Could it be a time to reclaim their call to authentic beauty?
By Aurelio Pofiri *
As we all know, in 2025 there will be a Jubilee in Rome, and I — who live in Rome — am able to truly experience how the city is preparing for this significant religious event, with the hope of welcoming millions of spiritual pilgrims.
Now, if we are more realistic and less grandiose in our thinking, we cannot fail to recognize that, in reality, the constant decline of faith among the masses will certainly be felt in this Jubilee — and many of the “pilgrims” will simply be tourists who take advantage of such an event and the various organized Jubilee trips just to enjoy a Rome vacation. But a particular category of people that I would like to look at carefully is that of Catholic artists: musicians, poets, painters, sculptors, architects and so on. What can these people expect from a Jubilee, which we would like to think of as a time of renewal?
The situation of artistic culture in the Catholic Church has collapsed to its lowest levels for a few decades now and the saddest thing is that there are no real signs of a return to the great artistic tradition of which we are the unworthy heirs. When you experience this situation from the inside — as, for example, a Church musician — it is understandable that you feel deeply discouraged. But still, trying to have a little hope, what can we expect?
It would be one thing for all the disciplines I mentioned above to be taken seriously again. Unfortunately, today, in the vast majority of cases, there is an ignorance on the subject that borders on obtuseness. As one cardinal pointed out to me, even priests, bishops and cardinals are children of contemporary society, a society heavily vulgarized by mass culture — which we owe, in large part, to the influence of American consumer culture on Europe and the world. We cannot hide the fact that Europe is largely a culturally devastated continent, especially in those countries which, like Italy, are “crypto-colonies” of the United States.
Of course, we do not forget our debt of gratitude [to America], but we must also be careful not to definitively lose who we are. Americans have a strong sense of their own identity — so what about us? Furthermore, it would be nice to hope that the Church stops chasing modernity, trying to give birth to something completely new and still somehow Catholic. How many times have we seen fashionable artists having the red carpet rolled out for them in churches, so that their clients could feel at peace with their consciences, as being judged to be in step with modernity. Dear priest, bishop, cardinal: don’t you realize that modernity has largely evolved as an anti-Catholic function and that therefore it must not be simply accepted, but must be redeemed?
Unfortunately, it is not easy to escape this error, given that, generally, education in the fundamentals of Catholicism is extremely incomplete and that many struggle to understand what is right and what is wrong. In the past, the Church, through the voice of Pope Paul VI, addressed a message of great solemnity to artists on the occasion of the closing of the Second Vatican Council:
“The Church has long since joined in alliance with you. You have built and adorned her temples, celebrated her dogmas, enriched her liturgy. You have aided her in translating her divine message in the language of forms and figures, making the invisible world palpable. Today, as yesterday, the Church needs you and turns to you. She tells you through our voice: Do not allow an alliance as fruitful as this to be broken. Do not refuse to put your talents at the service of divine truth. Do not close your mind to the breath of the Holy Spirit.
“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. And all of this is through your hands. May these hands be pure and selfless. Remember that you are the guardians of beauty in the world. May that suffice to free you from tastes which are passing and have no genuine value, to free you from the search after strange or unbecoming expressions.”
But, Holy Father, now, more than to artists, similar words should be addressed to your brothers in the priesthood of every order and degree: “Brothers, why have you abandoned Catholic artists to chase fashions and disfigure the face of the Bride of Christ with works that would be considered unworthy even in hovels? Why don’t you stop chasing these and instead start promoting a truly and proudly Catholic art, which will influence secular art?”
If any Pope wishes to use these words of mine, I will grant him permission… but I highly doubt it.
The Church must return to producing a beauty that speaks to everyone, and which elevates us to God… a beauty that comes from God, which is primordial Beauty, and returns to God, our consolation. If only the Church were to rethink its recent path, perhaps we could begin to see the light. Don’t they realize that up to now they have failed? What has rejecting tradition for blind progress led to? Did you fill the churches? No, the churches continue to be empty, and I am not so naive as to think merely re-instituting Gregorian chant would be enough to fill them again.
As I have said, the aesthetic miseducation that spans from the level ecclesial hierarchy down to the last believer now leaves little hope that the world can be Catholicized again. They have emptied us, only to fill us with pseudo-spiritualistic junk, and have dug an abyss of solitude around our hearts. It would be beautiful to hope that the Jubilee will be that time in which we return to being clothed in the beauty of God and his Son, Splendor Paternae Gloriae, with the intercession of the Holy Spirit, dulce refrigerium.
It would be nice if this time could be the event in which Catholic artists who resist the filth from which they are effectively excluded raise their heads and have the courage to say: Enough! Give us back the chance to serve, as we are able, the most beautiful of the sons of man with our art.
*Aurelio Porfiri is an extensively published composer, conductor, writer and educator. He has lived and worked for 7 years in Macau, China and is the founder of the publishing company Chorabooks. Find him on his YouTube channel Ritorno a Itaca and on Facebook.
