A couple of notes…
First, this sounds good. Someday I too would like to visit Poland.
A pilgrimage to Lithuania and Poland, with daily celebration of the TLM, is being planned from May 4-16, 2020, under the spiritual guidance of Fr. Neil J. Roy, STL, PhD. Highlights include visits to Vilnius, Gdansk, Torun, Warsaw, Czestochowa, Cracow (the Divine Mercy Shrine and the Convent of St. Faustina), and Wadowice (birthplace of St. John Paul II) among other sites. The cost, including taxes and tips, is CAN 3,640 – 3,420, the lower price contingent on enrolling more than 30 participants. The pilgrimage begins and concludes in Toronto. The deadline for registration is February 4. At least 25 participants are needed by then to make the pilgrimage work. Contact the tour coordinator, Pearl Tam (pearltam@rogers.com) for information.
This looks interesting.
New, from the excellent Sophia Press.
A Year With Fr. Rutler
Also, have a glance at Brad Miner’s column today at The Catholic Thing entitled “The Other End Of Nowhere”. It grabs you from the start.
One of the traps that libs seem constantly to fall into is that human beings are constantly evolving as a race. In the Church this takes the form of particular liturgical abuses and patent arrogance, especially in regard to the Blessed Sacrament. Mr. Miner gets into the weeds of NYC politics (what a mess that is) and into the circus that is the presidential election cycle. However, his point from the onset is good: “The Enlightenment gave us various forms of Progressivism, which amount, in sum, to the patent idiocy that things are always getting better. They’re not. I may be one of the few who doesn’t believe in pendulum swings.”
Give it a read.
Also, at the always valuable Crisis, Michael Warren Davis has a piece about Andy Warhol. A really interesting figure, not well understood. And his work is seriously over rated. I just don’t get why people think it is art at all. This line is a good indication of where he goes: “He may have been a Christian—but so, too, were the Vandals and the Goths.”
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I think the phenomenon Michael Warren Davis describes in his piece is summed up in Proverbs 27:7: He who is sated loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.
I knew Andy…his genius was in the interpretation of what he was ‘arting’. Have a water color from him in safety deposit box. Also, was a daily Mass attendee and rosary devotee. Gay? Probably. Everyone has their demons.
I will not judge Andy Warhol’s spiritual life. However, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the Crisis article. By their fruits you shall know them. Andy Warhol’s fruit, the artistic fruit anyway, leaves much to be desired. But who knows, perhaps in some other way hidden from public view, Andy Warhol bore better fruit.
The line about the Goths and the Vandals caught my eye too — for how it is misinformed. In context, the statement is: “He may have been a Christian—but so, too, were the Vandals and the Goths. I have no doubt that future historians will consider their respective influences on Western civilization as being more or less comparable.”
In fact, particularly after the conversion of the Visigoths from Arianism to Catholicism, Spanish Visigoth culture had been flourishing until the Islamic conquest interrupted its development. According to Northwestern University Professor Darío Fernández-Morera (author of “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise”), recent French scholarship has shown substantial contributions by the Visigoths to Medieval Europe. Wikipedia reports the following:
The Visigoths were preservers of the classical culture. … When the Muslims looted Spain during their conquest they were amazed by the fine and innumerable Visigothic treasures. A few of these treasures were preserved as they were buried during the invasion – e.g., the votive crowns from the treasure of Guarrazar. … While only the senior monks were allowed to read books of non-Christian or heretic authors[35] this did not prevent the rise of intellectuals like, most prominently, Isidore of Seville, one of the most quoted scholars of the Middle Ages, Eugenius I of Toledo, an expert in mathematics and astronomy, or Theodulf of Orléans, a theologian and poet who, after he had fled to the Frankish kingdom, participated in the Carolingian Renaissance. A Muslim source referred to Visigothic Seville as the “abode of the sciences”. The Institutionum disciplinae from the mid seventh/early eight century confirms that Visigothic nobles were not only taught in reading and writing, but also in medicine, law and philosophy. An example of a highly educated nobleman was king Sisebut, who was a patron of learning and writer of poems, one of them about astronomy.
The Visigoths also developed the highly influential law code known in Western Europe as the Visigothic Code (Liber Iudiciorum), which would become the basis for Spanish law throughout the Middle Ages.
Just got back from a pilgrimage to Poland and Vilnius at the end of last year with my mom on our own (incredibly do-able!) If you ever have a chance to go… GO! It is spectacular.
I was completely overtaken in Vilnius both at St. Theresa’s (Our Lady of Dawn’s Gate) and at the Shrine of the Divine Mercy because they were small and it was an incredibly personal experience. For those that do not know, the ACTUAL Divine Mercy painting (the one that she discusses in her Diary) is in Vilnius. All others anywhere are secondary copies. This is because Vilnius, at the time, was part of Poland. Poland’s borders have been cut and recut enumerable times.
If you are going to go to Poland, *don’t skip* Lodz! It is a really easy day trip from Warszawa. The Lodz Cathedral is where St. Faustina got her calling to go to Warszawa and become a nun. In the Eucharistic Adoration chapel there is a beautiful painting and a relic. But just going to that Cathedral and feeling the experience there. In Lodz there is also a memorial/statue of her in a park nearby.
You might also go to Niepokalanow, that is Max Kolbe’s monastery. Beautiful church and the grounds has a very nice “museum,” and the like. Reachable on a short local commuter train from Warszawa.
Czestochowa is also a very good place to visit, as Poland is devout to Our Lady of Czestochowa. The painting is actually at the Jasna Gora Monastery and sits behind grates. I have a photo if anyone wants to see what it looks like. There are masses basically on going and the attached church is beautiful. You can get to Czestochowa from Cracow or from Warszawa.
Wadowice… do not skip the museum! The church was full for every mass and hard to get in, so get there early. Oh, and have St. JP2’s favorite dessert :) The name escapes me now, but on the way there, there is another place of pilgrimage that has a 5k walk with chapels and a beautiful church. Commonly called “Little Jerusalem.” Reachable basically only by car right now due to train “renovations.”
Poland remains incredibly Catholic. You will find churches everywhere with people praying at all hours of the day and plenty of masses (English ones too!) and Adoration chapels and candles to light. I will say that the Eastern side of Poland (incl. Cracow) “felt” more observant than the Western side, but that could have just been where we went in the West. The churches don’t “blend together,” so see as many as you can. They are absolutely incredible. And don’t just go in and walk out. Stay a while. Say a rosary, even just a few decades. Poland remains devout to Our Lady of Czestochowa and to the Divine Mercy. You will find replicate paintings in almost every church. Also very Marian-oriented.
Of note:
In November 2019, St. Mary’s in Cracow, the Dominican church in Cracow, the large church in Gdansk, the Carmelite church in Gdansk, the shrine in Plock (we didn’t get to), and several other churches were under going renovation. In addition, the connector walk from the Divine Mercy shrine to the JP2 Center in Cracow was not in place because of train work in between the two. You had a *long* detour to walk.
If you are going and/or are interested and want information, please feel free to let me know and I can connect with you and provide you whatever information I have that is current as of 30-NOV-19
I’m a little torn by the article. I think it a good thing that Warhol seems to have remained a practicing Catholic, while I at the same time regard his work as non-art. Likewise, I detest rap music but see no reason not to be glad that West has become a Christian (assuming he’s genuine).
I would also wonder how far Davis means to go in rejecting ‘modernity’. Is the Gospel music of Bob Dylan included in what is to be rejected? The foreboding prophesy of Leonard Cohen in his ‘The Future’?
I have greater trust in the indications that Warhol died a devout Ruthenian {sp?} Catholic than those who insist the opposite. As an earlier comment said, maybe he was gay, but experiencing the temptation and giving in are different things. I hope he’s up there interceding for those who experience LGBT temptations, whether he experienced SSA temptations or not.
I suspect that when Christendom dies out in Western Europe and the Americas it will be reborn from Eastern Europe Africa and perhaps Asia, much like the way it was reborn in Europe from the Irish monks that preserved it during the Dark Ages.
Interesting post, thanks Fr. Z.
As several commenters note, Andy Warhol led a problematic life. He is quoted as saying “Art is what you can get away with.” No, it’s not.
On the other hand, as another commenter notes, Warhol may have repented and may be interceding for others experiencing temptations.
The TCT author correctly points out the negative side of the “Enlightenment.”
On the other hand, there are positives to the “Enlightenment.” See Gertrude Himmelfarb’s “The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments,” Samuel Gregg’s “Reason, Faith, & the Struggle for Western Civilization,” and Ulrich Lehner’s “The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement.”
Fr. Rutler recently celebrated the 50th Anniversary of his Anglican ordination. Ad multos annos.
From A sense of adventure and charity marks Fr George William Rutler’s books:
So it’s advisable to have several volumes of Rutler in one’s home. He should be read once a day to compensate for the lousy preaching one is almost certain to hear at Mass. The Sophia Institute Press has, therefore, done a tremendous service to Catholics by not only collecting Father’s best writings into four volumes but also arranging them according to the liturgical calendar.