A week ago, the editors of the National Catholic Register published an editorial titled “It’s Time to Remove Father Rupnik’s Art”. Their strong stance, they said, was “not an expedient surrender to iconoclasm or ‘cancel culture,’ even though the court of public opinion already has judged him guilty of sexually, spiritually and psychologically manipulating and abusing multiple religious sisters under his authority.”
Some CWR contributors, in recent months, have expressed a similar perspective. Michael Heinlein, remarking on his recent pilgrimage to Lourdes, where artwork by Fr. Marko Rupnik is prominently displayed, wrote:
With such artwork at the shrine, how does its important spiritual work not find itself compromised and weakened? How can those coming to Lourdes to seek healing from abuse and grace to carry the cross of its effects find there a place of authenticity and integrity?
CWR contributing editor Christopher Altieri, who has been following the Rupnik affair very closely from the start, wrote last month: “When Church outfits use Rupnik’s art—and the Vatican is hardly alone in continuing to do so—it compounds the hurt.” And, in another recent piece:
Church types all around the world are dithering over what to do with their Rupnik pieces and installations. Not a one of them has been taken down, as far as I can tell. They’re all over everywhere, by the way, adorning shrines and chapels from the Apostolic Palace and more than a hundred other locations on the boot to Lourdes, Fatima, Beirut, Brisbane, the District of Columbia and even in my hometown of Fairfield, Ct.
“Pure iconoclasm” is pure nonsense
Commentary on X/Twitter for and against the removal of Rupnik’s art has been, not surprisingly, a bit heated. A leading proponent of keeping the art intact is Austen Ivereigh, who has written several books about Pope Francis, including at least two biographies. Reacting directly to the afore-mentioned Register editorial, Ivereigh tweeted:
Nonsense! Many disgraced & dubious religious artists have created works that over the centuries have raised minds and hearts to God. This is pure iconoclasm, Puritan not Catholic, and heretical, bc it does not allow for grace to supplement sinful nature.
He is correct to note that the creators of good—even great—art have often been bad and “great” sinners. All of them, I’m confident, were sinners, just as many of them pursued lives of holiness. The relationship between art and artist—and I have some experience in this area, having created and sold many pieces of artwork over the years—is complicated. But some of the complications come not just from the artist, but also from the authentic experience of the viewer.
Consider three hypothetical scenarios. In the first, you inherit a piece of jewelry that was created two centuries ago by a relative who, you’re told, had owned slaves in the Antebellum South. In the second, you are given some custom-made china by a great aunt who, when you were younger, was often critical and cruel to you. In the third, you are given a beautiful portrait of your mother, painted when your mother was a young woman by a family friend—a brilliant artist who, you have just learned, sexually abused your mother and four other women when they were teenagers.
Your response to each of these items will vary, depending on several factors: relationships, knowledge, proximity, and the severity of actions involved and the moral, emotional, and psychological demands involved. But there is no doubt that the third scenario is the most revolting, as the relationships, immediacy, and the egregious evil of the acts involved are impossible to ignore, never mind detaching them from the painting in question.
Hold that thought as we move to the claim that removing Rupnik’s art “is pure iconoclasm, Puritan not Catholic, and heretical…” This is both hyperbolic and sloppy; it is also polemical and unfair. Historically, iconoclasm in the East dates back to the 700s and 800s, when various Byzantine rulers destroyed icons because the veneration of such artistic works was considered idolatrous; a similar conflict emerged during the Protestant Revolution in the sixteenth century, when churches and monasteries were ruthlessly stripped of artwork and statuary.
In both cases, theological truth and doctrinal coherence were front and center: is it proper and good, in light of the Incarnation, for religious images to be used and treated with respect and even veneration? The term “iconoclasm” now resides in the secular realm as well, a description of the wrongful destruction or removal of particular images and objects, because of political beliefs or social stances.
The situation with Rupnik, of course, is not theological or doctrinal. Heresy is, as the Catechism states, “is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith” (par 2089). What truth is being denied, exactly, in the request to remove Rupnik’s artwork? And claiming that those who seek the removal of his artwork from churches and other places are “Puritan not Catholic” makes a judgment of soul and belief that Ivereigh, I’m quite certain, is not qualified to pin on anyone.
Meanwhile, if we take Ivereigh’s claim seriously and follow it to a logical end, we have to conclude that the wholesale and often shocking renovations foisted upon many parishes and cathedrals in the late 1960s and following years were the acts of iconoclasts, neo-Puritans, and heretics. Is Ivereigh willing to say so on the record? After all, few (if any) of the aforementioned changes were based on the actual texts of the Second Vatican Council, which stated that the Church, over the centuries,
has brought into being a treasury of art which must be very carefully preserved. The art of our own days, coming from every race and region, shall also be given free scope in the Church, provided that it adorns the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honor; thereby it is enabled to contribute its own voice to that wonderful chorus of praise in honor of the Catholic faith sung by great men in times gone by. (SC, 123)
And, furthermore:
All artists who, prompted by their talents, desire to serve God’s glory in holy Church, should ever bear in mind that they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator, and are concerned with works destined to be used in Catholic worship, to edify the faithful, and to foster their piety and their religious formation. (SC, 127)
So, what of Rupnik’s apparent motives and desires? His “sexual obsession was not extemporaneous,” asserted a former Italian religious sister of the Loyola Community whose accounts of abuse are harrowing, “but deeply connected to his conception of art and his theological thought.” This has been repeated and reinforced by some other twenty religious women. And the superior general of the Society of Jesuits and the Vatican confirmed that, in 2020, Rupnik was excommunicated for a time “for absolving in confession a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship.” (For more about details and recent developments, see Altieri’s CWR pieces.) In other words, we’re not talking about mere speculation or allegations; there are patterns and proofs in play.
Sinful art? Artful sins?
I think that people of good will and mature judgment can agree there is a difference between an artist who struggles privately with lustful thoughts and an artist who intertwines his artist work with sexual sins and who tries to excuse and perpetuate those sins using theological language. Rupnik, said the former sister, “asked me to have threesomes with another sister of the community, because sexuality had to be, in his opinion, free from possession, in the image of the Trinity where, he said, ‘the third person would welcome the relationship between the two.'”
Is that heretical? Even if, strictly speaking, it is not, it is vile and perverse, as any Puritan, Catholic, or otherwise sane person can see.
But, of course, these are not just serious sexual sins. They are grave sins involving power, coercion, and injustice. Consider the poignant cry of the Psalmist and think of the sisters to whom Rupnik was supposed to be a father, a protector, and a source of spiritual nourishment:
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked. (Ps 82:3-4)
And yet, as Altieri and others have documented, Pope Francis and the Vatican have sometimes handled the Rupnik affair as if the former Jesuit is a victim who needs protection from the mindless, mean mobs. There is much talk during this pontificate about helping the poor and weak, but the powerless victims of abuse are often treated with toxic suspicion (the Chilean fiasco comes to mind). The term “rigid” is cast about like a school-yard insult while the ranks close around Rupnik with a palpable cold rigidity. And while the “lived experience” of certain people is touted by priests and prelates in the good graces of the Vatican, the very real horrors endured by abuse victims are buried beneath the strangely untouchable sacredness of Rupnik’s art.
Which brings us to the “art” in question. It is, in my opinion. quite bad. Even dreadful. It lacks much artistic merit; the soulless eyes and lazy renderings that inhabit his various paintings and mosaics raise questions in my mind but never raise my mind and heart to the heavens. These are, overall, mediocre works; their widespread use is puzzling, to put it nicely.
“The work of art,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas in Contra Gentes, “represents the mind of the maker.” And St. John Paul II, in his letter to artists, remarked: “Through his works, the artist speaks to others and communicates with them.” And what comes through in much of Rupnik’s art, in my opinion, is shallow and vapid and often a bit creepy.
Addressing scandal with subsidiarity
Recently, some churches in the region of Lyon, France, began removing stained glass artwork that had been created by priest and artist Louis Ribes (1920-1994), who had been nicknamed the “Picasso of churches” Why? Because in 2022, he was accused of raping and abusing dozens (perhaps hundreds) of children; the reports of abuse, pornography, and other evils go back to the 1970s. Ribes was, it turns out, a despicable monster (his artwork, however, is far superior to that of Rupnik, in my estimation) and the wounds, needless to say, are deep and raw.
Are those people and churches engaging in “iconoclasm”? Are they actually Puritans pretending to be Catholic? Heretics? To ask the questions is the answer the questions.
The Council stated:
Let bishops carefully remove from the house of God and from other sacred places those works of artists which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic worth, mediocrity and pretense.
There you go: removal of sacred artwork is not necessarily iconoclastic at all. Further, the repugnancy of artwork cannot always be sealed off from the actions of the artist. And a painting can possess a real and abiding repugnance—because of knowledge, proximity, and the severity of actions involved—that cannot be justified and should not be ignored. Especially so when that artist has, by all appearances, been protected by the powers that be (that is, Pope Francis) and has not faced his accusers and the many charges that surely will be made. “Only take care,” wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians, “lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:9), but we are not talking here about meat sacrificed to false idols, but violations committed by a real priest.
Besides, in this age of “decentralization” and “synodality,” is it not best that those who own and oversee Rupnik’s art in specific churches and other places be the ones who make the judgment about what should be done? How it can be done?
“Pope Francis,” wrote Altieri a month ago, “did not create the crisis of credibility or the failure of leadership culture that precipitated it, but he has not made either any better. In fact, his conduct of the office entrusted to him has made things very much worse.” The Rupnik affair is a chance, to some degree, for Francis to show that he really is a pope of the people, actually does listen to the people, and truly wants both mercy and justice to shine forth.
How? First, by allowing the facts—ugly and raw as they will be—to be heard; secondly, by simply getting out of the way; third, by holding accountable everyone who has played a role; fourth, by publicly stating that the removal of Rupnik should be a viable option.
After all, this is going to get worse before it gets better. It’s hard to conclude otherwise. And the world is watching. How serious, really, is Francis and the Vatican about addressing abuse and cover-ups of the same? The record, right now, is quite poor. Desperate mud-slinging and childish name-calling by Team Francis will not only fail, it will continue to make matters worse.
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I wrote this several times here but I will repeat: the issue of Rupnik’s works is theological. Rupnik’s backing up his idea of theedoms with consecrated women is in fact his, Rupnik’s ‘theology of the body’. It is his acting out the latest interpretations of “the theology of the body” which are often quite obscene. For example, the discourse of a Roman catholic priest who was convinced that the Eastern Orthodox immerse a Paschal candle to signify a sexual penetration; a Candle is he maintained. Being an Eastern Orthodox I know that it was his fantasy – but because he is a priest and his fantasy used religious symbols it became his personal (obscene) theology.
Same with Rupnik – to an Eastern Orthodox (i.e. someone for whom the theology of the holy images is not an abstraction) an iconographer who did what Rupnik did, both re: blaspheming the Holy Trinity and raping the Sisters’ minds and body disqualifies him from working for the Church. No one, if they knew the story, would pray before the images made by such a person.
An artist who commits adultery, repents and then with fear and trembling begins working on an icon is acceptable because he has a sense of sacred – this is why he repents. An artist who seduces, rapes, perverts theology and paint some things in between has no sense of sacred: he neither sees the depicted on the holy images to be sacred nor he perceives that a human soul is sacred. He just goes on, raping artistically, physically and spiritually. And, since he appealed to the Holy Trinity as a reason for threesomes, he “made” the Persons of the Holy Trinity to participate in his sexual abuse – just like any priest who sexually abuses utilized the Church environment for his abuse (and this is why such an abuse is so potent).
Well witnessed. It is blasphemous and sacrilegious art and so to is presentation of it…and defending this.
It is also arguably the pre-eminient symbolism of Post-Conciliarism. It is plastered all over Novos Ordo.
Indeed, one might consider tearing it down like removing the propaganda for the “McCarrick Legacy Band”. No wonder Bergoglio has risked all to protect Rupnik… Tear down Rupnik and the cracked wall of New Church behind may come tumbling down behind it.
May God’s will be done.
The real question for Lourdes and elewhere is: do you do what morality says you must, and tear down Rupnik, or defend it because it cost millions?
Ethics versus the Prince of this World: what will it be?
The question for Lourdes and elsewhere I think is first about aesthetics.
And if the artist has committed felonies for goodness sakes turn him over to law enforcement and be done with it.
Please read Anna above, Mrs C.
Rupnik’s perversion IS ALSO his art…
By defending and protecting both, Bergoglio proves the point, no?
Eternal life in paradise is a journey/process and not a destination/end, so its selection process, viz life on this fallen world shall be similarily so as both are ultimately directed by the same God, whose omnipotence assures anything and everything He (let to be) created is appropriate, atleast to teach a few lessons or to give a sign to some so the present concern and discussion are necessarily being used by God to guide some sinners (anyone destined to die) to discover the fullness of the Truth and gain eternal joy.
Some of those statements, beginning with your very first clause, are quite bold to be presented on no authority but your own.
Yes, and you’re one to talk 🙄. People in glass houses…
What Aspiring Person does there, is deliver a Modernism. Modernism weaves with all subjects but it can’t hide under faith. Other subjects are prone but not faith. The veil here is the pen name but in trying to adapt the word Jesus along with the religious content, the pathology gives itself away magnified along with the moniker.
Correction – Eternal life IS the destination.
Which cancels the rest of the statement.
If even one of Rupnick’s works is kept in situ, every person who views it should consider the possibility that he took a break from executing that piece to go and sexually assault a religious sister. Then, the viewer should return to eying his masterwork.
100% dead on.
His work is pedestrian, derivative, exhibiting inferior draftsmanship, and devoid of any developed color concept. The lack of proportion of the imagery in relation to the architectural setting is often disorienting. It conveys the exhibitionism of an amateur provided prominent billboard to hawk himself. Where is the devotion? I recall my first exposure to his efforts at Fatima in 2007 — all that came to mind viewing it was “catastrophe.” The ignorance of aesthetic critique by ecclesiastics rivals their theological insincerity. The man was chosen because he was a priest and it was ultimately seen as an in-house expense.
It all has to go.
Okay, I get why you have to engage with the Ivereigh’s point about art existing on its own, disengaged from its human creator.
But even if you should happen to agree to that proposition, Rupnik’s art is an appalling horror on its own terms.
Its morose, creepy, bug-eyed figures bespeak only emptiness and misery, as if the predatory degradation that their creator visited on his victims had happened to them.
There is no beauty in the “art” of Rupnik. No joy, no discovery no hope.
Only a pervasive ugliness and an unfocused, laconic sense of despair.
And that would be true no matter who the artist had been.
The Rupnik oeuvre stands as an accusation, a finger pointing straight to Bergoglio and his Dark Vatican, for the ugliness and evil that they have brought upon the poor, suffering Mystical Body of Jesus.
That many who are genuinely possessed can exhibit external signs such as eyes turned inwards or appear without pupils are known facts. These mosaics are an affront to art as a means of lifting mans heart and soul to God.
I have never liked Rupnik’s art, which comes off as “cartoonish” to me. Needless to say, I think the man himself is despicable (and the protection of him by Bergoglians speaks volumes). However, I think the “cancel” campaign in regard to his work is virtue-signaling. 95% of viewers of his work have no idea who the artist is, first of all. Secondly, I would be happy to re-consider my position when the Church removes the name of Judas from the lists of apostles in the Gospels.
art work by a felon is unrelated to the person who betrayed the Son of Man. The Gospels are unchanging; we go entirely forward from them, in accepting the mysteries of the faith, with free will being a gift we frequently take for granted in sinning, in my humble opinion
Fr. Stravinskas, respectfully, in which of our Catholic Churches or shrines around the world does the Church reverence Judas’ 30 artful pieces of silver?
And, while Judas is historically named in the Gospels, this earlier betrayer was replaced. And, while today replacing the tainted memorabilia of Rupnik, would it be only “virtue signaling” to laicize Rupnik? And, then, of the artful kiss of Judas, why do we now have the lingering influence of Cardinal Fernandez’s artful kissing book?
Truly, Peter, your “TOUCHE” reverberates and causes deaf ears (here) to hear.
Bravo!
Your point makes perfect sense Father if Rupnik’s “art” was not demonic. But it is.
On a lighter note, all of this talk of ugliness reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said on his deathbed as a penniless outcast in an abysmal 10th class hotel in Paris: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”
Yes, indeed, Judas was replaced.
Rupnik is protected and free to move about Rome and elsewhere. Theological gymnastics aside, the nuns who were coerced to do unspeakable things by this monster deserve some bit of compassion. Removing his mosaics would be a slight nod to these sisters, a small acknowledgment which is certainly due them in response the degrading horror they endured.
If Christ is the Vicar of Pope Francis, we should have no problem with Rupnik. If Pope Francis is the Vicar of Christ, we should have no problem without Rupnik or his “art.”
Regardless of what we believe, Jesus Christ is Lord. Every ugly mess will eventually crumble into dust, giving way to God’s Glory.
The artwork is hideous. The artist is evil. There is no reason to keep the art and every reason to ditch it.
Isn’t Rupnik the one who produced that repellent image for the Year of Mercy? I use the word “repellent” carefully; it a tually did repel me; I couldn’t bring myself to participate in any activities that were represented by such a monstrous image, and that was before I knew anything about the monstrous behavior of the artist.
Exactly, Leslie.
Even if Rupnik’s monstrosities had been created by an amiable bookkeeper from Madrid, they would still be monstrosities.
They have no place anywhere in the world, least of all blaspheming Christendom’s holiest places.
Ivereigh’s point is moot. The images themselves are an affront.
Why do Catholics of a left/liberal bent seem to have so much invested in Rupnik and his “art”? It’s weird and off-putting.
I do not know about left or liberal but one thing I say: the Church hierarchs who support and cover Rupnik feel an affinity with his art and himself. His art is a product of a narcissistic psyche with its vector to be the exact opposite of the vector of Our Lord’s psyche. Our Lord’s psyche is all about truth, life, love, light, self-sacrifice. The narcissistic vector is all about lies, death (necrophilia as E. Fromm understood it), darkness, abuse instead of love and a sacrifice of others.
And thus, Rupnik’s art reveals quite a lot about what is going on in the Church.
Yes, indeed.
This is not rocket science.
I stated earlier that perhaps it is ok to keep the art since all are sinners and the creation can be considered on its own apart from the morality of its creator. In this case I think I was wrong. The grossness of the sin SHOULD be considered. The problem in these cases is where to draw the lines: never an easy thing to do. But the magnitude of the sin is so great that I agree that it is proper to remove the art and blacken his reputation. Sorry I was wrong.
You are a marvel of internet comment boxes everywhere, to change your mind and clearly state that you have. Thank you.
“He [Rupnik] asked me to have threesomes with another sister, because sexuality had to be free from possession, in the image of the Trinity where the third person would welcome the relationship between two”. Whereas God alone, whose love is exclusive to himself, finds complete contentment in himself, realized in a Trinity of one God, expressed as persons to spiritually incorporate every individual into himself through the person of the Son who is the same God. Olson captures the base heresy of Rupnik.
Evil is visible both to the trained eye as well as the average precisely in the eyes. Virtually all perceive the transfixed, soulless dark globes right eyes merged with left eyes of other persons. Zombies [the living dead] connected by sacrilegious union creatures of the beast artisan who created them.
We read that Rupnik’s “sexual obsession was not extemporaneous [….] but deeply connected to his conception of art and his theological thought.”
What then of Archbishop Paglia now at the renamed and contorted John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Life, alongside his still-in-place homoerotic mural in a cathedral only a few “walking together” miles from Rome: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/leading-vatican-archbishop-featured-in-homoerotic-painting-he-commissioned
Or, what of Cardinal Fernandez’s “irregular” and spontaneous blessings under Fiducia Supplicans, coupled with his “deeply connected (?)” kissing-thesis that: eroticism = ecstasy = mysticism?
For the “field-hospital” Church: not one, but three flavors of artistica-theologica gangrene.
As I see it, the problem which the Roman Catholic Church has with “a Rupnik’ phenomenon” is twofold:
#1 the loss, by the Roman Catholic Church, of the teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical council about the meaning of the liturgical images (so-called sacred art). In very simple terms, the teaching states that an icon (an image) of Our Lord is a proclamation of the reality of His Incarnation. We can paint Him – in His Person both humanity and divinity dwell – and so He is incarnated. This is why the Council linked the icons to the Eucharist: both cases state His reality (obviously, in a more literal sense in the Eucharist). Thus, icons are anti-gnostic. The Council also taught that the veneration of the images belongs to their prototypes (to Our Lord, the Virgin Mary, Saints) and so, when we kiss an icon of Christ, we express the same sentiment as when we kiss a photo of our parents (for example). This is why the icons must be treated with utmost dignity.
Thus, an iconographer = an artist who is commissioned by the Church to create icons should be suitable not only skill-wise but also spiritually. Initially, the liturgical art was mostly made by the monastics and that insured the suitability. Later on, the secular people began creating liturgical art but the East, because of its traditionalism and awe for all that is above (mystical) , retained the rules for iconographers applying them to laity as well. The West was overtaken by the magnificent skills of the later Renaissance artists who gradually began to care more about visual effects than about the meaning and essence of the art, to prepare a mind for contemplation. Eventually the meaning of the liturgical art was hugely lost in the West; the artists could paint however they felt. They stopped practicing the essential discipline of an iconographer, a total self-renunciation. That self-renunciation “I am nothing, God help me, you paint though my hands” protects the liturgical art from narcissistic perversions “me-me-me, look how grand I am”, just like a very strict order of TLM protects it from “self-expressions” of narcissistic priests.
I am often at loss when I try to speak to Roman Catholics about liturgical art because they mostly do not get the communal character of the holy image, that there is no such a thing as “an unrestrained self-expression” for an artist there and that the inner life of an iconographer is very important because it affects his work. Just like a priest who is a sexual abuser cannot be a priest, a grossly immoral iconographer cannot paint icons because it is a blasphemy (as eastern Orthodox see it).
#2 follows from #1 and it is wide, both about the sacred art and about the state of the Church. The liturgical art cannot be separated from the Church. For decades, the notion of sacred was downplayed and even demolished. The Mass has been celebrated in a plain (at the best) or vulgar, even blasphemous way. If the Eucharist has been treated like that, without reverence, then the holy images must become unholy as well – platitudic, vulgar, primitive, tasteless. It happened all over the world but being unopposed, it progressed, just like the whole Church “progressed” along the vector which leads away from God towards us, “the beloved”. Hence the images began reflecting ourselves and then – some perversions, psychological, sexual, theological. An iconographer who tries to live a pure life and has a sense of sacredness and own nothingness can paint the true image of Christ, with an aid of the Holy Spirit. A narcissist worships not God but Himself and thus he creates his own images. If he is a hardcore pervert like Rupnik he will move further and his work will reflect not the reality of Christ but the demonic reality. This is what one who understands the sacred art (it is possible only via a prayer) can perceive in the works of Rupnik. Just like there is liturgical abuse, there is also liturgical art abuse. Both are the natural fruit of a narcissist who is a god to himself. Hence the liturgical art is, in a sense, a visible indication of the health of the Body of Christ. Rupnik’s phenomenon thus reflects the state of the Church – not just his works but the whole story about him.
This makes perfect sense, and very clearly put. Thank you.
Lex Vivendi, Lex Orandi, Lex artis.
A most valuable contribution. I wonder if there is an ecclesiastic who is able to absorb the truths you articulate here. The leadership on all levels appears mostly unable to withdraw from pedestrian and base reasoning. What you provide here would be challenging to their dumbed-down virtue signaling…they don’t have the ability to connect these dots.
So I guess cancel culture is ok when you, yourself, get to pick and choose who gets cancelled.
Hypocrisy is disgusting. I hope I never read another article on this site about “liberals” and “cancel culture” when here you are literally doing the very thing you whine about liberals doing.
Liberals want to cancel all those who disagree with them. People with a common sense of human dignity want to eliminate that which offends human dignity. Some day you’ll get it (pethaps).
You don’t actually occupy the moral high ground you think you do. Why are you defending and protecting a sexual predator? How progressive 🙄
Micha: Cancel culture is when people are unjustly targeted and excluded for having a different opinion. Rupnik is not being cancelled because of an unpopular opinion or a ten year old bad tweet; people want his “art” removed because he’s accused of sexually violating religious sisters and other innocent people. Not wanting the art of an alleged serial sex abuser at one’s parish or shrine is not cancel culture or a conservative thing. It’s common sense.
Irrespective of the artist himself, those things are strange looking with those eyes.Typical modernist.
This does not seem to me to be “don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good”, it about absolutely merit less “art”. Ugly as a red headed step child, bug eyed depictions of religious figures serves no purpose but to diminish versus increase devotion.
I simply never understood why anyone bought into his dead-deer-eyed work past trying to show how they were part of the in-crowd in modern art appreciation.
A very poor reason to buy any art, much less art installed in holy places.
I am very much now enjoying the holy place purchaser’s squirming. Look at the list of gullible who spent all that money. Maybe, MAYbe, they will learn something.
Saving the distance of time, many of Fra Filippo Lippi’s paintings of Our Lady portrait Lucrezia Buti, a novice seduced and abducted by him.
That said, the incredible beauty of Lippi’s painting grant all kind of latitude, and at least he tried to marry her — the pope dispensation arrived after he died. Rupnik’s, on the other hand, were hideous before and after of the scandal, and he has not shown an ounce of regret or repentance.
Great comment.
‘Tis not a sin itself but the hubristic attitude of obdurate sinfulness that stinks.