The desacralization of man, who no longer knows himself made in the image and likeness of God, advances in tandem with inflated reverence for culture. But we were warned. Half a century ago, Romano Guardini reflected on modernityâ??s faith in culture, which â??took its stance opposite God and His Revelationâ?? and recognized no measure beyond itself. Louis Bouyer, writing in 1982, looked on the dilation of culture and recognized it as a symptom of deep degeneration, the herald of a â??monstrous civilizationâ?? emptied of meaning. He referred to museums as little more than â??cultural refrigeratorsâ?? where â??apparent life is actually preserved in a state of death.â?? More recently, Louis Dupré expanded on Guardiniâ??s theme: â??Culture itself has become the real religion of our time, absorbing traditional religion as a subordinate part of itself.â??
When UNESCO declared Vatican City a World Heritage Site in 1984, it blessed St. Peterâ??s Basilica as â??the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini, and Maderna.â?? The witness of Peter did not apply. If it is true, as the historian David Lowenthal asserts, that society restores and preserves what it has ceased to resent, then the Williamsburging of Christianity is no compliment. Worse, it flatters Christians into believing that the blame for a de-Christianized West lies outside themselves. The Museum of Biblical Art is premised on the assumption that our predicament results from a failure of education; continuing ed, buttressed by museum stature, is the cure.
Père Bouyer was not so readily seduced. He understood the Westâ??s descent into post-Christian culture in terms of the adage corruptio optima pessima: â??It is not ignorance of Christianity among those who were never evangelized, nor its negation by those who were never able to accept it, but rather by the betrayal of Christianity by those who received the Gospel and were brought up as Christians.â?? It is not necessary to document the corruption of the best in our own decade and close to home. It is enough to stay mindful that every genuflection by the Church to secular idolsâ??under the pretext of promoting the gospelâ??ends as Vigo Demant foresaw: a proclamation of secularism â??in a Christian idiom.â?? The Paraclete does not need our museums.
Maureen Mullarkey Faith behind Glass
