June 12, 2005

The Catholic Church has long been the world’s greatest patron of the arts. In recent times, spiritual torpidity and liturgical banality have stifled the inspiration but our new Pope seems intent on a “reform of the reform” which will enliven artistic life. He has said boldly that a theologian who has no aesthetic sense is dangerous: not deficient but positively dangerous, because such a thinker blocks the beauty of God and corrupts a natural aversion to disorder. Our parish is helping this effort in a local way (but nothing done in Manhattan is just local). One of the artists who worked on our new icons in the church, Donal Murray, informs me that a new art academy he has opened in Dublin is flourishing and he has received two major commissions in Europe as the result of the international publicity our art has received.

Recently in connection with the Gospel account of the calling of St. Matthew the tax collector, I referred to the famous painting of the scene by Caravaggio (1573-1610). His stormy life was reflected in his dramatic shadowy style (chiaroscuro). Orphaned at age 11, he left Milan as a teenager for Rome where he eventually came under the patronage of Cardinal Francesco del Monte. In his relatively short life he produced great works that “pushed the envelope” as far as traditional classicists were concerned. The Calling of St. Matthew in the Contarelli Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi is open to various interpretations, and is very much a psychological portrait of his own interior struggles. He had a terrible temper and often left the stifling confines of his studio to swing his sword at passersby in the narrow streets. There are people somewhat like that in our neighborhood, although they do not have genius as an excuse. This led to numerous arrests for assault. He’d toss stones at the Papal guards and food at waiters (a plate of artichokes in one instance). In a fight over a tennis match on May 29, 1606, he killed one Ranuccio Tomassoni and soon fled to Naples and from there to Malta where he became a knight of the Maltese Order but soon was expelled. During all this time he produced many of the world’s most powerful paintings, received a papal pardon, and died of pneumonia while in pursuit of a ship which had sailed away with all his belongings.

Caravaggio was different in most aspects from Saint Matthew, who is believed to have died in Ethiopia as a martyr for Christ. Both of them were baptized and inherited the promises of our merciful Lord. I may indulge the fancy of thinking that Caravaggio got to Heaven through the intercessions of Matthew the tax collector. Given his temperament, it is well that Caravaggio encountered Matthew in prayer and not in the tax collecting office.

Fr. George W. Rutler