John Senior vs the Church of Luce
John Senior vs the Church of Luce
Vatican's goal is allegedly to "engage the pop culture so beloved by our young people".
"To live as a Christian today is to live against the tide, to accept the call to be counter-cultural, standing against the values of a world that has lost its way." – John Senior, Catholic Educator and Philosopher
When Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first Catholic jubilee year (or Holy Year) in 1300, the Italian artist Giotto, who was active during this period, painted a series of frescoes depicting scenes from St. Francis's life in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, celebrating the themes of mercy and charity.
Though not directly commissioned for the jubilee, these frescoes became iconic for pilgrims during this period.
Thus, a faith-enhancing tradition was born, and Jubilee celebrations became synonymous with some of the most majestic (Catholic) art the world has ever seen.
For the jubilee year of 1575, Pope Gregory XIII highlighted the themes of conversion and repentance. Michelangelo was commissioned to work on frescoes in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican Palace, depicting the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter.
Though completed just prior to this jubilee, these works were prominently viewed by pilgrims during the holy year, symbolizing the transformative power of faith—a core theme of jubilee years.
(The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni /Wiki Commons)
For the 1675 Jubilee, the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini created The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni in the Church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome. The statue depicts the mystical ecstasy of Ludovica Albertoni, a Roman noblewoman known for her charity and religious devotion.
Cough.
Fast forward.
For the 2025 jubilee year, some idiot or idiots in the sacerdotal-monarchical state that is the Vatican City, commissioned Italian homosexual “artist” Simone Legno (who is not Catholic or even remotely Christian) of the Tokidoki brand, to design a miscreant, woke mascot known as Luce, to be the “centerpiece” for the coming Holy year.
It was unveiled this past week. (Did I mention that this latest piece of “great Catholic jubilee art” debuted at the Lucca Comics and Games Convention? )
The Japanese anime-style cartoon character, yes you read that right, the Church founded on the blood of Christ and His martyrs, will be represented by a cartoon character during the 2025 Holy Year Jubilee, is a blue-haired female whose name means “light” in Latin. The latter alone has ruffled many feathers due to its proximity to the word “lucifer”.
The infantile creation can be seen wearing a yellow raincoat a la Greta Thunberg and carrying a “pilgrims staff” that some have pointed out is more akin to a witch’s stang. Luce wears a rainbow-colored Rosary as jewelry around her neck and has a bevy of cartoon friends including a dog named Santino.
Faithful Catholics, the type who has thus far avoided drinking the Modernist Kool-Aid, were further scandalised by Legno’s “distinguished” resume. Not only is he renowned for designing art for gay pride events, but he has also collaborated on designing a range of sex toys for the Lovehoney brand.
The cabal that has infiltrated the Vatican sure knows how to pick them.
Idiot-in-Chief organiser for the jubilee, Archbishop Rino Fisichella said the mascot is an attempt to further the Vatican’s goal of engaging with “the pop culture so beloved by our young people”.
Yes, of course Archbishop Fisichella, Jesus Christ said “if you design a trashy, pseudo-lesbian, woke-looking cartoon character, all men will be drawn unto Me”.
(By the way, He didn’t say that. What He did say in John 12:32 was “if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me”. But hey, let’s not let the Holy Scriptures stand in the way of yet another attack on the dignity of Christ’s One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church.)
The Jubilee 2025, themed "Pilgrims of Hope," will be dedicated to spiritual renewal, mercy, and forgiveness. Jubilees, traditionally held every 25 years, are times when Catholics are encouraged to seek a deeper connection with God, experience spiritual renewal, and receive plenary indulgences (remissions of the temporal effects of sin) through prayer, pilgrimage, and acts of mercy.
What in the name of Holy Christendom has this piece of cheap consumer “art” got to do with “spiritual renewal, mercy, and forgiveness” and seeking “a deeper connection with God “?!
Let’s take a look at what the great Catholic educator and philosopher John Senior (1923-1999) had to say about these and adjacent matters. Senior was a staunch traditionalist and prophetic voice. His books “The Death of Christian Culture” (originally published in 1978) and “The Restoration of Christian Culture” (originally published in 1983) had a profound effect on me and it is a shame that he is not more celebrated in traditional orthodox circles. These two titles do belong on your bookshelf and is available from Tan Books.
Senior was known for his critique of modern culture, particularly in how it diverges from and even undermines Catholic faith and traditional Christian values. In response to the Vatican’s attempts to “engage pop culture”, Radical Fidelity has curated a selection of the choicest Senior quotes for you, the esteemed reader. (As you read these, keep the Luce atrocity in the back of your mind and use Senior’s quotes as a measuring stick for this degenerate farce they have foisted on Christ’s Body):
· “It is said that Christianity, if it is to survive, must face the modern world, must come to terms with the way things are in the sense of the current drift of things. It is just the other way around: If we are to survive, we must face Christianity”.
· “Culture, as in “agriculture,” is the cultivation of the soil from which men grow. To determine proper methods, we must have a clear idea of the crop. “What is man?” the Penny Catechism asks, and answers: “A creature made in the image and likeness of God, to know, love and serve Him.” Culture, therefore, clearly has this simple end, no matter how complex or difficult the means. Our happiness consists in a perfection that is no mere endless hedonistic whoosh through space and time, but the achievement of that definite love and knowledge which is final and complete. All the paraphernalia of our lives, intellectual, moral, social, psychological, and physical, has this end: Christian culture is the cultivation of saints”.
· “We are living in a culture that denies the permanent things, a culture of violence, noise, and distraction, where the quiet virtues that lead us to God are neglected or ridiculed. This culture poisons the soul, filling it with superficiality instead of substance, and it leads men away from the true, the good, and the beautiful.”
· “Modern popular culture, with its television, music, and advertising, destroys the imagination and enslaves the soul, creating men who cannot think deeply or act heroically. Instead, it creates passive, shallow people who are unable to recognize truth and goodness, making it nearly impossible for them to come to faith.”
· “In our abandonment of tradition, we have lost not only our faith but also our humanity. We have forgotten that we are creatures made for a higher purpose, and this forgetting is at the root of modern despair.”
· “When a culture ceases to believe in absolute truths, it no longer knows how to distinguish good from evil, beauty from ugliness, or wisdom from foolishness; everything becomes relative, and chaos ensues.”
· “To revive Christian culture, we must recover a sense of the sacred, of awe and reverence before God, nature, and our fellow man. Without this, our souls remain impoverished, and our culture remains dead.”
· “Beauty is a bridge to the divine; if we wish to restore Christian culture, we must first restore a sense of beauty that lifts the heart to God.”
· "Christian culture cannot survive in a secular framework that denies the transcendent. To restore our culture, we must be unapologetic in our affirmation of God’s place at the center of all things."
· "The Church is not just a part of culture; she is the mother of culture. A renewed Christian culture is possible only through fidelity to the Church and her teachings."
· "True art lifts the soul toward the transcendent, it reflects the beauty of God. Modern art, by rejecting order, harmony, and clarity, has lost this capacity—it leads not to God, but away from Him."
· "Classical Catholic art is imbued with light, with a vision of the divine order. It reflects the harmony and peace of God’s creation. In modern art, however, we see only chaos, distortion, and a reflection of the disordered soul."
· "In the great works of classical Catholic art, one finds a kind of prayer—a vision of eternity that draws the viewer into a deeper contemplation of divine mysteries. Modern art, by contrast, often speaks of despair, or of a world cut off from God."
· “The beauty of classical Catholic art serves a sacred purpose. It draws the heart to worship, to awe before the Creator. Modern art has abandoned beauty for the sake of novelty, leaving the soul unanchored.”
· “Modern art, in abandoning beauty and coherence, has degraded not only itself but also the viewer. Where Catholic art once raised the mind to God, modern art too often debases it, encouraging a view of life that is bleak and fragmented.”
· “Art is a mirror of the soul of a culture. Classical Catholic art reflected a healthy soul oriented toward God. Modern art, however, reflects a sick soul, lost in self and despair, unable to reach beyond itself to anything higher.”
· "Catholic art was born of a tradition that cherished order, beauty, and reverence. By breaking with tradition, modern art has severed itself from these values, and the result is confusion and alienation."
Let us galvanise ourselves as the degenerating scourging of Christ’s Church continues, by resisting the Modernist heretics and their fruits, by educating ourselves and others, and through prayer, penance, mortification, and living virtuous sacramental lives.
Christus Rex!
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