A comment on Rome, Art and Popes
I didn’t want to talk about what everyone else is talking, but how to avoid it? Just last Saturday I was strolling in the Vatican. On Sunday, a friend of mine watched the Easter Mass at the San Pietro square, and Francis appeared for a few seconds to wish Happy Easter.
Then the very next day his passing was announced and it’s news everywhere.
I didn’t come to Rome for the Pope, but to study painting for a couple of months. No place better for that than the Eternal City, as there is great art here in practically every corner. No need to go to expensive museums or wait in long lines: you can just walk into any random church and find Caravaggios and Raphaels, as it happens to me quite often.
I’m not following the Jubilee pilgrims, although I met several of them around, including a nice young couple who walked all the way from Genoa to Rome.
I didn’t even enter inside San Pietro yet this time. I try to go only to traditional Latin Mass. In fact, my only two interests these days are learning oil painting and going to Latin Mass.
I know this puts me in an extreme minority of people, and further reduces my audience, not to mention my bank account. But I’m too old to care now.
I should say that I wasn’t exactly a great fan of the late Pope Francis. In fact, I am not even sure he was a “valid” Pope, as some insist that Benedict’s resignation while remaining in the Vatican was a strange and perhaps unique phenomenon, and there are many other arguments in favour of “sedevacantism“. I won’t go into that, as I lack the knowledge of Church hierarchy and Vatican politics, and, honestly, despite being raised as a Catholic — although not always very practising — I have somewhat of a problem with the figure of the Pope.
I mentioned Dostoevsky a while ago, and he — who, naturally, followed the Russian Orthodox Church— criticized Rome as having fallen to the temptation of obtaining vast earthly powers. In fact, visiting Rome is becoming witness of the amazing power that the Vatican used to have (and still has, in some ways, although no longer a shadow of what it was when the Papal States covered a huge territory).
But, regardless of all that — mostly, I just didn’t like Francis’ modern style. More like a religious figure, he acted like a politician or an “influencer”, promoting all kinds of social and political issues, from mass migration to vaccination. I believe he even said at some point that not getting vaccinated against Covid was a sin. (I wonder what Saint Augustine or Thomas Aquinas would make of that.)
He did have some charisma, although perhaps not as much as, say, John Paul II, but it is true that millions of people genuinely loved him.
I suppose he also appealed to the same kind of people who are not religious but follow those leftist celebrities who keep pontificating about climate change and social change and so on. In that sense, Francis could certainly read the zeitgeist.
Francis wasn’t a great fan of Latin Mass. In fact, he tried several times to end the old rituals completely.
Now, let me tell you why I like Latin Mass. It’s not because it’s in Latin, although that helps. It’s not because I am a hard-line, reactionary Catholic. It is mostly on aesthetic grounds: I find the pre-1962 rituals just much more beautiful and solemn.
Let me give you a counter-example. I went to Latin Mass in a medium-sized church all during Holy Week, except for the Easter Vigil, where I decided to accompany a friend to San Giovanni in Latterano, the oldest of the four Papal Basilicas in Rome, and a beautiful church in its own right.
But Easter Vigil there was completely modern. All songs were modern and in Italian, nothing in Latin, and mostly by soloists, not choirs. Then, at some point, someone took out a guitar and started singing a cheerful folk song, while the audience clapped hands. I thought I had entered a Protestant church by mistake, but it was one of the oldest churches in Rome, originally built in the third century (although little of the original construction survives).
Nothing against guitars and cheerful folk songs, but I am old-fashioned and I like my church music with organ and choirs. Guitars remind me of a campfire.
Compare this with the Latin Mass where I went before, where it is just an organ and a choir and Gregorian chants and the men are respectful and the women wear veils, and clapping to the rhythm of the music would be considered simply absurd.
It’s like two different worlds.
Some may find strange that I like both Latin Mass and classic art. But in fact, it is the same thing. Classic art and traditional mass come from the same source. And that is why modern mass is not as beautiful as the older mass, just as (a lot of) modern art is not as beautiful as the old classic art.
The Vatican has been one of the major sponsors of great art, from Raphael to Bernini. But now even they forgot how to create great art.
What to do with a church that no longer understands its own history and mission?
Compare this:
To this:
Or this:
To this:
Or even this:
To this:
Anyway, as bad as Francis was — and some people who are more knowledgeable of theological matters say he was really bad — it is very likely that the next Pope will be even worse. In fact, I’m going to be very surprised if it doesn’t end up being a progressive transgender African who will further modernize the Church, ban Latin Mass, allow women to be priests, and promote abortion.
Besides, in any case the Catholic Church is now already full of “new Europeans”— Asian, African, and Indian priests, so to expect them to take a sensible pro-native position on immigration will be impossible, even if by mistake they end up electing a more conservative Pope.
The Church also followed all Covid regulations, to the point of banning Mass and processions at some point. In 2021, the Santa Rosalia procession in Palermo was banned for the first time in more than 400 years. Bear in mind that this is a Saint that was celebrated for supposedly having ended a plague. I guess she could cure the black plague, but not Covid.
If the modern Church does not really believe in its own processions and miracles, then what is its point?
In San Paolo Fuori le Mura, the fourth Papal Basilica (and the only one of the four I haven’t visited yet) there is a wall filled with hundreds of circles, each one containing an image of a previous Pope. All Popes are represented there, up to Francis.
But it appears that there are only three or four empty circles now.
Some interpret this to be a prophecy, that there will only be three more Popes, then the Anti-Christ, then the end of the world and Judgement Day.
Let’s hope so.
