BLESSED POPE JOHN PAUL II continues to inspire hideous public statuary. This 45-foot fiberglass behemoth will be officially unveiled tomorrow in the Polish city of Czestochowa. The businessman, Leszek Lyson, who funded it and erected it on private land, is said to be hoping it will qualify for the Guinness Book of Records, which shows the level of artistic ambition involved. The statue should make people stop and think, Lyson said. Yes, I suppose so. Monolithic statues of Lenin made people stop and think too. They made them stop and think of one man and his role in the New World Order.

Lenin outside Finland Station in St. Petersburg

Similar to another monstrosity, the statue of John Paul outside the Termini Station in Rome (see below), the new papal tower, with its widespread arms, is an all-embracing figure. “Come one, Come all. The Church is whatever you wish to make it,” it seems to say. Though he helped resist Communism in his homeland of Poland and is not to be equated with or placed into the same category as Lenin, the globe-trotting John Paul was a revolutionary figure who helped the Church become more International YMCA than the Eternal City of God. Revolutionary figures inspire revolutionary art.

—- Comments —-

Drina writes:

I don’t take issue with your views on some art representing Blessed John Paul II, but I I do doubt that your take on the man himself is accurate. “…[T]he globe-trotting John Paul was a revolutionary figure who helped the Church become more International YMCA than the Eternal City of God.” This statement is a great exaggeration, if it is accurate in the least. It seems that God has seen fit to work miracles through his intercession, miracles that are necessary for the man to be beatified and canonized. Why would God enable his Church to honor the man in this way if he weren’t worthy of the honor, and if God himself didn’t wish it?

I don’t believe John Paul II was without reproach, and I’m not suggesting that he never be reproached. However, when I read about the man and his life, his holiness, his works and testimonies of those who knew him, I’m left with a very different impression than the one I get from The Thinking Housewife. This isn’t my first time writing to you, so I hope it goes without saying that otherwise, I find your blog to be very informative and helpful.

Laura Wood writes:

Thank you. I welcome your criticism. I respectfully disagree, which is not to say I believe Pope John Paul II intended harm or did no good. The Church did become closer to an international, desacralized charitable bureaucracy such as the YMCA during his reign. I recommend Michael J. Matt’s article, “Lovest Thou Peter,” written after the Pope’s visit to St. Louis. Matt wrote at that time:

In their euphoria over the person of the Pope, few Catholics today listen to his perplexing words or even read his impossible encyclicals. As though under the influence of some hallucinogenic drug, they immerse themselves in the cult of the man and close their ears and eyes to everything else. Meanwhile, ecumenism spins so far out of control that one wonders if John Paul would welcome an opportunity to change the papacy into the presidency of the one world religion, embracing all religions, all faiths, all cultures which espouse a monotheistic faith system. So many good Catholics do not see what is waiting at the end of the papal pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II….I believe that it is the New World Order and the One World Church.

One correction. You write:

It seems that God has seen fit to work miracles through his intercession, miracles that are necessary for the man to be beatified and canonized.

John Paul II has not been canonized. I assume you are aware of that, but your words suggest that he has been. You also write:

Why would God enable his Church to honor the man in this way if he weren’t worthy of the honor, and if God himself didn’t wish it?

You are attributing a level of infallibility to the actions of the Vatican that is not in keeping with Catholic theology.

John Paul II twice, in 1979 and 1995, visited the United Nations, an organization opposed irreconcilably to the vision of the Church, and warmly praised its mission and philosophy. During his 1995 visit, he stated:

My words, which I desire to be a sign of the esteem and regard of the Apostolic See for this institution, join willingly with the voices of all who see in the UN the hope for a better future for the society of men.

This is one egregious example of how the Pope failed to use his immense power to warn Catholics away from utopian, God-less schemes.

Bill R. writes:

Regarding the statue in the bottom picture, outside the Termini Station in Rome; that thing is grotesque! I can’t help but wonder if the stains and discoloration part of the original work. You certainly couldn’t rule them out based on the rest of it. [Laura writes: Just for clarification, the Vatican was highly critical of the Termini statue and some changes were subsequently made to it, including removal of the staining effect you mention.]

That’s about as flattering to the memory of John Paul as that outrageous portrait of Winston Churchill was to him that he was presented with, I think it was for his 90th birthday. The thing was an insult. Granted we can’t expect a Michelangelo every generation but a significant work that’s supposed to be art ought to at least be able to hold your gaze longer than the instant it takes you to realize you don’t want to look at it at al. Even mediocre art, if it deserves the name at all, ought to hold your interested gaze at least for a moment or two. By comparison, something like the statue of David rivets you every time. When you look at the statue of David, it’s as though there was always something more to be divined, something else in those eyes and that determined gaze you hadn’t fully figured out yet, something more they had yet to tell you. And then you realize what it is and why you never can fully figure it out. It’s because those eyes, that face, that pose, the whole of David as Michelangelo sculpted him, say more than words alone can say. That is transcendence. And that is when you know you are looking at true art. The “artists” that throw together this garbage nowadays wouldn’t recognize transcendence if it walked up and slapped them in the face (or turned the other cheek). Well, how could they when they don’t believe in it, when, in fact, their “art” is often created for the very purpose of renouncing it? Which brings me to what I think that ugly statue is trying to convey. It’s a pope in a universe with no God. The sculpture is of a secular, Godless pope, there to comfort all the poor, little people with open arms and to wrap and fold them within his great, earthy cloak since, alas, there is no God to do so. This “artist” has expressed the ultimate elitist mentality, man as God since there is no one else but man to be God. The artist did not sculpt John Paul, poorly or otherwise, nor do I think he was trying to; he sculpted himself and his own vision — which is as transcendentally hollow as he made the body of his pope.

(I should perhaps note that I am not a Catholic and really know very little about John Paul; my view of this is from the perspective of art and transcendence and my sense that the sculptor is hostile to the idea of transcendence per se and would be hostile to it whatever religion it was expressed in. Aside from being simply ugly and unflattering, there’s absolutety nothing in the sculpture which suggests anything higher or beyond this world at all; it is entirely aimed at the earth alone; even the figure’s gaze is downward.)

Laura writes:

I think it is a stretch to call the person who made this Polish statue an “artist.” And it’s important to note again that this is not a Church statue and it sits on private property. The Vatican objected to the statue outside Termini station. I do not know whether it has commented on this.

The local clergy should have dissuaded this businessman from erecting this. It is not a tribute to John Paul II at all.

Bill R. writes:

The Polish statue I find merely cheesy rather than ugly, with an embarrassing air of commercialism about it. It’s hard to say which is the more offensive. For all its ugliness, the bottom one at least seems to be trying to say something. The fellow who made the Polish one doesn’t strike me as having even that much depth; rather just a self-aggrandizing opportunist. Guiness Book indeed!

Mary writes:

It is also significant, in light of current events, to remember that in 1986 John Paul II called together religious from around the world, including Muslims, to worship together at Assisi: a confusing and dangerous gesture which was unfortunately repeated during his papacy and then taken up by Pope Benedict, even after Benedict’s stated reservations as Cardinal. In Cardinal Ratzinger’s own words, “…there are undeniable dangers and it is indisputable that the Assisi meetings, especially in 1986, were misinterpreted by many people…” and “…false impression of common ground that does not exist in reality…”

I am not applying motive to John Paul II when I say that this gathering was a very bad idea. Even if the intention was truly charity, that charity was overridden by the weakening and scandalizing effect it had on the Church in the eyes of the world. Charity can only follow truth – otherwise it is just being nice. Any enemy would be emboldened by the cumulative impression formed by weak gestures like this one and myriad others which can be attributed to the U.S. government over recent years.

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