Carlo Acutis, Bad Art, Eucharistic Processions, and the Silliness (and fear) of Heterodox Hierarchs

The recent approach to depictions of Carlo Acutis neatly demonstrate the hierarchical mess of the Church, and what we can do about it.

There is no shortage of kitsch - especially modern kitsch - in the history of Catholic art. It may even function as a necessary flaw to humanize and humble an institution, lest her members become too proud of their collective accomplishments; St. Paul had the thorn in his flesh to keep him humble, Catholics artists and art historians have instances such as Marco Rupnik and the St. Louis Jesuits to belay our meekness. The problem comes, however, when what should be an embarrassing outlier becomes celebrated and then enshrined. Those who should know better - especially Catholic priests and Bishops - today often act as if the Church’s aesthetic magisterium is a shameful relic of history. It is precisely the aesthetic magisterium which provides us with a firm and deep guide to what it means to follow Christ’s command to “duc in altum” (put out into the deep) in our work, and recent events in the sacred arts only further serve to underscore a simple yet powerful reality: good art is supremely difficult to create, and good sacred art even more so; ignorance comes easy.

And so we come to the problem recently demonstrated by this statue of the modern Blessed Carlo Acutis, and what it says about the state of Catholic patronage and aesthetic perception in our time:

Look at the statue. Closely. Now ask yourself: What does this statue say about him? What does it say about the Church? What does it say about our society’s understanding of beauty? What makes it transcendent? What makes it worthy of placing into a church, whose aesthetic and theological purpose - aside from being the center of the liturgy - is to place us within the great eschatological drama? Lofty goals aside, what makes that particular statue aesthetically better than a statue of Ronald McDonald standing in a McDonald’s restaurant?

If one follows the online conversation about this particular statue and other modern art representations of saints and sanctity, you might notice a very disturbing trend: it is precisely clerics (priests and Bishops) defending this work (and horrifically awarding, as the clueless celebrate), and lay Catholics giving the honest, pointed, and necessary criticism of it.

It is almost as if they are most keen to celebrate what was least interesting about Blessed Acutis — being that he was a millennial who wore jeans, sneakers, and used computers — than what was most interesting (and inspiring) about him: that he was a saintly young person who loved Christ deeply and sought out his manifestations in the world. Despite all of the allures of modernism and the digital siren-calls which surely beset him as much as they beset any young person venturing online, Bl. Acutis dwelt in the digital domain for the good of the Church. In our age, Bl. Acutis could have instead spent twelve hours a day playing video games online, or habitually browsing pornography, or cyber-bullying a classmate, or taking the sulfurous promptings of social media to go “change” his gender and participate in the new rainbowed zeitgeist. He did none of this, as far as we know: rather, he pursued, researched, and substantially digitally documented the Eucharistic presence of Christ in the world. He was a symbol against the zeitgeist, not a proud and shallow avatar of it as the statue here would suggest.

So why would Bishops hide what is sacred, and Priests celebrate this strange division? It is hard not to draw parallels to imposters like Blaise Cupich, who suppress the Tridentine form of the Mass in their dioceses, and seemingly fear what Eucharistic adoration can do to the point of suppressing Eucharistic processions. We can think of online celebrity priests such as Daniel Horan and James Martin, whose every seemingly Catholic twitter post is matched by an embarrassing attempt to conform the church to the world and its rainbow paradigm. (Horan, wisely, does not accept comments to his astoundingly scandalous twitter posts). There are priests who are obsessed with left-wing notions of social justice, and priests who sound like democratic party operatives in their pursuit of a race-based dialogue. Yet they all wander free and unencumbered, while in many (if not most) modern Catholic dioceses, orthodoxy must be whispered, sacred art dusted off, and beautiful liturgies groveled for. Clearly, what the statue’s aesthetic language represents spirituality is par for the course in modern Catholicism in the west, and is certainly something which must be changed before it is too late.

Returning to the statue and its contemporaries: Any art which seeks to depict a modern saint must draw the contemporary image of the saint out of his world, placing the image of this person both in our world and beyond it. While it is a real problem for artists to solve, the ways in which to do this are present to be studied in the aesthetic magisterium. And there are a number of artists already active who are deeply capable of creating such thoughtful and spiritually ennobling work. Meanwhile, many organizations (such as the Catholic Art Institute and the BXVI Institute) promote such artists to the world. One must be willfully ignorant and even potentially wicked, in this same age in which Blessed Acutis used the internet to document Eucharistic miracles, to not google-search one’s way to a better answer.

So who really was Blessed Carlo Acutis, besides being a modern young saint whose deep and reverent Eucharistic faith and solid orthodoxy would unfortunately be an embarrassment to so many priests and prelates in our time? Where does an artist start in depicting him as a potential saint? Perhaps we can take his mother’s word as a starting point:

"This was his secret: that he had a constant, intimate relationship with Jesus. He wanted everyone he encountered to have this kind of relationship like he did. He did not consider it to be something just for him. He was convinced that this relationship was accessible to all."

And in terms of aesthetic guidance, the words of Blessed Acutis can also be immediately applied:

"Sadness is looking at ourselves. Happiness is looking towards God."

Artists and art patrons, a simple guide emerges: begin with Christ at the center, and create outward from this, guiding the viewer’s perception from the humanity of the saint to the great heroic transcendence of his life, and the motion of the soul from the mundane to the triumphant cries of the everlasting hills. Look through the subject towards God, in a way that — through the subject which results — God can look back. Necessarily seek what is timeless in your work, as God is timeless. Move carefully and slowly, as there is great power in the potential success and failure of your work! These are the basic principles of great art, let alone great sacred art, and absolutely sacred liturgical art. It’s a monumentally difficult task to take upon oneself, but this is why art is a spiritual vocation, and no mere hobby. It requires a lifetime of toil, and that is after spending what can often be half a life in preparation. And it is exactly why, as John Paul 2 said in the conclusion to his Letter to Artists: “Art needs the Church, and the Church needs art!”