What you are doing is in essence amounting to an ad hominem argument: Pueblo feelings are "authentic", whereas veteran's feelings are "manufactured", just because.
Yes, it might be that they consider the depiction of Pope as an offense, short of the same way Muslims consider visual depictions of Mohammed as heretic. But that's the catch: these are their beliefs, not mine's. The notion of somehow other people who do not follow my religion or beliefs must adhere to its code of conduct regardless speaks more volumes about the ones that makes such statements rather than about the "insensibility" of the others.
Then again: feelings of offense harm noone, whereas self censoreship has already damaged this game by depriving us from having yet another interesting civ to play with, and trowing working hours of firaxis into the garbage bin.
But why don't they respect our feelings, dude? I am feeling deeply offended by that!
Employing feelings and crocodile tears on a discussion amounts to nothing but a blame game and circular reasoning. It all amounts to "my feelings are superior to yours". Feelings have no place into a rational discussion, much less on the public arena.