FEW things so damage the rights of God in the world than bad religious art.
Images of Jesus that are sentimental and portray Him with as much sublimity as a fitness instructor or rock star are extremely offensive. They are outright lies. Better no image of Jesus than an image that is profane or too-human.
Protestantist groups have long specialized in tawdry representations of this kind. But then the ‘Catholic Church that hates the Catholic Church’ now reigning from Rome does the same. The fact that many Protestants are guilty of vulgar sentimentality is nothing new, but that an institution claiming to be the Catholic Church, which has inspired so much beauty and transcendence in art, should produce an almost daily landslide of imagery inspired by the ethics of advertising and secular humanitarianism rather than supernatural grace is a fact so astonishing as to be difficult to absorb.
Sentimentality in religion is a serious fault. (So is superficiality — and the two are related.) The sentimental person forgets or is incapable of understanding that many people don’t share this gushiness or love of the sweet and cute. A person focused on his own good feelings is a person estranged from the truth of the human condition.
The spiritual world is all too invisible. People engrossed in the visible world have a hard time feeling for it. A great artist can interest them in the sublime by his capacity to convey other-worldliness.
It is possible to find truth in religion by following the trail of great art. A simple and truthful person can look at an image of a cathedral built many years ago and an image of a recent “Catholic” building and realize that these come from two irreconcilable belief systems. He doesn’t need a course in theology because these two buildings are visual manifestations of theological doctrines.
Where bad art exists there too is falsehood. It is possible to find truth with our eyes, if we have been given the grace to see.
In the meantime, we should feel sorrow — true pain — that God has chastised our eyes in this way, making us almost regret the tremendous gift of sight. That so much that is considered art simply is not art should make us shed tears.
— Comments —
Johanna writes:
I so agree with you. We attend the Stations of the Cross on Friday evenings and have tried several Catholic churches.
We will never go to a particular one again because they have such terrible illustrations in the book they use, especially
its cover which depicts a horrible looking Jesus in an awful position. It’s like the crucifix carried by Francis and I think
even John Paul II. Even the so-called prayers offend me as they totally focus on human problems.
Well, you can see for yourself.
If you are interested in sacred art, I have a wonderful website you can visit.
Laura writes:
Sadly, bad art is not the most serious problem at these places. As you suggest, they are not Catholic.
You can pray the “Way of the Cross” at home, using sacred images that are easily available at websites like the one you suggest.
