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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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Aesthetic Drive

Art is the clearest and most immediate reflection of the spiritual life of a people. It exercises the greatest conscious and unconscious influence on the masses of the people . . . . In its thousandfold manifestations and influences it benefits the nation as whole. ~ Adolph Hitler
Hitler was an aesthete. He would have found much to approve in papal encomia to artists as “custodians of beauty” (Benedict) or “ingenious creators of beauty” (John Paul II). An ardent patron of the arts, Hitler drew around him men with an aesthetic bent. Continue Reading

On Keeping Powder Dry

“Woe to me if I do not evangelize” 1 Cor 9:16   You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em Know when to fold ‘em Know when to walk away know when to run You never count your money When you’re sittin’ at the table There’ll be time enough for countin’ When the dealin’s done. Kenny Rogers, “The Gambler “(1978)   Two thousand years apart, the verses complement each other. St.Paul was a canny evangelist. He knew when to fold (on circumcision and table laws) and when to hold his ground. Continue Reading

How to Greet Offending Art

If we believe that the arts are mission territory—and they are—they have to be approached with as much charity and cunning as the dugout of aboriginal tribesmen. There is little to be gained by viewing contemporary art as evidence of the depravity of man. It is bad missionary procedure to openly despise the culture we would transform. Granted, there is much to dismay, much to admonish. But the Church will not evangelize a slipping West while we cultivate our moral vanity by making an idol—or an ideology—of our own disapprovals. Continue Reading

Bloodless/Bloodied

Blood is either absent or decorously minimized in those images of Jesus’ Passion with which we are best familiar. The death of Jesus is only part of the Christ story; the momentous, history-shattering disclosure comes later. Accordingly, traditional Passion imagery inclines toward a reflective distance from the physical realities of a Roman scourging and crucifixion. In the earliest crucifixes, the corpus is dressed in an ecclesiastical tunic and its outstretched arms do not bend with the weight of the body. Straight and firm as they are, the outstretched arms suggests either a welcoming embrace or triumphal acclaim—the exuberant gesture of a victory lap. Continue Reading

Francis Votes Present

Earlier this month Sandro Magister’s Chiesa broadcast an interesting particular in the Masses celebrated by Pope Francis:
At the moment of communion, Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not administer it himself, but allows others to give the consecrated host to the faithful. He sits down and waits for the distribution of the sacrament to be completed.
At solemn Masses, Francis distributes the eucharist only to his assistants on the altar. And at the juvenile detention center on Holy Thursday, he gave the sacrament to young detainees who approached to receive it. Continue Reading
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