(LifeSiteNews) — Netflix has reignited controversy after promoting an irreverent scene of a homosexual kiss between characters disguised as a Pope and a cardinal – using Catholic religious imagery as a marketing tool to provoke outrage.
Between April 5 and 6, respectively Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, online backlash intensified after clips and screenshots from the Netflix series The Sandman were widely circulated across social media, depicting two characters dressed as the pope and a cardinal engaging in a homosexual kiss within a Vatican setting. The reaction has been driven largely by material disseminated through Netflix’s own promotional channels, leading many viewers to believe the scene portrayed real Catholic figures.
According to The Catholic Herald, the footage at the center of the controversy originates from an officially distributed promotional clip titled “Dream Meets Puck and Loki,” released by Netflix as part of its marketing campaign for the second season of The Sandman.
The scene shows the two protagonists, the mythological figures Loki and Puck, disguised as the pope and a cardinal, engaged in “spreading global chaos” after having immersed the real pope in a “perpetual sleep.” The central character, Dream, encounters the disguised figures after reports circulate within the story that “the pope has welcomed women into the priesthood.” During this encounter, Dream recognizes their true identities and explicitly refers to them as agents of wrongdoing. He subsequently compels Loki to honor a prior obligation.
The two characters – a god of deceit and a spirit of chaos – have no real reason to infiltrate the Vatican, except to exploit the Catholic imagination to create scandal. The “kiss” between the fake pope and the fake cardinal, moreover, adds nothing to the plot: it serves only to generate shock, indignation, and visibility on social media. It is clearly a deliberate choice, designed to strike the most recognizable religious institution in the world.
The result is a scene that directly affects the sensitivity of the faithful, reducing the papacy to a carnival costume and a backdrop for irreverent gags. Confirmation of all this lies in the fact that the scene has gone viral again not because the public rediscovered it, but only because Netflix itself relaunched it on its official channels during the holiest days of the Catholic calendar, fully aware that it would reignite controversy. A predictable strategy based on provoking Christians to obtain free attention and advertising.
Curiously, the producers at Netflix seem to believe that the possible introduction of a female priesthood would have a strong capacity to cause disruption and disorder within the Catholic Church.
The Sandman series is the cinematic adaptation of a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman, a controversial writer also known as the author of Good Omens, another series that has sparked controversy for portraying a friendship between an angel and a demon that evolves into a homosexual relationship. In one episode of the second season of the same series, the archangel Saint Gabriel flees Heaven to engage in a romantic relationship with Beelzebub, depicted as a female character.
Gaiman has also been accused of sexual assault by at least nine women between 2024 and 2025, but the comic book author has firmly denied all allegations, calling them part of a “smear campaign.”
Back in December 2019, Netflix released another blasphemous piece of content – a Brazilian Christmas special titled The First Temptation of Christ. The plot satirically suggested that Jesus had a homosexual partner named Orlando, introduced to his relatives on the occasion of his 30th birthday. The special also included irreverent portrayals of God and the saints Mary and Joseph, with deliberately provocative and irreverent gags. Over 2 million signatures were collected to demand its removal from Netflix – to no avail.