After a plea from the head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the Vatican's official media site continues to use artwork by the accused abuser
The specific issue of the article is the continued use of Rupnik’s work by Vatican websites. (As opposed to the larger issue of the presence of his work in places of worship.) I would say that the sensitivity of victims is only one aspect of the problem. Rupnik is currently under investigation for serious crimes. We know he has many lifelong friends in Rome; we are hoping this won’t prevent justice from being done. When the Vatican posts one of his images, it looks too much like an endorsement of Rupnik himself.
Both sinner and victim need justice. And yes, each of us is both.
Da Vinci is not the subject of a current investigation by the Vatican. The influence of any personal friends on a non-existent investigation is obviously not an issue.
I think that you are using a straw man argument to do your own deflection. The issue is not "look at every other sinful artist in the past" -- it is look at the current scandal and pain caused by the continued use of artwork in official communications of the Vatican that was created by an accused abuser who is currently under trial and, according to his accusers, his abuse occurred in the context of creating these works.
When you try to expand the scope to consider all artists from every era, you are deliberately attempting to muddy the waters.
1- because all people are sinners, we should not base any evaluation of their suitability for an ongoing role or honor in the number, severity or notoriety of their sins
or
2 - Art and other works created in the past are already complete, they can be evaluated separately from the creator's sins, which makes artworks different from suitability for an ongoing role or honor
(Or 3, something else entirely - I'm interested in understanding the core of your argument better)
Ah gotcha - in that case, that's where I disagree with you: I think the continued use of Rupnik's art (especially in places where it's easy to change, like digital uses, or printing on handouts) does imply an ongoing honor, in this case. An honor is by definition a matter of human perception - and in this case, the use of his work is clearly being perceived as a sign of honor and support, both by a chunk of the faithful (like several commenters here!) and by (at least some of) his victims.
> If we're going to reject art based on the sins of the artist
It seems that your question is primarily "why are we proposing to take down Rupnik's art?" and in order to pose this question, you have proposed a possible answer while at the same time accusing everyone of being wrong. This is indeed the best way to get answers on the internet because people get much more excited about correcting someone else who (in their eyes) is obviously wrong than about being helpful when someone has an unanswered question (like, to ask a question on stackoverflow and then to log in as someone else and answer it incorrectly in order to summon a swarm of people to provide a correct answer is an actual technique that I have heard other engineers only-half-jestingly propose.)
No, I think the conversation RIGHT NOW needs to be as loudly as possible critical of the Vatican Press Office’s obstinate use of the perpetrator’s own artwork.
Any of the distinctions you propose can be hashed out later, because none of them are anywhere near as directly offensive to the Gospel as this current situation is.
The collection for Peter's Pence is this weekend. Please remember Vatican support for sex abuse when considering your donation. There are other organizations one can support to do good without funding this one. If the only way we can make them listen is to defund them, so be it.
I haven't given to Peter's Pence for years now because I just don't trust what they're doing with our donations & also want to send them a message that Pope Francis cannot constantly look down upon & criticize faithful American Catholics while at the same time happily accepting our millions in donations.
Or, in the spirit of "malicious compliance," contribute a single penny, or a penny for everyone in your household if you're feeling extremely generous. It's Peter's Pence, so give literally a pence. A congregation of 500 would net them a whopping sum of $5.
Just make sure you actually write in and politely tell them why you are not contributing. Boycotting a product/service/organisation only works if they have an idea that a) you exist and b) inform them of a rationale for why you are boycotting. Otherwise the boycotted cannot draw the causal conclusion.
So now we have a Bishop and Rupnik's victims themselves telling the Vatican to stop using Rupnik's art. How loud do we need to call and shout to break through their deafness?
I appreciate Cardinal O'Malley did this. He's turning 80 tomorrow, so not sure if it's a coincidence that this just went public, but it's an interesting note either way. I read somewhere that he'll be staying in Boston for awhile longer with a target of the end of the year to name his successor.
I do wish more bishops/Cardinals would publicly speak out, however. One Cardinal speaking out is good, but a large group of dozens of Cardinals co-signing a letter would be better. I suspect most would be unwilling to offer even the most mild criticism of anything remotely connected to the Papal office, however. One person, even someone of the prominence of Cardinal O'Malley, might not be enough to force a change of course this time. It worked during the Chile incident years ago where he also spoke out, but for whatever reason it feels like Pope Francis and the Vatican apparatus is far more invested in defending Fr. Rupnik than the whole Chilean epsicopate.
Did any Cardinal or Bishop, especially two Cardinals among his co-consecrators, speak out on behalf of Bishop Paul J. Bradley when he was kicked to the curb over the “in the bag” Steubenville merger? These guys do not speak out as you suggest. With Cardinal Pierre calling the US shots, all of them sleep with one eye open.
Sean Cardinal Patrick O’Malley turns 80 on 4 September. If/when he leaves active work and ministry, start the death vigil/death watch for the US church.
Hello to everyone at the Vatican News website who reads the Pillar comment section! We are all praying for you to figure out how to change images on a website (I know this can be hard sometimes, especially if the more "technical" people are taking a vacation or a long lunch break or if they just leave the phone off the hook when there are test cricket matches going on).
"...leave the phone off the hook..." Hahahaha! I wonder how many of our younger 𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘳 readers will get that. Or why they say, "Hang up" to end a phone call.
(BTW, if the phone has been off the hook this summer, it's been for the 2024 Euro soccer championship. Incidentally, Italy plays Switzerland today. My phone will be off the hook for that one. And, yes, soccer 𝗶𝘀 an appropriate name for the sport, despite the ridicule others try to heap on it."
To be honest, this might ACTUALLY BE a challenge for them. Have you seen the Vatican's website? It's like a monument to the mid-90's World Wide Web!
That leads me to another question: Why didn't anyone think to throw some of the financial scandal grifting money toward their web presence? A small amount of web design work could have been done for an enormous fee by a prominent Cardinals nefew. Better than non-existent bread deliveries....
As a quondam technical person I am deadly serious about how much of a rats' nest we sometimes create (in the distant era from which the aesthetic of the Vatican web hails, I was partly responsible for generating HTML to format the bulletins on my then-parish's website, and for this I used Perl, if I recall correctly.)
“We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering,” he added.
Respectfully, Cardinal O'Malley, the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering; so, why avoid sending that message, when it is true?
Out of curiosity, I asked Google to pull up images of St. Irenaeus. The only image by Rupnik was on row 5 and came from the Vatican news website. Every other Eastern/Byzantine icon or picture was a vast improvement over the Rupnik version. (The Western style pictures were also better than Rupnik’s.). Thus, there is no reason to keep Rupnik’s tainted art on the website—even from an artistic point of view—and of course there are extremely good reasons to remove it.
Somehow, the fact that the Rupnik version was found only at the Vatican makes its continued presence on their website seem especially disturbing to me.
Yes. That’s one reason that you can tell if art is his at a glance without needing anyone to tell you that it is. I think that’s one reason why keeping it has a more negative effect on many people than the work of another artist would. They immediately know it is his and that leads to all the corresponding associations automatically.
The specific issue of the article is the continued use of Rupnik’s work by Vatican websites. (As opposed to the larger issue of the presence of his work in places of worship.) I would say that the sensitivity of victims is only one aspect of the problem. Rupnik is currently under investigation for serious crimes. We know he has many lifelong friends in Rome; we are hoping this won’t prevent justice from being done. When the Vatican posts one of his images, it looks too much like an endorsement of Rupnik himself.
Both sinner and victim need justice. And yes, each of us is both.
Da Vinci is not the subject of a current investigation by the Vatican. The influence of any personal friends on a non-existent investigation is obviously not an issue.
It looks like we have a difference of opinion as to what is the pertinent issue at hand.
I think that you are using a straw man argument to do your own deflection. The issue is not "look at every other sinful artist in the past" -- it is look at the current scandal and pain caused by the continued use of artwork in official communications of the Vatican that was created by an accused abuser who is currently under trial and, according to his accusers, his abuse occurred in the context of creating these works.
When you try to expand the scope to consider all artists from every era, you are deliberately attempting to muddy the waters.
Do you think of it more as:
1- because all people are sinners, we should not base any evaluation of their suitability for an ongoing role or honor in the number, severity or notoriety of their sins
or
2 - Art and other works created in the past are already complete, they can be evaluated separately from the creator's sins, which makes artworks different from suitability for an ongoing role or honor
(Or 3, something else entirely - I'm interested in understanding the core of your argument better)
Ah gotcha - in that case, that's where I disagree with you: I think the continued use of Rupnik's art (especially in places where it's easy to change, like digital uses, or printing on handouts) does imply an ongoing honor, in this case. An honor is by definition a matter of human perception - and in this case, the use of his work is clearly being perceived as a sign of honor and support, both by a chunk of the faithful (like several commenters here!) and by (at least some of) his victims.
> If we're going to reject art based on the sins of the artist
It seems that your question is primarily "why are we proposing to take down Rupnik's art?" and in order to pose this question, you have proposed a possible answer while at the same time accusing everyone of being wrong. This is indeed the best way to get answers on the internet because people get much more excited about correcting someone else who (in their eyes) is obviously wrong than about being helpful when someone has an unanswered question (like, to ask a question on stackoverflow and then to log in as someone else and answer it incorrectly in order to summon a swarm of people to provide a correct answer is an actual technique that I have heard other engineers only-half-jestingly propose.)
No, I think the conversation RIGHT NOW needs to be as loudly as possible critical of the Vatican Press Office’s obstinate use of the perpetrator’s own artwork.
Any of the distinctions you propose can be hashed out later, because none of them are anywhere near as directly offensive to the Gospel as this current situation is.
Agree with the need for that clarification in terms.
The collection for Peter's Pence is this weekend. Please remember Vatican support for sex abuse when considering your donation. There are other organizations one can support to do good without funding this one. If the only way we can make them listen is to defund them, so be it.
I haven't given to Peter's Pence for years now because I just don't trust what they're doing with our donations & also want to send them a message that Pope Francis cannot constantly look down upon & criticize faithful American Catholics while at the same time happily accepting our millions in donations.
Or, in the spirit of "malicious compliance," contribute a single penny, or a penny for everyone in your household if you're feeling extremely generous. It's Peter's Pence, so give literally a pence. A congregation of 500 would net them a whopping sum of $5.
Just make sure you actually write in and politely tell them why you are not contributing. Boycotting a product/service/organisation only works if they have an idea that a) you exist and b) inform them of a rationale for why you are boycotting. Otherwise the boycotted cannot draw the causal conclusion.
Thank you. I would not have thought to do that.
No money for Peter's Pence. Give it to your local pro-life organization instead.
We need to wait and pray for the canonical trial to conclude. End of story.
Good luck with that one. We have to wait for it to start, first. Maybe in the next pontificate he will have less protection.
So now we have a Bishop and Rupnik's victims themselves telling the Vatican to stop using Rupnik's art. How loud do we need to call and shout to break through their deafness?
I’m grateful to Cardinal O’Malley for speaking up.
Whats the alternative illustration that should be used? Need to give options here. Has nobody depicted Saint Irenaeus before?
HA HA HA HA, sure no one has ever depicted St. Irenaeus before.
But we've used this one since 2021! It's tradition!
I appreciate Cardinal O'Malley did this. He's turning 80 tomorrow, so not sure if it's a coincidence that this just went public, but it's an interesting note either way. I read somewhere that he'll be staying in Boston for awhile longer with a target of the end of the year to name his successor.
I do wish more bishops/Cardinals would publicly speak out, however. One Cardinal speaking out is good, but a large group of dozens of Cardinals co-signing a letter would be better. I suspect most would be unwilling to offer even the most mild criticism of anything remotely connected to the Papal office, however. One person, even someone of the prominence of Cardinal O'Malley, might not be enough to force a change of course this time. It worked during the Chile incident years ago where he also spoke out, but for whatever reason it feels like Pope Francis and the Vatican apparatus is far more invested in defending Fr. Rupnik than the whole Chilean epsicopate.
Did any Cardinal or Bishop, especially two Cardinals among his co-consecrators, speak out on behalf of Bishop Paul J. Bradley when he was kicked to the curb over the “in the bag” Steubenville merger? These guys do not speak out as you suggest. With Cardinal Pierre calling the US shots, all of them sleep with one eye open.
Seems like nothing short of a direct command from the Pope himself will stop them from using & promoting the evil Rupnik's artworks.
Ruffini should be sacked at once too
Sean Cardinal Patrick O’Malley turns 80 on 4 September. If/when he leaves active work and ministry, start the death vigil/death watch for the US church.
CORRECTION: The Cardinal turns 80 tomorrow, June 29.
What a farce.
Dioceses can remove hymns from use or even hymnals when the composer is in a similar situation. Yet these guys are inept at removing artwork?
Hello to everyone at the Vatican News website who reads the Pillar comment section! We are all praying for you to figure out how to change images on a website (I know this can be hard sometimes, especially if the more "technical" people are taking a vacation or a long lunch break or if they just leave the phone off the hook when there are test cricket matches going on).
With God all things are possible!
"...leave the phone off the hook..." Hahahaha! I wonder how many of our younger 𝘗𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘳 readers will get that. Or why they say, "Hang up" to end a phone call.
(BTW, if the phone has been off the hook this summer, it's been for the 2024 Euro soccer championship. Incidentally, Italy plays Switzerland today. My phone will be off the hook for that one. And, yes, soccer 𝗶𝘀 an appropriate name for the sport, despite the ridicule others try to heap on it."
To be honest, this might ACTUALLY BE a challenge for them. Have you seen the Vatican's website? It's like a monument to the mid-90's World Wide Web!
That leads me to another question: Why didn't anyone think to throw some of the financial scandal grifting money toward their web presence? A small amount of web design work could have been done for an enormous fee by a prominent Cardinals nefew. Better than non-existent bread deliveries....
> this might ACTUALLY BE a challenge for them
As a quondam technical person I am deadly serious about how much of a rats' nest we sometimes create (in the distant era from which the aesthetic of the Vatican web hails, I was partly responsible for generating HTML to format the bulletins on my then-parish's website, and for this I used Perl, if I recall correctly.)
“We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering,” he added.
Respectfully, Cardinal O'Malley, the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering; so, why avoid sending that message, when it is true?
Out of curiosity, I asked Google to pull up images of St. Irenaeus. The only image by Rupnik was on row 5 and came from the Vatican news website. Every other Eastern/Byzantine icon or picture was a vast improvement over the Rupnik version. (The Western style pictures were also better than Rupnik’s.). Thus, there is no reason to keep Rupnik’s tainted art on the website—even from an artistic point of view—and of course there are extremely good reasons to remove it.
Somehow, the fact that the Rupnik version was found only at the Vatican makes its continued presence on their website seem especially disturbing to me.
Thank you, Cardinal O’Malley.
Gosh. I have looked it up now and can safely say he is no Titian.
Why the totally black eyes? They seem to be a feature of his work.
Yes. That’s one reason that you can tell if art is his at a glance without needing anyone to tell you that it is. I think that’s one reason why keeping it has a more negative effect on many people than the work of another artist would. They immediately know it is his and that leads to all the corresponding associations automatically.