The Fringe: July 2003 Archives

No, I don't mean this type of odd "icon": we've already talked about that artist.

I mean the images designed by a "Brother Simeon" and sold under the name of "Monastery Icons". Maybe you've seen them in religious gift shops or even in parishes. The vestibule of my mother's parish** in New Hampshire has two large panels from them, each about 4' x 6'. They're a fairly popular source for icons of Western saints: they've been churning out images of St. Francis and Ste. Therese and Padre Pio (even before he was beatified) for years. Whatever's popular, they'll produce.

They don't look like classic Orthodox icons: the colors used are different, and some of the decorations are foreign to the tradition. Is this "Sacred Heart" image (sorry, the link's broken now) an icon or a sort of mandala?

Ever wonder where they come from? You'd expect that a monastery producing icons would be most likely Orthodox, or maybe Eastern Catholic. This group has had several different names over its history, as it moved from one state to another, and it's actually belonged to several religions. The term they used for the longest time -- and maybe they still do -- was "Gnostic Orthodox". According to their "abbot", the real teaching of Christ is "an esoteric interpretation" of Christianity that includes a belief in reincarnation and "magnetic therapy" healing.

Just to let you know where they're coming from. I personally wouldn't buy anything from them, but it's your call. Somebody's given me one of their images, and writing this reminds me that I oughta get it blessed real good.

** (another Stupid Vosko Church [tm])

Those Dominican religious who vandalized some equipment at a missile base have been convicted; their sentence is jail time and restitution. But they'll get even: if the US doesn't do away with its nuclear weapons, they'll cow the government into submission with those fierce expressions.
They only dress Puritan when on scowling duty. Here's their usual habit:

Here they are, engaging the culture with the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition:

they spilled containers of their own blood into shapes of crosses on the tracks and on the wall of the missile silo.

"I've been tested. I don't have AIDS," Gilbert told the court. "We brought the blood in baby bottles. "

Then, with the bloody crosses drying in the autumn sun, the nuns sang a song about the sacred Earth and chanted, "Oh God, teach us how to be peacemakers in a hostile world."

After about 40 minutes of this, several soldiers driving Humvees crashed through the fence and, with their weapons drawn, surrounded the gray-haired women and handcuffed them.

This is irresponsible. How long will the US military go on tolerating stupid peace songs? I'd have cuffed 'em after 5 minutes.

Update: Occasionally they do wear something more conventional. Fr. Sibley spotted them in their decontamination suits.

Sometimes an announcement in the Catholic press sounds so bland, so routine, that you might think nothing unusual or even interesting was involved. For example, this ZENIT item sounds like a routine bit of bureaucratic functioning: a certain bishop has been appointed to some position as the "pontifical commissioner" to a certain religious community, whatever that means.

This is actually one of the weirdest cases of phony mysticism I've heard of, in an era when false mystics and apparitions are "the scourge of the Church" (in the words of E. Michael Jones). What does the Church do when a visionary attracts followers - and even inspires the founding of new religious communities - but the founder turns out to be a fraud with a heretical message? In this case, the Church suppressed the visionary's lay movement but let the religious community continue, provided that it accept direct supervision by a bishop appointed by Rome.

What did the founder do or say that was so bad? Oh, she's alleged to be the reincarnation of Our Lady, that's all.