A few months ago, the Knights of Columbus in Washington DC called for the removal of art created by disgraced predator priiest Fr. Marko Rupnik.
Over on the Book of Face, I remarked, “I agree with the call for removal. Devotional art is supposed to draw the mind and heart to God. When the chief effect of the art is now to draw the mind and heart to the crimes of the artist, the art needs to go and be replaced by art that does what it is supposed to do.”
One reader asked, “Would you feel the same way about songs and books also Mark?”
Sure. If the songs and books lead away from the worship of God and toward the gross crimes of the artists who make them.
But of course, all that is highly contingent. David committed scandalous crimes and also wrote some of the greatest psalms in the psalter. Indeed, his penitential psalm after his gravest crime has been one of the greatest sources of spiritual nourishment for countless people down the ages. Caravaggio was a murderer and there may well have been a time when his crimes were so fresh and raw that use of his art in devotion would be inappropriate in a liturgical setting. Now, only the art remains and the knowledge of the artist is lost to most ordinary people. So the art is usable again.
I don’t waste a lot of time on the sort of aesthetic quibbles that obsess a lot of pious people. If a hymn or piece of art is not perfect I’m not going to demand its removal merely because it’s not to my taste. Lots of church art is bad, but I don’t care.
This particular art, however, is so associated with the crimes of its maker and so distracting that it needs to go.
My attitude toward liturgical matters is summed up by C.S. Lewis. He regarded liturgy as being in the same category as shoes. Any shoes you constantly notice are bad shoes. What you want are shoes you don’t notice because the point of shoes is to help your feet take you where you want to go without hurting. Liturgy is supposed to help us see God, not see liturgy. Anything in the liturgy that makes the worshipper focus on the liturgy itself and not God, to ask in exasperation, “Now what is he doing?”, to get the sense that some local tinpot liturgy tyrant imagines the command was not “Feed my sheep” but “Try experiments on my rats” is bad liturgy. Relatedly, when liturgical art serves only to make the worshipper think, “The guy who made this was a sex predator” then it fails at the only thing liturgical art is for: raising the heart and mind to God. Get rid of it.
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5 Responses
Rupnik is deplorable, but how good is his art? If his art is actually good, does the fact that he is a reprehensible jerk “cancel” his work? A difficult question.
I think you’re right. If his work was merely realistic (some painters use projectors to create an almost photo-like painting) it would be different. Rupnik’s signature style is just too distinctive.
I find that priests with big egos create the same problem. They are so distracting. We call our local parish “The Church of Pat”. (Fr. Pat) He’s the one who ran across a street from the Church parking lot to scold us for not signing up for mass three days in advance during COVID. He snapped: “You’re not getting communion!”
I think that priests should be like baseball umpires, they have authority, but should not be the stars of the show. The laity should be more involved.
Listening to his victims’ stories convinces me that his work is diabolically inspired. The spiritual provenance of art must be considered.
This “priest” sexually abused nuns. Multiple offenses. Why is he still a priest?