he got. Photo By Joadl (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
