Author: Sal

That 70’s Parish

8thstation.jpg It’s time to get back to things Catholic like bashing church art since Vatican II. At first I thought to entitle this post “abstract art” in Latin, but upon consulting a Latin dictionary I found there is no word for “abstract.” Abstract art is ars quod nulo sensu percipi notio mente sola concepta or “art removed from the sphere of the senses.” Amazing what Latin tells us about ourselves, isn’t it? Abstract art isn’t entirely removed from the realm of the senses. Such as it is, it obviously presents something to the senses.

Consider a church that removed a beautiful Crucifix and replaced it with a big, red wall. The Crucifix is a symbol of so many of the treasures of the faith: the mystery of the Incarnation, the price of our redemption, the eternal high priest, the wisdom, power, and humiliy of God. I could go on but you get the point. The big, red wall is a big, red wall. “It’s the blood of Christ, Sal.” No, it’s a big, red wall. And near the big, red wall is a priest who never preaches about the Eucharist. You could say it is anything! It’s a sunset, it’s a sunrise, it’s red, red wine. The point is the meaning isn’t evident. Anyone can say it is about anything. They could even say red is blue or green if they wish.

An example are these visages of the Stations of the Cross. Aside from the Roman numerals there is nothing literally symbolic them. Are those the women (all two of them!) of Jerusalem weeping as the head of Jesus passes along the way? I think these stations are wretched. Welcome to that 70’s Parish.

stations- big.jpg

Europe goes apoplectic

Denis Boyles on NRO. Read this amazing intro:

In the middle of the thundering herd’s race to blame the values issue for Kerry’s defeat, Jeff Jacoby — the Boston Globe’s tenuous link to reason — had some bad news for the idiots of the global village this week: “For four years, Americans watched and listened as President Bush was demonized with a savagery unprecedented in modern American politics….And then on Tuesday they turned out to vote and handed the haters a crushing repudiation.”
Very cutting edge, Americans. We may be on to something again. In the ’60s, it was free love. Nobody had to pay for it. Now it’s free hate — and nobody’s buying that, either. Virtually every major European newspaper is giving away lifetime supplies of toxic text and poisonous bile, all directed toward George W. Bush and the Americans hate-filled Brian Reade in the Mirror calls “the frightened and clueless…self-righteous, gun-totin’, military lovin’, sister marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport ownin’ red-necks…who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to child-molesting.” Persuasive, no?

No, it’s not. The party without a soul has some soul-searching to do.

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Categorized as Politics

Democrats got religion the day after the election

A Party on Its Knees by George Neumayr in the American Spectator
The problem is that Casey Democrats find themselves in such bad company. The “people of faith” (a PC way of saying “Christians”) are continually marginalized by those who believe religion is for dunderheads and throwbacks from the Dark Ages. Expect the leopard to change its spots on the outside and retain it’s atheistic guile on the inside. Maybe Hillary will get ordained a Baptist minister before ’08! And Barak Obama will become Catholic and change his name to Barak O’Connor.

Happy Sunday, everyone!