Dear Editor,
The satire about Pope Francis in the 25 April issue—published only four days after his death—felt like an added stone on my grief. Its presence in the website’s “Top Stories” section felt personal and political, especially after The Phillipian had already received a letter from the Catholic Student Fellowship Board outlining this joke’s negative impact on many in our community, including me. I have been informed that the Eighth Page satire only targets public figures, and that caricaturing J. D. Vance and Pope Francis was deemed permissible as it didn’t draw any distorted caricature of Catholics or Republicans.
However, I ask the editors to reconsider. The cartoon reduces a complex relationship—and the nuanced politics of both Pope Francis and the Church—to a laughable joke. As someone from Spain, a nation that called itself Catholic for centuries while justifying genocide, torture, and war, I am painfully aware of how religion can be weaponized. My Catholicism is a choice, freely embraced; I want every believer, of any faith, to enjoy that same freedom, as long as no one’s rights or freedoms are denied in the process.
Satirizing religious figures remains a delicate matter. Interfaith dialogue often begins by listening to wounds left by past clashes, not by reopening them. I hope our community can use this moment to grow through respectful conversation, not division. I therefore urge the Eighth Page to remove the current joke from the website and, going forward, to exclude religious leaders, regardless of their faith, from its satirical roster- especially when related to political matters.
Respectfully,
Alberto Agudo
