A few weeks ago I had a discussion at church that surprised me.
They: “Those golden things the Pope has, the great works of art in the Vatican . . . they could be sold, and the money given to the poor.”
Me (and others): “Um…that’s what Judas said, about pouring perfume on Jesus’s head.”
They: “Yeah, but that was Jesus.”
Me: “Aren’t those art works also meant for the glory of God?”
They: “Are they?”
Well, I hope so.
There’s something called dominion theology. I don’t know much about it, or even what it is exactly, but it does have a bit about the end of the world coming not when things go to hell and Jesus intervenes, but when things get better due to the church’s actions. I think part of the “better” is making the world beautiful by building cathedrals (and, to be sure, by building hospitals and loving our neighbors). I don’t know if any of this is true, but I do like the perspective that we ought to be making the world a better place.
I started to wonder if “They” were right here, for different reasons. Today I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. It’s magnificent. Maybe it’s too magnificent. I went in, and it was a beehive of tourists taking photos, and those velvety cords to keep you from going where you shouldn’t, and staffers there to search your bags in case you’re a terrorist and keep you from wandering down the center aisle during the service snapping your flash.
My church back home is the sort that doesn’t even have a nave; it has a “worship space.” Its construction, like that of your house, is flimsy. Nobody’s going to come interrupt our services to take pictures of our statues. Unless we buy some. Maybe St. Pat’s should sell the cathedral to the highest bidder and rent a basement somewhere that’s so ugly nobody would want to look at it.
But when mass started, I found the buzzing beehive wasn’t a problem. I could hear (once the priest found his mic). There were people snapping photos along the wall, but the only real distraction I had was the usual, my thoughts, the monkey-mind that won’t shut up.
And afterwards, I went to that wall where the tourists were, and had my own look. There was St. Jude, reminding me that God loves those that mourn; and St. Brigit, reminding me that we need to love them too.
So the art still had its uses. I think we can hold off on the auction.
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One of the uses of church art, I think, is that it reminds us of the past, that others have walked in this faith before us (and, by extension, that still others will walk in this faith after us). It's the "cloud of witnesses" we read about in the Letter to the Hebrews.
Our age doesn't really have a sense of past (or much of a sense of future). Stuff that old folks did that's still relevant is kind of offensive (unless it's really poorly documented so that we can re-imagine them in our own image, like a lot of current “pagan” practice). I actually think that some of the perennial suggestion that “the church should sell off its art” is, deliberately or not, an attempt to destroy Christian history.
But that's me, and it's possible that I'm just being curmudgeonly on a Monday morning.
Peace,
–Peter
Unfortunately, too many people will claim that the Pope and the Vatican State are too rich and that their art treasures should be sold.
Whenever I hear this, my first question is then: sold to whom? Then I try to expolain that the vatican is only the keeper of those treasures which are part of our common heritage.
Mark Shea cites the most useful, for this particular encoutner, part of a useful-looking speech:
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/10/bilbos-immea…
whole thing:
http://www.tnerb.org/archives/000208.html
How can i understand the significant about the church.Please,i am a student from sacreat heart at accra(Ghana)and i want to know much more about the church.Thank you.
Maybe you can find a forum for asking this question — or better yet, someone you can meet in real life? You wont' get much response in comments on this article — people usually only read the first couple of articles!