Besides mildly amusing religious subjects used in advertising the exploitation of Christian themes in advertising posters has been the object of acrimonious debates and sometimes judicial actions in the past twenty years. Censorship is examined here from two angles : in terms of the expression of a tolerance threshold on the one hand, and of a power struggle on the other hand. Who censors, on what grounds ? What kind of balance is struck between power groups within catholicism ? This debate highlights the fact that a number of related pictures cross famous artistic references whose influence still impregnates photography today. In the analysis of the iconic stakes it is essential to take art into consideration, both as a means to place the referential framework of a visual culture and as a prism through which many of the tensions observed here can already be discerned. Religious allusion makes the viewer react by playing on two levels : the shock of provocation and the feeling of « déjà vu », which ensures its increased efficiency in a universe already saturated with visual messages.