La balena in croce

Rome. A few years ago, the Bishop of Innsbruck, an art expert – the sort of art that few people usually understand – saw fit to dismantle an old wooden crucifix to turn it into a clock: the dismembered limbs of poor Christ had become the hands. On another occasion, the same prelate’s passion for art had led him to praise a Viennese exhibition in which a frog was the one to end up crucified. This time, art with its Christian references has sparked debate in Germany with the play “Timmy, la speranza muore per ultima”, by director Alexander Klessinger, staged in Hamburg. The production is inspired by the story of Timmy the humpback whale, which moved the whole of Germany last spring: the mammal had become stranded on the Baltic coast and the country experienced a rare moment of spiritual unity. The common cause was no longer the fight against the AfD, but the rescue of Timmy. Hence the director’s idea: it is not we who save him, but Timmy who saves us. Just like Jesus! Thus, the rescue, understood in this way, becomes the Passion. Timmy the humpback whale is worshipped, crucified and even torn to pieces, ‘transformed into sacramental morsels of whale blubber’, writes The Guardian, recounting the most macabre details. And, of course, a highly sophisticated theology has been constructed around this. ‘In his boundless goodness, Timmy has become a conduit for us,’ says one of the actors on stage, adding that ‘we have placed everything in him – our fears, guilt, desires, loneliness. Whilst we said we had to save him, perhaps it was he who was saving us.’ Christ in the form of a whale, in short. On stage, there are priests and altar boys, even an altar. Der Spiegel praised it, because the play demonstrates “just how willing a secularised audience is to seek refuge in quasi-religious structures”. Refuge in a crucified humpback whale. The performance has all the hallmarks of a liturgy – one that, on the face of it, appears Christian but then merges into something not quite clear: during the performance, interviews were broadcast with people who had flocked to the Baltic coast to see the beached cetacean: ‘It wanted me, it was waiting for me,’ says a woman in a state of ecstasy. Another had rushed to the scene to delight those present with an Aboriginal song that was said to have “sealed the energy gaps”. 

The Church’s reactions, as usual, were lukewarm, and it seems almost absurd to have to discuss humpback whales on the cross: “This presents an image of the Church that has nothing to do with the Church that actually exists,” said Joachim Valentin, director of the Rabanus Maurus Catholic Academy in Frankfurt, to the KNA news agency. “We worship the Redeemer of humanity, not just any sacrifice,” he added. According to the liturgist Albert Gerhards, “transposing the death on the cross onto a whale is inappropriate. For Christians, the death of Jesus is a unique and unrepeatable event. If this motif is applied to other spectacular acts of suffering, there is a risk of emptying it of its specific religious significance, rendering its meaning arbitrary.” Two weeks after his rescue, Timmy was found dead off the coast of Denmark. Not even an echo of the Aboriginal songs remains. The only discussion now centres on how much money (2 million euros) was spent on the futile rescue operation.