Cancel culture is when someone said something stupid on Twitter 15 years ago, not when someone is an abuser and used that abuse as a method of creating his art.
The Pillar ran an article that has warnings for graphic content (if you really want it, the Google search terms that will regurgitate it are: site:pillarcatholic.com rupnik "descent into hell") which has anecdotes from an abuse survivor. Any artist can say to a girl "I want you to be my model for this work of art because you are not like other girls (P.S. could you undo one more button)" and already we know where that is going but if there is no actual work of art in progress even a very naive girl will realize something is fishy here; there was actual art, if one can use the word.
I don't know if I would consider a priest who was excommunicated for Canon 977 and dismissed from his order to be a victim of "cancel culture." And I would say serially abusing nuns is more vile than his poor artwork.
The assertion “[T]he mosaics created by Fr. Rupnik in the St. John Paul II Shrine are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety and lack artistic worth" is patently absurd. This is a laughably bad argument that actively undermines the campaign to remove Rupnik's work.
Because nobody ever thought they lacked artistic merit before all that stuff came out! Just say you don't like the man and what he did. It's got nothing to do with the actual artwork. Why beat around the bush? Very frustrating
You missed the part where Rupnik perpetrated deeply sinful and immoral acts as part of his “creative process”. This is a fundamentally different problem to an artist like Caravaggio who was known to get black out drunk, get into fights, kill his opponents, and dally with prostitutes. Those things were recognised as his sins and failings and they certainly weren’t part of his ‘process’. If he murdered people in order to get compliant models, that’s a different story and THAT would render those artworks unsuitable for a place of worship. A museum? Sure… but not a Church.
P.S. I’ve always had aesthetic issues with Rupniks work. Especially being the daughter of a Byzantine iconographer. Those eyes…
I think the claim that they lack artistic worth is questionable. Saying that they're repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety when the process of creating them involved sexual abuse is absolutely true.
Well, since long before Fr Rupnik was reported to be a serial sexual predator, I’ve felt his art lacks artistic worth… but I’m not sure “artistic worth” is really the metric they should be citing for getting his artwork removed.
They could push to have his artwork removed because it’s bad (which I sympathize with), or push to have his artwork removed because he’s done bad things (which is certainly the stronger argument), but I think they muddy the waters by citing his bad behavior and then claiming the mosaics lack merit themselves.
What I mean is claiming *without a backing argument* that his works lack artistic worth is a questionable move, since people can easily disagree, though I realize I was unclear about that in my initial comment. It doesn't provide a compelling motive to remove his art unless you also have a distaste for it. I myself am unfamiliar with his mosaics, so I have no comment on their artistic merit or lack thereof, as considered in a vacuum. However, we aren't in a vacuum, we're in a reality where his committing acts of sexual abuse was integral to creating the art, and that is repugnant, since grave sin against another person was involved.
I see your point… artistic merit has subjective elements that can undermine the case for removing them which is the immoral acts of their creation (which has not been confirmed for these specific mosaics as far as I know). However. I would argue that the immoral acts render their artistic merit as compromised in of itself. Again, those eyes are not the eyes of a loving, human or divine Christ. There’s more Rupnik in those mosaics than I think we’d like to think.
As to ‘removing them’. Well what the hell do you do with them? Do you try and keep them intact in storage? Put them in a museum (crappier art has graced modern art galleries)? Pull them apart, bless the remains and them reuse them? I don’t know the answer to ere.
It is the counter argument to everyone who says "yes but Caravaggio (or Bernini) gets a free pass for something or other" (which is not a good argument, so I think it's fair that it's not a good counter argument either.)
"...and lack artistic worth due to the fact that Fr. Rupnik reportedly perpetrated his sexual abuse through the creation of his artwork." The council is not pronouncing judgement on the art per se. Rather, they point out that, since his artistic process was based on sexual exploitation, any potential spiritual or artistic merit is null and void.
The K of C, who, by fiat, showed the will and force necessary to remove the regalia of the 4th degree replacing it with a golf club blazer set that is north of $400, somehow cannot find the same will, force and especially conscience to remove a deviant nun rapist's art from the it's chapels.
Rupnik is an unspeakable deviant & used this very art to manipulate and abuse religious sisters. Such art mocks numerous victims and perpetuates his deviant and sacrilegious abuses.
unpopular opinion: I much prefer our new regalia, and I found the old regalia to be campy and totally inauthentic compared to the regalia of other actual chivalric and equestrian orders.
I just wish we would enforce some sort of standard on shaping the beret, and for the love of god cut the beret strings so they don't dangle off the back of the head.
I'm a 4th degree and fall squarely in the age demographic that Supreme was trying to attract. The old uniform had class and a sense of flair that pulled younger children to it like a magnet. The new one is a pale, colorless imitation of a military uniform (not Knighthood).
On top of that is the extreme cost for a custom fitted uniform that is only useful for a single purpose. The old uniform consisted of a simple suit for a base with adornaments. As a father to a young, growing family this is a very difficult cost to burden for a uniform.
The change in 4th degree regalia has more or less relegated the 4th degree to an old man's club in my council/assembly. Carl Anderson either hates the the patriotic degree and actively worked to keep young men from joining, or was Vatican-beurocrat level of out-of-touch with the young men joining the Knights.
Both uniforms are the main reason I declined the 4th degree. That, and the requirement to drive halfway across my state for an all-day confab. I like fraternity and all that, but not the trappings and inconveniences that accompany it in the K of C.
What? You’re welcome to have a stylistic preference, but there’s so much off base on what you’ve said.
The old regalia truly was kitchy and campy, an “uncanny valley” cosplay-version of equestrian and chivalric orders. It’s always looked like a cheap costume. I thought it looked utterly silly. And the new regalia is not trying to emulate “military” either - take it from a guy who spent 7 years in the Army. And tbh out-of-shape old guys are gonna make anything look bad.
As regards cost: it’s very basic package, that’s still much more affordable than regalia of true chivalric orders. Not that different from the previous weird tuxedo getups and plumed bicorn chapeaus. You realize you can be active in the KofC without the pageantry, right? That you don’t have to buy anything? Because that’s actually what the vast majority of young men and fathers want to do in the Knights: actual active charitable endeavors, not what they see as sitting around playing dress up and serving occasional pancakes. If you want to do the pageantry, then you have to accept that you’re gonna spend more money to get the extra stuff, regardless of old or new regalia.
At the end of the day, the KofC is not a knightly order - despite the name, it is a charitable men’s club for Catholics (and an insurance firm… how “knightly”). It’s the Catholic version of the Rotary or the Lions. I know few young men and fathers who want to join the Knights because they’re passionate about the larp and want to march in procession at ordinations. Supreme Knight Anderson rightly saw the writing on the wall, and tried to help steer the KofC away from the pageantry and back to its actual mission of masculine charitable service to one’s local community. Young fathers in their 20s (like me) generally would rather build a ramp for a disabled veteran in the parish than dink around with regalia and pancakes. This is the the feedback that the HQ in CT took a long look at.
The KofC has been an “old guy’s club” for a long long time, and Anderson wasn’t the one who made that happen.
--> Honestly, I don't know how anybody thought his art was good enough to commission in the first place. "De gustibus non disputatem est" and all that, but, really, it's bad.
If you can pass at least one of those standards, you could make a case for retaining an artist's art. (Caravaggio = good sacred art, bad guy | Warhol = bad sacred art, good guy)
But Rupnik fails both tests, so no matter how you skin that cat, he needs to get the boot.
This is a huge victory for us victims. I wish they’d give us all sledge hammers and let us destroy it. All for Jesus who was also angry in the temple. No doubt He is angered by the disgraced work in His temple.
That's great. I hope the Knights are also removing his artwork from the covers of their many prayer and spiritual guides that they hand out / use in churches, because almost every one of them had a Rupnik mosaic picture for the cover. Even before the scandals broke, I do not get why one artist's work was being featured seemingly to the exclusion of other artists. He and his studio are not the only artists on earth and we didn't need to see their works everywhere.
Perhaps if the Supreme Council were to heed the O’Boyle Council’s resolution, it would give other shrines/churches/chapels around the world the impetus to do the same. Lourdes, San Giovanni Rotondo, the Apostolic Palace itself…
In my opinion any fruitful conversation needs to divide these considerations into two different questions and not conflate them: the worthyness of the artist and the quality of the art. I honestly don’t know what should be done about the question of the worthyness of the artist and how unworthy they need to be before removing the art from sacred spaces. Regarding the question of the quality of art, conversation in this comment string seems to stall at the level of personal taste. But the Church has long held that there are objective criteria for evaluating the goodness or badness of art. Nevertheless, many in the church have followed the general cultural trend to abandon the principles of true art and reduce it to mere subjective self-expression. Such a vision of art can never be in harmony with the liturgy. This needs to be recovered or we will continue to have bad art in the church and have to continue to wait for someone to have a fall from grace before we can remove it.
That last sentence reminds me of the time OCP(?) used some Mormon character for cover art because bad art in the church is not distinguishable from bad art in (my vocabulary is not equal to the situation so I will approximate) fanfiction.
Heheheh…I remember that! It was in 2022. It was a costly mistake for OCP — they sent new orders with a new cover, sans Mormon angel, to their customers free-of-charge.
I made a donation when visiting the shrine last year, not knowing Rupnik's art is there. I would not have done so had I known. I intend to contact the foundation to join my voice to the call for removal and/or a return of my donation. One less shrine to continue to support in the interim.
I get that the Knights want to remove the artwork. However, being accused is not the same as being convicted or admitting the horrible acts. Perhaps, in the short term, cover g it is the better option.
Cancel culture is when someone said something stupid on Twitter 15 years ago, not when someone is an abuser and used that abuse as a method of creating his art.
Yes he would get nuns to do compromising things with sacred objects and certain poses as inspiration.
If you want to have your day ruined, please got and look up the pillars prior reporting on Rupnik.
The Pillar ran an article that has warnings for graphic content (if you really want it, the Google search terms that will regurgitate it are: site:pillarcatholic.com rupnik "descent into hell") which has anecdotes from an abuse survivor. Any artist can say to a girl "I want you to be my model for this work of art because you are not like other girls (P.S. could you undo one more button)" and already we know where that is going but if there is no actual work of art in progress even a very naive girl will realize something is fishy here; there was actual art, if one can use the word.
I don't know if I would consider a priest who was excommunicated for Canon 977 and dismissed from his order to be a victim of "cancel culture." And I would say serially abusing nuns is more vile than his poor artwork.
Good for the O'Boyle Council. Get rid of the stuff.
Supreme needs to act to do the right thing now.
Yes. I won't ever be going to any place where his artwork is on public display.
Vivat Jesus!
The assertion “[T]he mosaics created by Fr. Rupnik in the St. John Paul II Shrine are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety and lack artistic worth" is patently absurd. This is a laughably bad argument that actively undermines the campaign to remove Rupnik's work.
How so?
Because nobody ever thought they lacked artistic merit before all that stuff came out! Just say you don't like the man and what he did. It's got nothing to do with the actual artwork. Why beat around the bush? Very frustrating
On the contrary, here is a critique from 2016 before the scandals were known.
https://onepeterfive.com/year-mercy-logo-merge-god-man-rupnik/
> The logo rather elicits the revulsion reminiscent of [...].
This is one of those days when I should just not look up words I don't know. The article author nailed it though.
You missed the part where Rupnik perpetrated deeply sinful and immoral acts as part of his “creative process”. This is a fundamentally different problem to an artist like Caravaggio who was known to get black out drunk, get into fights, kill his opponents, and dally with prostitutes. Those things were recognised as his sins and failings and they certainly weren’t part of his ‘process’. If he murdered people in order to get compliant models, that’s a different story and THAT would render those artworks unsuitable for a place of worship. A museum? Sure… but not a Church.
P.S. I’ve always had aesthetic issues with Rupniks work. Especially being the daughter of a Byzantine iconographer. Those eyes…
I think the claim that they lack artistic worth is questionable. Saying that they're repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety when the process of creating them involved sexual abuse is absolutely true.
Please see my comment above.
Well, since long before Fr Rupnik was reported to be a serial sexual predator, I’ve felt his art lacks artistic worth… but I’m not sure “artistic worth” is really the metric they should be citing for getting his artwork removed.
They could push to have his artwork removed because it’s bad (which I sympathize with), or push to have his artwork removed because he’s done bad things (which is certainly the stronger argument), but I think they muddy the waters by citing his bad behavior and then claiming the mosaics lack merit themselves.
What I mean is claiming *without a backing argument* that his works lack artistic worth is a questionable move, since people can easily disagree, though I realize I was unclear about that in my initial comment. It doesn't provide a compelling motive to remove his art unless you also have a distaste for it. I myself am unfamiliar with his mosaics, so I have no comment on their artistic merit or lack thereof, as considered in a vacuum. However, we aren't in a vacuum, we're in a reality where his committing acts of sexual abuse was integral to creating the art, and that is repugnant, since grave sin against another person was involved.
I see your point… artistic merit has subjective elements that can undermine the case for removing them which is the immoral acts of their creation (which has not been confirmed for these specific mosaics as far as I know). However. I would argue that the immoral acts render their artistic merit as compromised in of itself. Again, those eyes are not the eyes of a loving, human or divine Christ. There’s more Rupnik in those mosaics than I think we’d like to think.
As to ‘removing them’. Well what the hell do you do with them? Do you try and keep them intact in storage? Put them in a museum (crappier art has graced modern art galleries)? Pull them apart, bless the remains and them reuse them? I don’t know the answer to ere.
Grind them up and throw the dust in the sea.
It is the counter argument to everyone who says "yes but Caravaggio (or Bernini) gets a free pass for something or other" (which is not a good argument, so I think it's fair that it's not a good counter argument either.)
"...and lack artistic worth due to the fact that Fr. Rupnik reportedly perpetrated his sexual abuse through the creation of his artwork." The council is not pronouncing judgement on the art per se. Rather, they point out that, since his artistic process was based on sexual exploitation, any potential spiritual or artistic merit is null and void.
To the women that he abused, it is a win for them. Thanks Knights! It is nice to know someone gets it!
The K of C, who, by fiat, showed the will and force necessary to remove the regalia of the 4th degree replacing it with a golf club blazer set that is north of $400, somehow cannot find the same will, force and especially conscience to remove a deviant nun rapist's art from the it's chapels.
Rupnik is an unspeakable deviant & used this very art to manipulate and abuse religious sisters. Such art mocks numerous victims and perpetuates his deviant and sacrilegious abuses.
unpopular opinion: I much prefer our new regalia, and I found the old regalia to be campy and totally inauthentic compared to the regalia of other actual chivalric and equestrian orders.
I just wish we would enforce some sort of standard on shaping the beret, and for the love of god cut the beret strings so they don't dangle off the back of the head.
I'm a 4th degree and fall squarely in the age demographic that Supreme was trying to attract. The old uniform had class and a sense of flair that pulled younger children to it like a magnet. The new one is a pale, colorless imitation of a military uniform (not Knighthood).
On top of that is the extreme cost for a custom fitted uniform that is only useful for a single purpose. The old uniform consisted of a simple suit for a base with adornaments. As a father to a young, growing family this is a very difficult cost to burden for a uniform.
The change in 4th degree regalia has more or less relegated the 4th degree to an old man's club in my council/assembly. Carl Anderson either hates the the patriotic degree and actively worked to keep young men from joining, or was Vatican-beurocrat level of out-of-touch with the young men joining the Knights.
Both uniforms are the main reason I declined the 4th degree. That, and the requirement to drive halfway across my state for an all-day confab. I like fraternity and all that, but not the trappings and inconveniences that accompany it in the K of C.
What? You’re welcome to have a stylistic preference, but there’s so much off base on what you’ve said.
The old regalia truly was kitchy and campy, an “uncanny valley” cosplay-version of equestrian and chivalric orders. It’s always looked like a cheap costume. I thought it looked utterly silly. And the new regalia is not trying to emulate “military” either - take it from a guy who spent 7 years in the Army. And tbh out-of-shape old guys are gonna make anything look bad.
As regards cost: it’s very basic package, that’s still much more affordable than regalia of true chivalric orders. Not that different from the previous weird tuxedo getups and plumed bicorn chapeaus. You realize you can be active in the KofC without the pageantry, right? That you don’t have to buy anything? Because that’s actually what the vast majority of young men and fathers want to do in the Knights: actual active charitable endeavors, not what they see as sitting around playing dress up and serving occasional pancakes. If you want to do the pageantry, then you have to accept that you’re gonna spend more money to get the extra stuff, regardless of old or new regalia.
At the end of the day, the KofC is not a knightly order - despite the name, it is a charitable men’s club for Catholics (and an insurance firm… how “knightly”). It’s the Catholic version of the Rotary or the Lions. I know few young men and fathers who want to join the Knights because they’re passionate about the larp and want to march in procession at ordinations. Supreme Knight Anderson rightly saw the writing on the wall, and tried to help steer the KofC away from the pageantry and back to its actual mission of masculine charitable service to one’s local community. Young fathers in their 20s (like me) generally would rather build a ramp for a disabled veteran in the parish than dink around with regalia and pancakes. This is the the feedback that the HQ in CT took a long look at.
The KofC has been an “old guy’s club” for a long long time, and Anderson wasn’t the one who made that happen.
Vacant, expressionless, imitation…all have described these works. Unfortunately when the commissions were offered nobody listened.
--> Honestly, I don't know how anybody thought his art was good enough to commission in the first place. "De gustibus non disputatem est" and all that, but, really, it's bad.
The art is terrible, the artist is terrible.
If you can pass at least one of those standards, you could make a case for retaining an artist's art. (Caravaggio = good sacred art, bad guy | Warhol = bad sacred art, good guy)
But Rupnik fails both tests, so no matter how you skin that cat, he needs to get the boot.
It is hard to say that Warhol was a good guy . He used people and threw them away
This is a huge victory for us victims. I wish they’d give us all sledge hammers and let us destroy it. All for Jesus who was also angry in the temple. No doubt He is angered by the disgraced work in His temple.
Yes. And invite His Eminence, Christophe Pierre to the ceremony.
That's great. I hope the Knights are also removing his artwork from the covers of their many prayer and spiritual guides that they hand out / use in churches, because almost every one of them had a Rupnik mosaic picture for the cover. Even before the scandals broke, I do not get why one artist's work was being featured seemingly to the exclusion of other artists. He and his studio are not the only artists on earth and we didn't need to see their works everywhere.
Yep, Rupnik became pretty ubiquitous by the time his downfall finally came around.
As far as I’m aware, the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Minnesota *still* has his 2016 “Year of Mercy” emblem on its confessional doors… the irony.
Basilica of Mary Queen of the Universe in Orlando still had it last year. I visited a couple of weeks ago and they'd taken it down.
No, those have been taken down for a while.
Perhaps if the Supreme Council were to heed the O’Boyle Council’s resolution, it would give other shrines/churches/chapels around the world the impetus to do the same. Lourdes, San Giovanni Rotondo, the Apostolic Palace itself…
Finally.
In my opinion any fruitful conversation needs to divide these considerations into two different questions and not conflate them: the worthyness of the artist and the quality of the art. I honestly don’t know what should be done about the question of the worthyness of the artist and how unworthy they need to be before removing the art from sacred spaces. Regarding the question of the quality of art, conversation in this comment string seems to stall at the level of personal taste. But the Church has long held that there are objective criteria for evaluating the goodness or badness of art. Nevertheless, many in the church have followed the general cultural trend to abandon the principles of true art and reduce it to mere subjective self-expression. Such a vision of art can never be in harmony with the liturgy. This needs to be recovered or we will continue to have bad art in the church and have to continue to wait for someone to have a fall from grace before we can remove it.
That last sentence reminds me of the time OCP(?) used some Mormon character for cover art because bad art in the church is not distinguishable from bad art in (my vocabulary is not equal to the situation so I will approximate) fanfiction.
Heheheh…I remember that! It was in 2022. It was a costly mistake for OCP — they sent new orders with a new cover, sans Mormon angel, to their customers free-of-charge.
That’s OUR knights council! And I already loved them before this but wow. Good for them.
I made a donation when visiting the shrine last year, not knowing Rupnik's art is there. I would not have done so had I known. I intend to contact the foundation to join my voice to the call for removal and/or a return of my donation. One less shrine to continue to support in the interim.
I get that the Knights want to remove the artwork. However, being accused is not the same as being convicted or admitting the horrible acts. Perhaps, in the short term, cover g it is the better option.
He was excommunicated for a time, and was expelled from the Jesuits.
I can't believe they wanted them in the first place. They do indeed "lack artistic worth".