This was back in 2011, when the NAACP hid a prominent statue of George Washington inside a wooden box during a MLK Day rally, offering the terminally lame excuse that the box that shielded the crowd from Washington’s face would make a more suitable backdrop for the rally’s speakers. The NAACP denies any intention of disrespect, but their narrow view of history is no secret: anyone who owned slaves is a racist, and anyone who is a racist cannot be called a great man. This is what is taught in history class, and several generations have been nourished on these junk food ideas.
Students are taught that they must not squander their exquisite admiration on someone who owned slaves. They are taught, by implication, that it’s not enough for a man to give up his family and his safety for the noble cause of independence. It’s not enough to inspire and command. It’s not even enough to triumph in a way that directly benefits millions of people today.
He must also be . . . EVERYTHING MAN.
He must leap out of his time, and see with the eyes of every possible future type of enlightenment. Did he accomplish the massive victories that his generation desperately needed? Not good enough. We also require him to be the role model for solving any type of conflict that might ever turn up, or else he’s no good to us. Into the box you go, little George. You don’t impress us anymore.
Where else do we see this same lazy, self-absorbed analysis of history? In the sour voices that grumble over John Paul II’s beatification. He may have been good, they say, but oh, he was not great. Oh, sure, he was very charismatic and all. He clearly prayed a lot, and that’s commendable. But what a hash he made of the Church! It’s all his fault! He’s the one who wrote all those lame hymns, he’s the one who offered free butch haircuts to nuns, if you’ll recall. And who can forget those Woodstock-style World Youth Day rallies, where he encouraged the youth to hold hands during the Our Father? Never mind that the number of Catholics worldwide grew from 700 million to 1.2 billion while he was Pope — the guy was a squish, a pushover, a washout.
Listen to me. God sends certain men to achieve certain great deeds while they live. They are not responsible for what future generations may require: that is up to the heroes born of those generations. Great men are great because they do what needs to be done at the time. They put their own desires and frailties aside, and they make the world new with their particular strengths, their particular form of brilliance. Heck, that’s what Martin Luther King Jr. did. A holy man? No. He was a serial adulterer. And Washington owned slaves, and John Paul II allowed the monster Maciel to flourish.
But they were great men. They took their personal, God-given talents and turned them into something immense — something that made the world better.
It’s not just that we should forgive the wrong they did because they did so much good (although that is also true). No. I’m saying that these men were good in the way that they were designed to be good, great according to their own natures. George Washington’s great strength wasn’t as an abolitionist, you know? John Paul II’s great strength wasn’t as a disciplinarian. It wasn’t his calling.
Do we criticize Fra Angelico for not figuring out how to split the atom? Or do we sneer at Herman Melville because he couldn’t outrun Carl Lewis? I mean, what do we want from these guys? And can’t we even imagine that whatever heroes we admire today may someday be judged harshly by our great great grandchildren — and wouldn’t that seem unfair? Men are men, and they live when they live. Who is good enough for us? Who can escape our endlessly dissatisfied dissection?
There was only one perfect Man. The other great men of the world — Washington, King, John Paul II, and any hero you can name — are only mirrors, who catch and show to us a little bit of His radiant light. The world is dark enough already. Let’s not become so enlightened that we spend our time setting up boxes around the brilliance of great men.
(1) God wants everyone.
(2) Not everyone wants God.
In this parable, the king has invited all the expected, honored guests to his son’s wedding, but they not only refused his invitation, but abused and killed the messengers who invited them.
This is old news — as old as Adam and Eve, as old as the War in Heaven — and would not even be a story at all if the king didn’t then decide to do something scandalous and unexpected: he invites people who normally don’t get invited to the king’s house:
Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
Good and bad alike, meaning cohabitating couples, second-marriaging couples, and people in love with a gay partner (not to mention people in “irregular” situations less familiar to first world Catholics! Remember, the Synod is for everyone, not just the Northern Hemisphere). People who aren’t living up to Church teaching, but who nevertheless want in to that gorgeous, beautiful, nourishing, splendid party hall, because they know a good thing when they see it.
The feast is ready. The king has got all this good stuff, and he wants to share it with someone, so why not open the doors wider? This is exactly what the king in the parable does does.
But then there’s this:
But when the king came in to meet the guests,
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
This is the second part of what the Church has always taught: God invites, and we decide how far we want to respond to that invitation. What is implied in the story is that the guest knew very well that he wasn’t dressed properly, and doesn’t even have an excuse. He chooses not to come prepared, or to make any changes. When we make no effort, show no signs of being willing to change or even defend our actions, then why should you be there?
This, too, is the message coming out of the Synod. An invitation is for something. It’s a beginning, and way to get people to put their foot in the door so we can figure out what they need next, and what is needed from them. If you do not invite them, you will never get to that point.
The mid-term report described as an “earthquake” is nothing of the kind. It’s a reassertion of the constant, consistent teaching of the Church, and even the constant, consistent teaching of God the Father toward His wayward people: Come to Me. Please, come to me. Yes, I want you to change, and I will demand things of you. But we can’t get anywhere unless you come to Me.
And once you do accept the invitation, the Synod is saying that pastors and deacons and RCIA directors and anyone involved with catechesis are to explain fully what it means to be a member of the Church — keeping in mind that probably the majority of Catholics in the world have almost none of even a basic understanding of what marriage is for, what sex is for, or what life is for. But a good many of them have good intentions, want to be good to each other, want to raise healthy families, and want to be loved. So that’s where you start: with the invitation.
It starts with the purpose of our creation and moves into the nature of our sexuality; the covenant of marriage; the importance of children; the place of priesthood and religious life in the ecology of the Christian community; the Christian home as a refuge for the wounded heart; the role of the Church; and the missionary witness of Christian families to the wider world.
So, this is what the Church is doing: it is inviting people to the feast, and it is instructing them in how to “dress” the soul, how to behave as an honored guest so they can participate in the feast — so they can follow up on the invitation. In short, it is teaching us how to be a Catholic.
The Church, at the Synod, is doing its job, its one and only job of inviting and instructing. Tell me again how this is a problem — how it ought, instead, to be skipping straight to the “waling and gnashing of teeth” part that so many Catholics seem to favor.
If a cohabitating couple shows up for a baptism, what do we do? Or if a couple with an un-annulled second marriage, or if a gay couple turns up wanting to lead some ministry, what do we do? Do you slam the door? No, we say, “Come in, and let’s talk about what you have right so far. Then we can figure out what’s next.”
In other words, practice basic human psychology, never mind basic human decency.
I am well aware that people can twist the document to mean whatever they want to mean. If they think the Church should just be nice and friendly and not be so picky about all those stupid rules, then that is what they will see in the Synod. If they think the Church should be stern and exacting and spend most of its time driving people away because they’re not holy enough, then that is what they will see in the Synod.
This twisting of words, too, is constant and consistent. People have twisted the words of Jesus Christ from the moment the sound waves were still dissipating into the atmosphere of Jerusalem. But if you read the entire document, if you pay close attention and don’t get all your information from one ideological side or the other, it will be clear that all the Synod is saying is what the Church has always said: invite whomever you find, so you can teach them how to be good guests, so we can all enjoy the feast together.
Tell me again how this is a problem. And while you’re at it, tell the king.
Oh, time is getting away from me! I kept meaning to say, I will be in Williamston, Michigan on Sunday morning, speaking at St. Mary Catholic Church for their Ekklesia Project series. There will be Mass at 9 AM, then breakfast, then my talk.
The topic is “One Weird Trick to Being a Good Catholic Family.” How to identify “one weird trick” thinking in your spiritual life, and what to do instead.
Hope to see you there! I may or may not be speaking at another event somewhere in the state of Michigan on Saturday! I will let you know if I am!
If you’re like me and most of my American Catholic friends, any combination of the words “American” and “Catholic” gives you the heebie jeebies. Either you’re going to get one of those “Jesus was a republican, and food stamps are a mortal sin” tirades, or else we’ll be treated to another learned treatise on how the one thing the Pope needs to do right now, IF he’s really the Pope, is to pronounce anathema against people whose disgusting little irreverent offspring eat Cheerios during Mass.
The book is entirely factual, not pious, and will appeal to people who like history but are skeptical about the contributions of religious people. It’s a companionable, well-sourced antidote to the idea that Catholics are a monoculture of biddable, brainless sheep. You can’t read this book and not be impressed, at very least, by how much variety there is in our complicated congregation, and how much individuality, not to mention courage, ingenuity, and good humor.
It’s my favorite kind of book these days: a one-a-day volume of 365 dated entries, each one highlighting some noteworthy American Catholic, place, or event. Some of the folks profiled are famous (Norma McCorvey, Thomas Merton), but many are less so (songwriter Harry Warren, war hero John Basilone). Some don’t act very Catholic at all (Justice Anthony Kennedy, mobster Dutch Schultz) and some, I had no idea were Catholic (Buffalo Bill, Clare Booth Luce).
The book also offers tidbits of history, anecdotes about cities and monuments, and stories of love, war, crime, politics, evangelization, and of course sports. In all, a fascinating, variegated, and informative book, and clearly a labor of love by authors Emily Stimpson and Brian Burch.
I love the idea of a return to the almanac. It’s suited to the short attention span of modern readers (*sheepishly raises hand*) but is written for adults or intelligent kids, and it is meaty. The American Catholic Almanac would make a nice Christmas present in case you crazy American Catholics are already thinking that far ahead!
It is stunning that the Bishops are talking about sex! As long as you are the kind of person who wakes up stunned to see the sun rise, stunned to find that you have feet at the end of your legs, stunned to discover that the floor under those feet is still made out of wood, just like it has been for decades and decades.
And Vladimir Putin is so, so good at being the crazy, crazy president of Russia. Check out this birthday present he gave himself:
PIC Putin as Hercules
These are just two. There’s a whole gallery full of paintings depicting him as Hercules, doing Herculean things. I guess this was done voluntarily as a tribute to him from his admiring citizens. Much like when my husband comes home in the evening and we are all sitting on the floor wearing bowls on our head because the two year old told us to. It’s not that we are afraid of her! It’s really not. It’s just that . . . sometimes, it’s better to do what she says. And to like it!
Baby #1: Uh oh, I think the jelly I had on my toast yesterday might have had some GMOs in it. I better call my midwife … if I can get myself to admit to her what I did. I wonder if she will want to run some tests to make sure everything is still okay. No, wait, tests are bad, too! Oh, I’ve ruined everything, I’ve ruined the baby, and I haven’t even given birth yet!
Baby #10: Someone call your father and tell him we are out of wine.
The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article [1] as there were undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process. Furthermore, post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings. We apologise to all affected parties for the inconvenience caused.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
There is still no proven link between vaccines and autism.
Here is the third installment in a series: Catholic Artist of the Month. Rather than constantly kvetching about mediocre, sentimental art by Christians, I’ll be featuring artists who are doing it right.
Although he was raised Lutheran, Carlin says that when he was young that he wanted to be a priest. But it wasn’t until he was preparing for his marriage that he really considered joining the Church. Here is the conversation we had earlier this week. My questions are in bold.
*****
Tell us about your conversion to Catholicism.
.
My parents became involved with Evangelical Christianity, and I believed a lot of stereotypes about Catholics: Mary worship, idol worship, that the Mass was nothing more than vain repetition, that it was a dry, dead, man-created religion.
.
After college, I started going to Mass with my wife[-to-be], because I wanted to hang out with her. The parish was authentic, with on-fire Christians. There was a profound spirituality. The year before we got married, I went into RCIA, not to become a Catholic, but because we were going to raise the children Catholic. I wanted to at least get from the horse’s mouth what I was vowing to do.
.
Was there any one issue that especially bothered you about the Church?
.
The authority issue was the last hurdle. The parish priest was an accountant, and the deacon was a lawyer. The two of them had the right background for my personality. They would systematically, in a cool, rational fashion, answer anything about history, and send me looking to read more, never sending me off without something. They took me to the end of reason where faith begins.
.
Two weeks before Easter 2000, my heart had to finally break. I had to get down on my knees and get over it, get beyond the issues I had with the Church. My head was in the Church ten years before I ever joined. I didn’t realize that the things I wanted to do as an artist had a place in the Church.
.
You had established a career as an artist by this point already?
.
Yes, I’ve been a professional artist since 1992. After doing nine years of commercial illustration, I recognized I had big gaps in my skill set. I was confident I had the ability to draw, with pen and ink — I had wanted to be comic book illustrator. I had oil paintings in my head, but didn’t have the technical ability, so I opted for watercolor.
It’s the Atelier movement, an old-school intensive curriculum that takes you through all the basics. You come into someone’s studio and work directly under them, rather than getting that four-year degree. I spent five years with Aviano, learning painting and composition. The training made me confident I could move into other areas.
.
Like what?
.
Like portrait commissions, the gallery market, larger scale oil paintings. Also, in the mid-90′s, there was a shift in the illustration market. The entire commercial field took a hard turn toward the computer. But I like the smell of turpentine.
.
By the end of the millennium, I had transitioned out of illustration and into gallery work and teaching. When I got some time, I would do sacred work that meant something to me. Portraits of Christ, paintings of the Eucharist.
A lot of your gallery pieces are not overtly religious, but they look pretty incarnational to me. Some of your still lifes, especially, are really sensual.
I thought, “Hide the kids; that is one sexy melon!”
.
Thank you!
.
Then there is “Sacrifice,” with juicy meat and some very cruciform bones. To my Catholic eyes, it’s obviously a Catholic painting. What was going on there?
I’ve had great relationship with secular galleries, but I felt like I had to be in the closet with paintings.
They didn’t think there was a market for religious art. They wanted floral paintings, still lifes, and landscapes.
I was making a living, which was better than some, but I didn’t want to end up being 65 years old and still doing this type of work. As much as I loved illustration, there were other things I wanted to do. And part of me still wanted to be a comic book artist, with full-scale, multi-figure, narrative paintings.
Speaking of which, let’s talk about the Holy Family icon for the World Meeting of Families.
The faces of the adults are full of apprehension and worry, but Jesus looks very determined, and His foot is off the stone, as if He can’t wait to get going.
.
I was trying to convey the centrality of Christ in the family. I don’t care for maudlin, smiling representations of the Holy Family. Joseph and Mary were real people with real concerns. They were concerned about Him, but He was the rock. They had to look to their son for the promise of what He would do. All the elements of the painting bring you back to Him. He’s the center of the piece.
.
How did you choose the models?
.
Mary and Jesus’ faces were the one thing I felt some stress over, getting it just right. Some people are saying that they look too Jewish, and some people say they look too Northern European.
.
I guess that means you did something right!
.
Technically, I knew I could carry it off. The Bishop was happy with the design, the architecture of the cathedral was incorporated. But I had some sleepless nights because I wanted to make sure they were presented in a way that was respectful. A student of mine does icon writing. She said to pray about it, and allow it to come forth.
.
Is there a lot of pressure when you’re doing a religious painting? You don’t want to convey something spiritually misleading.
.
That’s where I rely on the priest I’m working with. I haven’t been raised in the Catholic tradition. Who can follow 2,000 years of history? Once I presented a sketch of Christ the King. I had looked at all these paintings, but it didn’t click with me that the hand of blessing was always the right hand. The liturgical design coordinator had to correct me.
.
When you’re doing a commission for a church, you must be thinking, “People are going to be looking straight at this for a whole hour, week after week.”
.
Oh, yes. The current piece I’m working on has twenty saints in twelve individual panels, in preexisting marble niches, six on the left of the tabernacle, six on the right. It’s going to show the Communion of Saints. I’m trying to create a porch where they’re existing.
It’s a difficult design challenge. I want it so that, when someone comes up for Communion, the perspective is gauged for that. The perspective will make sense once the Host is in your mouth, so that all the saints are joining in the feast of the Lamb with you.
.
For the Holy Family portrait, I wanted people to feel like, when you’re in the cathedral, they’re sitting there with you. There is a high degree of realism in the fabric and especially in the hands where they touch each other.
But I didn’t want people to look at the figures and find them so real, you could meet them at the gas station. I’m always trying to separate the model from the painting.
.
I know you’ve done a lot of portraits of saints, though, that are supposed to be recognizable. But I’ve seen saint pictures that are just slavishly accurate copies of photos, and they aren’t art, exactly. How do you handle this?
.
I arrange the figures in original compositions, get them costumed, and then use a photograph [of the saint] and put that head on the model’s body, and reconfigure the lighting in my head. I get a good, solid line drawing, and then put the photo away and work from the line drawing. I don’t try to make it look like a photo.
If the photo is in front of me, I’m going to try to get every last thing in it, but that would anchor the piece too much in matter. If I put the photo away, that allows me to find some balance between the ideal in my head and representing what’s in the photo.
.
I think the current interest in photorealism, cultivating the ability to copy everything within your visual field, has its root in a revival of 19th-century materialist philosophy. But I’m cultivating an incarnational aesthetic. I used to think that being able to copy what was right in front of my visual field was the peak. But you get there, and you think, “What now?” A whole lot of people can be trained to do that. I’m looking for more.
.
What are you looking for?
.
The Baroque period resonates with me the most: that Caravaggiesque dirt under the fingernails. He painted those figures from someone, but you don’t feel like it’s a model. It’s real, tangible, and exists in space, but it’s not slavishly copied from what’s in front of him.
.
For instance, most of the art depicting Gianna Molla and Miguel Pro are straight up copies of photos. Instead, I tried to create a narrative, show them engaged, show some of their attributes.
Do people sometimes get things out of your paintings that surprise you?
.
All the time. People find things that I didn’t intend. Like any work of art, a painting isn’t journalism. It’s poetry.
.
Who are you favorite artists now?
.
Right now? Guercino, Guido Reni, and Tiepolo. Michelangelo, of course. Raphael, of course. They get back to my roots as a comic book illustrator. The first time I went to the Met in New York, I saw a Guercino, “Sampson Taken by the Philistines,” with that muscular back. It was loaded with figures, so much action, and oodles of figures and colors.
The first thing I thought was, “It looks like a comic book panel.”
.
How about artists working right now? Who do you like?
.
For secular artists, a young guy named Adam Miller, a superior draftsman who does a lot of multifigure work. His compositions are extraordinary.
Donato Giancola does top tier illustration. He’s a painter and designer extraordinaire.
.
For sacred art: Anthony Visco is a sculptor from Philadelphia. He’s the whole nine yards in one bundle, a real renaissance man: architect, teacher, sculptor.
For painters, Raul Berzosa is my new superhero. He completed a ceiling I couldn’t believe. He’s such a young guy at such a high level. It’s mind boggling. Cody Swanson is another contemporary secular artist, another powerhouse.
.
Any advice for artists who would like to work for the Church?
.
Make sure what’s in your portfolio is what they will want to see! I had only a few pieces of sacred work in my portfolio, but it was enough to catch the eye of Cardinal Burke. That’s what allowed me to take it to the next level.
*****
A gallery of Carlin’s work, information about commissions, and more can be found at his website, NeilsonCarlin.com.
.
This is the third in a series of interviews with Catholic artists. Previous installments: Matthew S. Good Timothy Jones
.
*****
.
Are you a Catholic artist, or do you know one who would be available for interview? Send me a tip at simchafisher[at]gmail[dot]com. I am especially looking for sculptors, photographers, architects, and painters who are doing non-representational work.
The one rule is: it has to be fairly cheap, and cannot cause major upheaval or headaches for the pastor. No “replace everything with marble” or “assign a 24-hour on-call spiritual adviser to each parishioner” or “install heated holy water fonts” or “ban banjos.”
