Good comments on my recent post about Catholic art and why we fight about it, especially from Jake, who calls it like it is. I would say a few things in response: first, Catholic art has always been in bad taste and terrible.  This is true for all art, everywhere.  I guarantee that if you go to an average church at any point in history, you will find the same level of, well, average art.  It’s just the way the world goes.

But then you can criticize those averages–average art in a time of modernism, some would say, is a lot worse than average art at a time of baroque.  Okay.  So let’s talk about modern art and its influence on the Catholic church.  The problem here, is that most criticisms of “Catholic art” are criticisms of music and literature, and believe me, Catholic songs are not modern music, and do we even have Catholic literature anymore?  The song are folk songs, and there has been a long and epic tradition in the Catholic faith of tension between high and low expressions of devotion.  The elite have always liked songs (among other things) that are a  bit less melodramatic, prayer that is not superstitious, and a bit of refinement and subtlety.  The folk have always liked things big, with beliefs others might denigrate as magical or superstitious, and a faith that makes for a good cry, or at least some other high emotional response.  Obviously, this popular Catholicism changes shape based on its separate culture, but I think it’s safe to say “On Eagle’s Wings” ties into a lot of classic folk American idioms.  So this is nothing new either. (And this doesn’t even get into the question of actual quality, which, let’s face it, is actually pretty arbitrary.  A lot of these Haas/Haugen/St. Louis Jesuits songs would make pretty decent folk songs/pop songs, while a lot would not.  Those that might work in folk or pop DO succeed as songs, just not the kinds of songs Jake might like.  So they are terrible, yes, but they’re terrible at something they’re not trying to do, which is a bit like accusing a pitcher of being a terrible quarterback.  This might be true but it’s not the point.)

What are new, however, are the stained glass windows and church design, both of which are often quite modernist.  I’m with Jake on preferring the old style of more representational art, just because I think that is harder to mess up.  (A great example of a quite modern version of this is the LA Cathedral, which is just beautiful).  However, that doesn’t mean we have to keep all of our Churches Gothic.  I do think there’s something stunning–even ancient–about good modern art (a la Picasso, who, after all, was mostly just imitating African masks) and trying to figure out how to make that representation work in a way that’s not trite and overintellectual is an important effort.  It also produces a lot of risks though, and a lot of shoddy stuff.  But, again, don’t most attempts at art?

And here’s an important reminder.  We probably could not do any better.  This is not to deny the importance of excellence and it’s certainly not to excuse mediocrity.  But the fact is, we are all pretty mediocre.  None of us can really produce art that is worthy of God, or even worthy of our vision of Church.  So let’s let the fact that our artistic projects often fail be a reminder of our own need for humility, rather than a reason to get angry and self-righteous.  We’re all basically failures, but we keep on trying, and what better way to remind ourselves of that then to take a deep breath before criticizing someone’s artistic choice?  Hear me right on this: I am not saying forget all artistic decisions and hang up the sixth-graders’ banners all over the Church.  We should still strive for excellence in all things, especially the art with which we worship.  I am saying that a bit of humility and a recognition of human brokenness in all things would help us all.