Movement (Finally) on the Most Notorious Sex-Abuser?
Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning, his work disappeared, replaced by a mosaic similar to the “Mater Ecclesiae” mosaic looking down on St. Peter’s Square, erected by Pope St. John Paul II in gratitude to Our Lady for saving his life from an assassin’s bullet.
It wasn’t that hard to replace the irreplaceable Marko Rupnik. And perhaps this is a sign that Rome may finally deal with this scandal.
But it did cause Pope Francis biographer and apologist Austen Ivereigh to defend Rupnik’s art. Ivereigh opposes “iconoclasm” and explains that many shrines had only “covered up” Rupnik art rather than removed it. And in a strained comparison, he argued that just as sacraments work ex opere operato, so mutatis mutandis, Rupnik’s works stand independently of him.
Where to start?
“Iconoclasm” was about visual art in general, not any particular artist. The Iconoclasts did not say, “Let’s smash Greek icons, but Cretan ones are OK!”
As to “cover-ups” at shrines, well, the biggest cover-up of Rupnik was in Francis’s Vatican. Rupnik was excommunicated, then rehabilitated, although we still do not know officially by whom. He was immune from prosecution until the pope, after great delay, decided otherwise. Rupnik’s erstwhile Jesuit confreres washed their hands of him, but nobody saw a problem with incardinating him into a diocese in Slovenia. And we still have no idea when Cardinal Fernández and the DDF might assemble a panel of judges to try Rupnik.
Have shrines “covered up” Rupnik art? Yes, because unlike paintings on walls in papal apartments, removing mosaics is not a five-minute or a single day’s job. And stripping a mosaic off a shrine wall will leave – until replaced – a blank space of rough stone.
But the most repulsive argument in all this mess is Ivereigh’s invocation of ex opere operato. Ex opere operato is a concept of sacramental theology that affirms that sacraments have their effect by virtue of doing them, not by who does them.
The concept arose – apropos of our Augustinian pope – from a controversy in Augustine’s day. During one of the periodic Roman persecutions of Christians, priests in North Africa apostatized: faced with torture and death, they denied the faith. When the persecution was over, they sought to resume acting as priests. Some Christians contended that the sacraments they ministered would all be invalid because of their prior apostasy.
St. Augustine rejected this argument. Christ is the real minister of every sacrament. The priest acts alter Christus, in Christ’s name. But the sacrament and its effect remain Christ’s. If you made sacramental efficacy dependent on moral rectitude, given that we are all sinners, what human being could be a valid minister of any sacrament? Sacraments work ex opere operato, “by the doing of the work,” not ex opere operantis, “by the doer’s doing.”
To stretch a principle applied to sacred realities – sacraments instituted by Christ – to any merely human product borders on sacrilege. The sacraments are ultimately God’s work, not man’s. It is His fidelity that stands behind them “for us and for our salvation.” To compare what is necessary for our salvation to a work of art is an inexcusable conflation of radically different realities.
Dostoyevsky said that “the world will be saved by beauty.” But he was referring to the transcendental, not to some artist’s painting. Still less was he referring to a work depicting a sacred subject whose making included sexual abuse. (Unlike wayward artists of the past, Rupnik’s victims claim that he believed his misdeeds contributed to his work.)
I know what Austen Ivereigh is trying to say. There are sinful artists. Caravaggio was a murderer and some think also a sodomite. What’s the difference?
To start with: 415 years. None of Caravaggio’s victims today stare at his paintings. He didn’t kill anybody for art (though he frequently painted to make money to stay out of jail). And, as far as I know, nobody said he was buggering people on a scaffold while painting.
If we really want a theological argument on how to approach Rupnik, here’s one: In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul is asked about eating meat sacrificed to idols. To sacrifice (i.e., kill) an animal before a pagan idol was to worship that idol; to consume its flesh, and thereby to engage in communicatio in sacris with that idol.
But sacrifices produced lots of meat, even after part was burned before the idol, and the priest took his cut. Often it was sold in a temple market, sometimes at a discount. Could a Christian take advantage of it?
Paul’s answer is qualified. A pagan, who actually believed (or at least hoped) in the sacrificial efficacy, entered into communion with the idol. But a Christian, who regarded these idols as false, was not implicated in communicatio in sacris. He just wanted a good deal on ribeye.
Paul does not, however, approve unreservedly. Not all Christians are as clear-eyed. Some may actually think that, by eating that meat, one is playing with false gods. You may not think that, but others might not see things your way. Paul’s counsel: Don’t scandalize them! Don’t test their faith because you feel so “strong” in yours. “‘We all possess knowledge.’ But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1)
So, while consumption might be theoretically lawful, love of neighbor in your fellow believer suggests that one forego one’s “rights. . .[so as not to] become a stumbling block to the weak.” (v. 9) That appears not to have been the Vatican website’s concern. By obstinately persisting in using Rupnik art, it appeared doubly contemptuous: of fellow believers who were scandalized, and of the liturgy, where focus on Rupnik seemed more pressing than the feast.
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