Well, maybe not “easy,” but surely not inconceivable for the group that pulled off the conversion of the barbarians and the Counter-Reformation.
And, in the span of eternity, “fast” can be well, a century or so. Which could start today. So, there’s no time to waste.
Pushing Back
Seriously, when the public debate has switched to whether gay marriage is better for kids than heterosexual marriage, it's a good bet that it's probably too late for our culture to reverse itself. But there are things we can do to slow the relentless assault of societal darkness.
The great Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor counseled “Push back against the age. As hard as it pushes against you.” There is certainly valor in going down fighting, and maybe, in the process, we'll attract a few more lost souls into the Light before it is too late.
1. Change the rhetoric.
The first thing we have to do to fix the culture is rally our own troops. No one wants to enlist in the forces of despair, hopelessness and ultimate defeat. We have to change how we speak about the culture and the arts, emphasizing the positive and essential goods that come to humanity through music and painting and dance literature and theater and cinema, and yes, even television.
If we are going to get a new generation of young people to make a foray into these influential worlds, we have to stop acting and talking like they are innately evil and dangerous to the soul. We need to stop talking like we are outsiders on this planet, watching through the windows while the world marches into hell on the other side. Our speech needs to be “my” culture, not “the” culture. We live here too. We own the airwaves and the museums and the public discourse as much as any other group. Even if we could keep ourselves untainted by cultural decay, a pastoral love should see us flinging ourselves out into the darkness to try to save a few other souls.
As the pope has said, we need to re-enter “that fruitful dialogue” with the arts that used to define the People of God, seeing the arts not just as something to be studied, but as a lens through which to study many things — art as a real “source of theology,” as a companion to history, as the response to the sciences.
2. Move the microphones.
The next big step we have to make if we are going to have any influence in the culture is to change our spokespeople. We have to identify people who love Jesus, and who know what they are talking about when it comes to art and culture, and then let them begin to lead us back into an appreciation for what makes great art. Just because someone is orthodox in their theology, or conservative in their politics, doesn't mean he or she knows anything about cinema, for example. Just because a man is ordained, doesn't make him a reference point on culture. Certainly, the liturgical music that has been torturing most of us all at our parishes for the last thirty years proves that clerical taste in music should be discounted.
The fact is, the People of God are abysmally ignorant about art these days. We only know what we like, but not really what we are talking about. Too many of us confuse personal taste with artistic excellence, and our tastes have been corrupted by fear and suspicion of the age. A devout woman described her artistic sensibility to me not long ago as, “If it's new, it's bad.” That you may like the new remake of Cheaper by the Dozen, says much more about you than it does about the film. The fact is, as a piece of cinematic storytelling, Cheaper is a bad film.
I am constantly witnessing people of faith reject movies that we should support, because we tend to measure everything by the most limited standard. “If it made me feel happy at the end then it is good.” Did the prophets of old make people “feel good” about themselves? Isn't there a place for the artists of this present Babylon, to be crying out sad songs of Jerusalem? Being Catholic is not synonymous with being a prude. Reducing our cultural appreciation to “family entertainment” makes us look absurd to truth-seekers whose home would otherwise be in our midst.
Put Our Money Where Our Heart Is
3. Offer commissions.
This is huge. The best way to win back artists, is to pay them to decorate for us. “Here, you starving young sculptor. Here's some money. Instead of carving a nymph at the Playboy Mansion, come here and carve the Resurrected Christ for our community. First, of course, you will have to brood over this big book of ours… and maybe spend a lot of time talking to people who talk to this Resurrected Christ. You will probably have to research by poring over other artistic images of Christ. And lots of artists have gotten their best ideas by sitting quietly in front of this little box with the candle by it in our place. We call it a 'church.'”
Artists are compelled to create. It's a kind of drive that many of them equate to breathing and eating. Singers basically want to sing. Painters to paint. Actors to act. My experience of artists is that they will go to whomever will subsidize their compulsion to decorate. The best way to bring back our artists to the Church, is to once again become the Patron of the Arts.
4. Take back the training grounds.
The sad fact is, with all of the Catholic colleges and universities in this country, there isn't one film program that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best secular programs. I was at Catholic University a couple of years ago to speak to the last screenwriting class before the film program was phased out. What kind of a planet are we on at the foremost Catholic university in the nation to be “phasing out” studies in the primary art form of our time?! Did I miss the memo that said that screen productions are going away?
A huge part of winning back the culture will be to provide state of the art training in our own educational houses for the next generation of writers, filmmakers, actors, painters and musicians. We need Church-sponsored guilds for our artists that emphasize beauty and the social responsibility of the artist. We need conferences on the spirituality of creativity and the role of entertainment, and on ethics and responsibility for the mass media. How about a little outside the box thinking here? In a moment in which elementary and high schools have shut down their music programs for lack of funds, the Church could step in and start providing music education at our churches to any kids who want it. Many of our churches already have music departments. What would it take to start offering musical training to young people who would otherwise never darken our church doors? For sure, there would be a lot of corporate partners who would back such ventures. It would be a smart, pastoral, and aggressive way to redefine our community to those outside.
The Redemption of Souls
5. Prayer and Pastoral Outreach.
While we get busy about training the next generation of believing artists and entertainers, we also need to turn a pastoral eye to those who are already out there making culture who are not believers. Eminem and Britney and Howard Stern and Susan Sarandon are not the enemy. They are the mission field. We have to stop cursing the people who are poisoning the culture and instead start praying and working for their conversion. The goal is not to replace these people with us. The goal is to turn them into us. There is a great need for focused spiritual direction for artists and entertainers. Somebody needs to consider the particular cross they carry, and help them craft a strategy to carry that cross to holiness. Once won over, these people will play a critical role in instructing our next generation — because we don't have the masters in our house to do the training we need.
Most of all, the People of God need to start praying for a new Renaissance in the arts. One thing we can say for sure: a sustained, heartfelt cry rising up to the Throne of God can change human history. The field of the arts and entertainment community are white for harvest. We need to pray for apostles who can plant our flag in the midst of the Armani-clad, limo-riding, leftwing-leaning, spiritually impoverished cultural elites, bringing God where He is not. There will be no cultural renewal without this prayer first of all.
Barbara R. Nicolosi teaches screenwriting to aspiring Catholic writers at the acclaimed Act One: Writing for Hollywood program. You may email her at Actone2000@aol.com.
This article reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register © 2004
