"Art Bishop" celebrates modern art to the exclusion of Jesus Christ. Church diverting quantities of money and time from mission to modern art.

June 25, 2023

"Art Bishop" celebrates modern art to the exclusion of Jesus Christ. Church diverting quantities of money and time from mission to modern art.

Glettler: Church also an important cultural carrier in contemporary art

Innsbruck "Art Bishop" on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the "Collection of Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums": Exciting learning process that allows both those involved in culture and those responsible for the Church to learn from each other

The Catholic Church is an important bearer of culture in Austria, not only in relation to traditional art, but also "in the pulsating field of contemporary art". Bishop Hermann Glettler of Innsbruck has pointed this out. The field of contemporary art makes possible an "exciting learning process that allows both those who create culture and those who bear responsibility for the Church to learn from each other", the Bishop responsible for art and culture in the Austrian Bishops' Conference told Kathpress on Saturday. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the "Collection of Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums" on 23 June 1973 by Pope Paul VI.

(Click on Bishop Glettler to demonstrate the episcopal aesthetic sense, especially the angry Tyrolians who want to eject him and his art from the Diocese.)

Pope Francis had celebrated the 50th anniversary of the collection in the Vatican Museums on Friday together with around 200 artists from 30 countries. During an extraordinary audience in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, he emphasised the "natural friendship" between art and the Catholic Church. For artists take seriously the inexhaustible depth of existence, of life and of the world - even in its contradictions and tragic sides. Moreover, art and faith cannot leave things as they are: They changed, transformed, converted them.

See Artist responsible for "Piss Christ" guest of Pope in Vatican

Glettler referred to the "countless parish and pilgrimage churches, chapels and monasteries" where "community has been built up and cultural identity created for centuries". Cultural preservation is therefore not only an ecclesiastical-pastoral concern, but also corresponds to the interest of the population - including those who are not interested in the church, said the bishop. In the dioceses, an enormous amount of conservation and educational work was also being done - not least with the corresponding diocesan museums. In addition, the dialogue with contemporary art is "a remarkable commitment" of the Austrian Church.

As a "lighthouse project" in this field, Glettler mentioned the Cathedral Museum in Vienna, which brings old and new art into a fruitful dialogue in thematic annual exhibitions. The museum is also home to the collection of Monsignor Otto Mauer, which represents a "permanently valid" cross-section of Austrian post-war art and thus indirectly keeps alive the trend-setting work of one of the most important pioneering figures for a radical opening to contemporary art.

Another example of the dialogue between the Church and contemporary art is the "KULTUM", the Centre for Contemporary Art and Religion in Graz.

It has established cooperation with other established art institutions. Other examples of dialogue between modern art and the Church in Austria are the Catholic University Community in Graz,

the Church of St. Andrä in the regional capital

and the Benedictine Abbey of Admont, which has built up a museum for contemporary art with a remarkable collection.

Glettler also mentioned that in numerous parish and cathedral churches in Austria there are annual Lenten co-operations with artists - mostly Lenten cloth installations that make contemporary reference to the medieval Passion cloths. Various art prizes in the Austrian dioceses also testify to the lively dialogue with contemporary culture, said Glettler. (Cathcon: some of the prizewinners illustrated below)

The Otto Mauer Prize in the Archdiocese of Vienna,