Catholic imagination
Encyclopedia
Imagination
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
refers to the Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
viewpoint that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is present in the whole creation and in human beings, as seen in its sacramental system whereby material things
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and human beings are channels and sources of God's grace.
Comparing 'Catholic imagination' to 'Protestant imagination'
This terminologyTerminology
Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other...
was popularized by Andrew Greeley
Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew M. Greeley is an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and fiction writer....
, a Roman Catholic priest. He wrote:
- "The central symbolSymbolA symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
(of religionReligionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
) is God. One's 'picture' of God is in fact a metaphoricalMetaphorA metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
narrativeNarrativeA narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
of God's relationship with the worldWorldWorld is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
and the self as part of the world... The Catholic 'classics' assume a God who is present in the world, disclosing Himself in and through creation. The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be somewhat like God. The Protestant classics, on the other hand, assume a God who is radically absent from the world, and who discloses (Himself) only on rare occasions (especially in Jesus Christ and Him crucifiedCrucifixionCrucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
). The world and all its events, objects, and people tend to be radically different from God."
Runar Eldebo is a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
for Pietisten, an online Catholic newspaper, and teaches in the Swedish Seminary. According to him, Greeley makes a clear distinction between Catholic imagination and Protestant imagination. Regarding Protestant imagination, Eldebo said:
- "Protestant imagination is dialecticDialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
and makes people pilgrimPilgrimA pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
s. It is deep in conflict and antagonistic to the ingredients of a common, human life. Catholic imagination is analogical. It is founded in creation itself and views creation as God in disguise. According to Catholic imagination, God lurks everywhere. According to Protestant imagination, Karl BarthKarl BarthKarl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
for example, God is hidden everywhere but found only in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Therefore, according to Greeley, Protestants are never at home on earth, they are pilgrims on their way. Catholics, meanwhile, like to dwell on earth. They enjoy life and are not in a hurry to get to heaven because God lurks everywhere, especially where you do not expect her (sic) to be."
American Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
also illustrates the sacramental understanding of the world in her work Novelist and Believer:
- "St. AugustineAugustine of HippoAugustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
wrote that the things of the world pour forth from God in a double way: intellectuallyIntellectIntellect is a term used in studies of the human mind, and refers to the ability of the mind to come to correct conclusions about what is true or real, and about how to solve problems...
into the minds of the angels and physically into the world of things. To the person who believes thisFaithFaith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
- as the western worldWestern worldThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
did up until a few centuries ago - this physical sensible world is good because it proceeds from a divine source... The aim of the artist is to render the highest possible justiceJusticeJustice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
to the visible universeUniverseThe Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
... The artist penetrates the concrete world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimate reality."
Aspects and examples of Catholic imagination
According to Greeley aspects of the Catholic imagination include community, salvation, hierarchy, sacred place/sacred time, and sacred desire. As one reviewer of Greeley's book noted:
"The cultural works include the Cologne CathedralCologne CathedralCologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
, Bernini's St. Theresa in EcstasyEcstasy of Saint TheresaEcstasy of Saint Theresa is a Czech band formed in 1990 by Jan Muchow, Jan Gregar, Petr Wegner and Irna Libowitz. Early shoegaze influences included Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins, and My Bloody Valentine....
, Marian poems by Gerard Manley HopkinsGerard Manley HopkinsGerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
and Francois VillonFrançois VillonFrançois Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
, Italian American films (especially those directed by Martin ScorseseMartin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
), James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Ulysses, The Power and the GloryThe Power and the GloryThe Power and the Glory is a novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often added to the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever , amen." This novel has also been published in the US under the name The...
by Graham GreeneGraham GreeneHenry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, the slow movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 26, Verdi's La Traviata, St. Xavier del Bac MissionMission San Xavier del BacMission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham San Xavier Indian Reservation...
, and Lars von TrierLars von TrierLars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
's motion picture, Breaking the WavesBreaking the WavesBreaking the Waves is a 1996 film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Emily Watson. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it tells the story of an unusual young woman, Bess McNeill, and of the love she has for Jan, her husband. The film is an international co-production led by Lars...
."
Analogical and Dialectical Discourse
The Catholic Imagination (2000), in which his aim is to "specify how the Catholic imaginative tradition differs from other versions of the Western Christian story," informs its research through the work of David Tracy, especially The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (1981). This work suggests a strategy informed by an analogical imagination as an answer to the theological question of how to "form a new and inevitably complex theological strategy that will avoid privatism" in religious discourse that embraces pluralism. Greeley argues in The Catholic Imagination that the metaphor inherent in the Catholic imagination is indicative of the necessity to use metaphor in order to relate knowledge generally:- "Cognitive psychologistsCognitive psychologyCognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
have recently begun to insist that metaphors - statements that one reality is like another reality - are the fundamental tools of human knowledge. We understand better and explain more adequately one reality to ourselves by comparing it to another reality which we already know."
In The Analogical Imagination, Tracy sees the tendencies of Catholic artists, writers, and theologians to emphasize a metaphorical discourse - and a way to know the world through analogy - versus a Protestant tendency to stress the disconnect inherent in metaphor, as in a dialectical imagination, which Tracy's designates as "a necessary corrective to the analogical imagination."
The Catholic Imagination in Postmodern and Contemporary ArtContemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
Greeley states:
- "The love of God for [Catholics], in perhaps the boldest of all metaphors (and one with which the Church has been perennially uneasy), is like the passionate love between man and woman. God lurks in aroused human love and reveals Himself to us (the two humans first of all) through it."
The Body as a Medium
Contemporary art critic and art historian Eleanor Heartney addresses these interpretations of the Catholic imagination in her work Postmodern HereticsHeresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art, bringing to light the complex relationships underlying Catholicism's sacramental vision and the "physically provocative work it seems to inspire." She discusses how sexualization of the spiritual in contemporary art and the adverse reactions it produces - which through the 1980s to today came to be part of what is known as the "Culture War
Culture war
The culture war in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting cultural values. The term frequently implies a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal...
" - is effected in some work by a distinctly Catholic imagination. Heartney draws this connection among those artists' work who grew up Catholic or were in some way surrounded by Catholicism in their own lives. Emphasis on the body, its fluids, processes, or sexual behaviors as a site of turning cultural stereotype on its head points to a sacramental influence or underpinning that acknowledges the body and its senses as a way to know the world. She references Greeley and Tracy "to posit the existence of a distinctly Catholic consciousness which is deeply immersed in sensuality and sexuality."
America as Dialectical
Heartney questions why the carnal understanding of the world seems to be so inflammatory in American society, and discusses whether this is "peculiarly American." She reveals that in contemporary America, the Culture War seems to pit artists with the Catholic analogical underpinning "against spokespeople for a 'Christian' (read evangelicalEvangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
) America for whom flesh is a condition to be transcended rather than celebrated."
Complexity of the Incarnational Imagination
Leo Steinberg's controversial The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion points out that- "Renaissance Art . . . became the first Christian art in a thousand years to confront the Incarnation entire, the upper and the lower body together, not excluding even the body's sexual component."
He goes on to reference several works in which Christ's genitals are the focal point of the image, intentionally, so as to counter a heresy denying Christ's humanity. He indicates that the sexuality of Christ - of God - is indeed within the canon of Catholicism itself. This controversy continues into the contemporary Catholic religion as well, revealing still a deep-seated uneasiness over how fleshly an imagination is too fleshly of an imagination. Greeley makes this point:
- "The propensity to protect God from profanation, at the heart of the dialectical imagination, is very strong even among Catholics because official Catholicism has yet to make up its mind whether it really believes that sexual passion is not in itself lewd or lustful."
Postmodern artists and artists today, influenced by the Catholic imagination, who are using aspects of the body to pose their questions to society, are frequently working out of the inherently complex contradictions of sacramental vision.
Brief Examples of Artists and Works of Art with reference to a Catholic Imagination
- Carolee Schneeman: performance "Meat Joy" (1964)
- Dennis Oppenheim: performance "Reading Position for Second Degree Burn" (1970)
- Vito Acconci: performance "Trademarks" (1970)
- Chris Burdern: performance "Trans-fixed" (1974)
- Marina Abromovic: performance "Rhythm 0" (1974)
- Linda Montano: performance "One Year Performance" (1983)
- Robert Mapplethorpe: photograph "Dennis Spaight with Calla Lilies" (1983)
- Karen Finley: performance "We Keep Our Victims Ready" (1990)
- Andres Serrano: cibachrome print "The Morgue (Fatal Meningitis II)" (1992)
- Ron Athey: performance "Four Scenes in a Harsh Life" (1994)
- Sheree Rose and Bob Flanagan performance "Visiting Hours" (1994)
- Renee Cox: photograph "Yo Mama's Last Supper" (1996)
- Jeanine Antoni: cibachrome print "Coddle" (1999)
- Petah Coyne: mixed media sculpture "Untitled #1093 (s) 02-03 (Buddha Boy)" (2002-2003)
See also: Lisa Yuskavage, Kiki Smith, Andy Warhol, Tim Miller, David Wojnarowicz
See also
- IncarnationIncarnationIncarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
- FeminismFeminismFeminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
- HomoeroticismHomoeroticismHomoeroticism refers to the erotic attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female , most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
- Catholic Church
- ProtestantismProtestantismProtestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
- Sacraments of the Catholic ChurchSacraments of the Catholic ChurchThe Sacraments of the Catholic Church are, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper...
- SacramentSacramentA sacrament is a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance and significance. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites.-General definitions and terms:...
- Grace of God
- ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
- GodGodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
- Jesus Christ
- PantheismPantheismPantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
- DeismDeismDeism in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the...