Godpilled
My thesis on “vibes Catholicism”. (Better late than never amirite)
Andy Warhol was a Catholic, a Byzantine Catholic. He was said to have attended the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan every Sunday after his brush with death in 1968 when he was shot multiple times by Valerie Solanas1. Bullets pierced his lungs, stomach, liver, oesophagus and spleen and his injuries were so severe that at one point during surgery he was clinically declared dead. But like the Lord Jesus Christ he rose again, and with a newly restored faith in God. Rumour has it that on one occasion when he asked some of his Factory groupies to accompany him to Sunday mass, they simply laughed in his face, thinking he was joking – doing a bit. When it comes to a character like Warhol it’s hard to draw the line between irony and sincerity. Religious motifs, both ex and im plicit, feature frequently in his work, alluding to the artist’s fraught relationship with spirituality, Catholicism in particular. People often point to the obvious tension concerning the fact that Warhol was an openly gay man and someone who inhabited the iconoclastic circles that surrounded the art world at the time. From appropriations of Renaissance masterpieces, like his famous Last Supper series, to his iconographical, cult portraits of celebrities, the artist reframed and subverted Catholic imagery and symbolism through the lens of Pop.2 On the whole Warhol’s practice concerned itself with elevating ordinary objects and images to high art status, or in other words – elevating the mundane to the sacred.
Warhol is essentially a paragon of a specific brand of post-irony Catholicism, one that has always been at home within the art world but has more recently been assimilated by internet culture. In the subtitle I refer to “vibes Catholicism”, a term I have attributed to this phenomenon off the back of an article written by Catholic journalist Steve Larkin entitled ‘Catholicism Is a Religion, Not a Vibe’, and also given the abstract, vibes-based nature of this specific genre of pop-spirituality. The title, on the other hand, refers to a general, pre-existing internet slang term – “godpilled” – that Urban Dictionary defines as follows:
Admittedly I myself am sort of godpilled. For me, this has everything to do with a desire to elevate the mundane to the sacred because, in contemporary society where everything can easily appear senseless and devoid of meaning, why not. In some cases, the term can be used to refer to genuine faith in God, but for the most part, it refers to a subsection of people who Love Jesus™ in the same post-ironic way as pre-bullet wounds Andy Warhol. In short, it has everything to do with being edgy and nearly nothing to do with abstaining from pre-marital sex or reading the Bible.
The past few years of pop-culture media have featured a ton of discourse surrounding a trend in “Catholic core”– another internet slang derivative which refers to a Catholic aesthetic (at some point in time online culture began classifying things as x or y “core” – a manner of defining people and things according to hyper-specific aesthetic categories). In terms of the current internet/fashion/internet fashion trend goes, Catholic core constitutes a whole lot of lace clothing, rosaries and cross necklaces, crucifixes, lambs, images of the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc and other female saints/mystics etc. – it’s nothing new and by now is being marketed at Urban Outfitters. Beyond Catholic core, however, lies the domain of the godpilled – a brand of esotericism that surpasses a purely stylistic espousal of a religious vibe, but that is also largely mediated by spending time online. In an article for Various Artists, writer and fashion critic Biz Sherbet summarises its proponents as “people with art jobs, tattoos, eating disorders, and stimulant prescriptions”. Whoops literally me (hopefully soon-to-be me, me for real, teenage me, me if I lived in America). These types of people have taken to expressing their religious and/or spiritual awareness online in a manner which has snowballed into the praxis of so-called “techno-spiritualism”. In the article Sherbert explains the codified nuances of the godpilled side of the internet, referring to a taxonomy of religious memes (see Instagram account @ineedgodineverymomentofmylife for example), obscure oculist infographics and a rise in people’s self-mythologising and confessional-style usage of social media. Are these signs of a yearning for transcendence, a search for what lies beyond the machine? Or is it finally time to unplug from a culture of online world-building that has spiralled into new depths of delirium. Probably the latter. The thing with writing about internet culture is that it sounds completely absurd and dystopian (which I guess it is) to anyone who doesn’t already know exactly what you’re talking about. In consequence, these are pretty much the only people who choose to engage with internet culture discourse in the first place, making the whole thing one big self-defeating, chronically online echo chamber. That being said, let me continue….
As the Urban Dictionary definition explains, the “godpill” is reactionary. Circa 2020 infamous rabble-rouser and co-host of the Red Scare podcast Dasha Nekraskova told Interview magazine that she was “Catholic, like Andy Warhol”. I hate to admit this was my entire basis for talking about him in the first place. While the self-proclaimed “deeply superficial” Pop artist might seem like a random point of reference to anyone who isn’t aware of the godpill, of the "vibes Catholicism" phenomenon and what it signifies, it makes perfect sense to anyone who does. In many cases, slouching towards religion is hardly an attempt to transcend wider social culture, and rather has everything to with it. Catholicism has been embraced by people like Neraskova and others affiliated with the so-called “New Right” in the U.S. as a social signifier of distaste for modern society in its current state of “wokeness” etc. (I explain this in detail under the subheading ‘Social and Political Implications of ‘Vibes Catholicism’’, where I also try to veer away from talking about this solely in the context US politics. I resent the general Americanisation of the culture, just so you know.) All in all, the godpill is somewhat adjacent to the more commonly recognised “red pill” – a term that originates from the scene in The Matrix in which Laurence Fishborne offers Keanu Reeves a choice:
“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
The rabbit hole reveals the truth concerning reality, or rather “reality”, as we know it. In today’s society the red pill concept from The Matrix has largely been distorted and appropriated by members of the alt-right as a metaphor for various conspiracy theories, notably the “incel” worldview that feminism has gone too far and all women are evil subhumans seeking to overthrow men. Essentially, the suffix “-pilled” is an internet slang way to describe a subscription to a particular ideology or thing e.g. “bluepilled” is used to refer to liberals, “blackpilled” to those who believe we’re all doomed, nihilists, or “Taylorpilled” to people who like Taylor Swift. You could literally be anything-pilled. E.g. instead of asking someone if they like mayonnaise, you could say: “Are you mayopilled?” – as our world eats itself at a faster rate than ever before, so does its language.
While obviously one should be wary of any and all ideological pills, there remains something so tempting and, crucially, something so seemingly innocent, about a small dose of the godpill – so long as you’re just experimenting that is. Reactionary politics aside, a desire to return to God represents a yearning for transcendence, individual mythology and sense of belonging – in other words, it’s a yearning for wonderment and the whimsical, symptomatic of romantic, idealistic and, above all, fantastical worldview. I like to think this is the reason why nearly all artists / interesting, cool people throughout history have supposedly turned to god in one way or another during their lives.
The pill/substance analogy is a convenient way to consider faith/spirituality, but obviously not an original since everyone knows Marx notoriously called religion “the opium of the people”. Marx’s opium metaphor alludes to how he believed religion and opium played similar roles in society, arguing that both served to distort reality and numb the pain of proletariat oppression. (Both are ultimately tools of the capitalist regime.) His view of religion is tied to the notion of escapism, people’s desire for a quick fix or easy way out of worldly problems and situations. While this interpretation still holds true, nowadays religion hardly seems like one of the most obvious modes of escapism – there are loads of quicker and easier recourses, like the internet for example.
Some people think the internet killed religion; some think the internet is the new god. In Derrida’s Spectres of Marx (1993), while outlining his theory of hauntology (a concept that refers to the persistence of elements from the past that haunt the present in a similar way to a ghost), the French philosopher quotes Marx quoting Stirner describing Jesus as “the greatest and most incomprehensible of ghosts”. He makes the uncharacteristically hyperbolic suggestion that Christianity has had the greatest cultural impact on society over anything else, that its ghostly shadow is consequently bound to pop up everywhere. Inevitably, we think of everything in terms of god, the internet no less. Pope Francis called the internet a Gift from God and preached that it is possible to use the internet in a godly fashion; I don’t think he was referring to teenage girls LARPing Catholic aesthetics on TikTok however. RIP Karl Marx you would have hated the combination of the escapist realms of religion and the internet – perhaps the ultimate glitch in the matrix that is late-stage capitalism.
Pop-culture Catholicism
It’s worth mentioning that the commodification of a Catholic vibe is by no means a recent innovation. Arguably, Catholicism can be identified as the most influential (if not the most) persistent cultural trend throughout history considering that the influence can be traced back through centuries of Western civilisation. Since its inception, the Catholic church has defined itself by way of its rich visual and material culture,3 consequently playing a crucial role in shaping the development of art since (at least) the 4th century. You’ve got the likes of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo (the Renaissance painters not the Ninja Turtles), whose work is in all probability the first thing that springs to mind when one conjures up an image of religious, Catholic-inspired art. But in today’s day and age, carrying on the torch of Catholicism’s cultural legacy, (music-wise) you’ve got Lana Del Ray and Ethel Cain, (fashion-wise) the cross merch and rosaries sold by celebrity favourite brand Chrome Hearts and the viral brand Praying's signature “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” bikini, (film and TV-wise) the 2024 horror film Immaculate featuring Sydney Sweeney as a sexy nun and the recently released Netflix show The Decameron (very loosely based on Boccaccio) (PSA don’t watch either both are terrible), and finally (visual art-wise) you’ve got the overwhelming surplus of contemporary art of the post-irony Catholic kitsch vein that people are stilling trying to pass off as edgy and risqué. That said, there’s something about that sort of thing that appeals to a person like myself… Take my Substack publication display picture for example:
It’s the kind of cringe, religious kitsch art I was describing, but love it. It’s a sculpture (for lack of a better descriptor) by an artist named Oliver Steiner that depicts a Barbie, bound and blindfolded BDSM-style, on the cross like Jesus. It’s stupid, it’s obvious and its symbolism is far from nuanced. But it’s also funny and there’s something strangely beautiful about it to me. I’m not talking about the sculpture itself, which isn’t beautiful or even strange for that matter – it’s made up of two generic, widely recognisable images, the mass-manufactured Barbie object and the crucifix aka the most common symbol of faith – but rather it’s edgy symbolism that speaks to me. Keeping in mind Žižek’s comments about the crucifixion as a crucial site of the immanence/transcendence aporia, this depiction of Barbie in a way harks back to my own existential plight… What am I if not like her? A shallow, superficial, blonde, plagued by the dictates of materialist society yet helplessly bound to a conflicting motivation for some kind of greater, divine, spiritual mode of existence. (Joke, it’s a joke.) Alternatively, it’s Jesus Christ reincarnate in the bimbo-feminine form, an inspirational totem to 21st-century Christian-slay-girl-boss feminism. (It isn’t.) In reality, there’s nothing god-fearing about this work. BDSM - 1 Barbie Doll is clearly a blasphemous attempt at subversion intended to offend Christian sensibilities and mock the image of Christ. The first and most obvious transgression is that of the female form, but on top of this Barbie is a symbol of materialism and consumerism, as well an essentialised, hyper-commodified expression of femininity. She’s also somewhat of a sex symbol, and here explicitly framed as one (which is obviously perverted since everyone knows she started out as a children’s toy). Barbie is thus set out to represent some kind of postmodern anti-Christ. It is mocking in its false idolatry of a female figure, who also happens to be a superficial whore, and is essentially the incarnation of everything traditional Christianity stands against (sex, women, sexy women…). Ultimately it’s a piss-take. While I could find a way to argue that it offers up a commentary on Christianity’s androcentric assumptions, its repressive standards for women and/or the Bible and other Christian texts’ frequent depictions of female suffering, it’s really just trying to be something along the lines of edgy and funny. It is literally a BDSM Barbie tied to a cross after all.
Catholicism’s Inherent Sex Appeal
At the heart of the Catholic-core aesthetic lies a burlesque mixture of the sacred and profane. This is largely what makes its whole vibe so seductive, both literally and figuratively speaking. BDSM - 1 Barbie Doll is a perfect example of how contemporary art and society often ironises traditional conceptions of godliness, particularly beliefs surrounding purity, chastity, virginity etc., by recasting Catholicism in a newly sexual light. By now everyone is well aware of the historically complex relationship between sex and Catholicism, and I am by no means trying to suggest that the two haven’t always fraternised… (no one is even shocked by paedophile gay priest jokes anymore). But rather that people nowadays are keen to make a clear spectacle of that which until recently has been taboo. Here, I am using the word ‘recently’ in a relatively loose sense since this sort of attitude really emerged following the rise of the counterculture in the 60s - a time of cultural, artistic and sexual emancipation from what was seen as the straitjacket of tradition. (Though it is exhibited much earlier in various forms of art and literature, particularly within the French tradition – their 19th c. Romantics in particular were notoriously satanic-Catholic-sex-cult-pilled. Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, for one, is a template for what I previously referred to as ‘a burlesque mixture of the sacred and profane’, just saying). This kind of subversive toying with Catholic themes and ideas was largely made fashionable by its on-screen depiction in a particular genre of erotic, religious arthouse film that had its heyday in the mid-60s to early 70s.
A notorious example can be found in Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), which remains one of the most controversial and heavily censored films of all time. Based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun – an account of a 17th-century case of demonic possession in an Ursuline Convent, in Loudun, France – the film tells the story of an Ursuline abbess (played by Vanessa Redgrave) who becomes erotically obsessed with the powerful, promiscuous priest Urbain Grandier (somewhat of a cult historical figure, played by Oliver Reed). Frustrated by her own sacrilegious desire, in a fit of anger and jealousy she accuses him of fornication and witchcraft (the former accusation being true and the latter false), and this accusation spurns an outbreak of mass hysteria amongst the nuns in the convent who have been led to think they are possessed by the devil. Its stylised, OTT imagery mercilessly and violently ropes together the sexual and the sacred, its infamous “black mass” scene showcasing an orgy of devil-possessed nuns with the nuns at one point removing a crucifix from the high altar and masturbating with it. Unsurprisingly, upon its release, the film was banned or censored almost everywhere, with the full director’s cut still not having seen the light of day. Like many outrageous works of art, its political messaging managed to rescue it from oblivion. Alongside a damming critique of the Catholic Church – its hypocrisy, corruption and sexual repression – is a reflection on the way moral panic can be weaponised by those in power and used as a tool for control and manipulation. (If I were in a more pick-me mood I would use this opportunity to talk about how relevant this idea still is today, make some gratuitous link to the Christian nationalism of Trump’s America or something.) Ironically, the film became a meta-comment on its own reception considering how outrage and accusations of blasphemy were used to justify its widespread censorship.
Critics have coined the term ‘nunsploitation’ in reference to a subgenre of films like The Devils that are centred around the sexual exploitation of nuns.4 Contemporary culture frequently uses the naughty nun trope to comment on Catholicism’s sexual tensions, yet the origins of this lie in a historical tradition of sexualising nuns which has gone on for centuries. Notably, the vilification of nuns and priests as sexual degenerates was central to the anti-Catholic propaganda that Henry VIII deployed during the dissolution of the monasteries. The fact that society really held onto the idea of the naughty nun (it’s literally one of the most basic Halloween costumes), and more or less abandoned that of the promiscuous priest (minus the “Hot Priest” in Fleabag), is not surprising given our partiality to sexualising women. That said, today’s media has more or less reconceptualised the naughty nun as a perverted expression of third-wave feminism,5 embracing it as a symbol of rebellion against a Catholic Church-inspired tradition of oppressive moral and sexual standards for women. This concept has been promoted by a lot of female celebrities, with famous examples including (famously) Madonna’s 1989 music video for ‘Like a Prayer’6 (arguably where it all began), and more recently Rihanna’s Spring 2024 cover shoot for Interview and Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Feather’ music video, which has been in the press as of late for having prompted a police investigation into a corrupt priest (who rented out the church for the video) and whose suspicious activities have led to the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adam.
Catholic core can be linked to a specific model of eroticism, one that was famously theorised by the French philosopher Georges Bataille. To begin with, Bataille identifies eroticism as the defining factor of human sexuality, that which sets it apart from the fundamental drive for reproduction common amongst all animals. It is brought about by awareness of sex as something that extends beyond the biological process of reproduction and his theory therefore goes on to link this awareness of sexuality, i.e. eroticism, to the experience of shame. In his 1957 study Erotism, Bataille weaves the threads between erotic desire and the dark, shame-inducing forces that give rise to it, namely death, cruelty and religious belief. For Bataille, eroticism is ultimately characterised by the notion of transgression (which can be explained by the Lacanian principle that limits to desire are what make people aware of their desire in the first place). His overall project was to expose existing taboos surrounding sex and redefine eroticism as a quasi-mystical facet of human experience that belongs to the realm of the sacred, rather than the profane:
“The human spirit is subject to the most astounding of impulses. Man lives in constant in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him. The saint turns her back on the libertine in alarm; she does understand that they both share the same unspeakable passions.
It is nevertheless possible to uncover a common human spirit, one that is consistent with both the saint and the libertine.”7
These opening lines of the foreword to L’Érotisme feature the classic, aforementioned motif of the nun whose strict adherence to religion leads to the repression of her basic, human sexual desire. There is an undeniable eroticism in the scene described by Bataille which serves to illustrate his own theory. In the context of religion, sexual desire becomes shameful, transgressive and, as a result, erotic - forbidden-fruit theory or whatever. The historical opposition between religion and sex (piety and promiscuity, sainthood and libertinism…) is precisely why, thanks to the inherently perverse and contradictory nature of humanity, eroticism has always lay buried deep within the sacred heart of religion.8 It’s deep-set in our lizard brains.
Social and Political Implications of ‘Vibes Catholicism’
Perhaps the revival of Catholic core, in all its perverse erotic glory, can be attributed to a growing disaffection with a particular genre of squeaky-clean third/fourth-wave feminism and its hyper-commercialised, pinkwashed distillation of sex positivity. Who’s to say. While many have hypothesised that a general trend in so-called ‘trad’ aesthetics appears to place itself in opposition to the liberal politics that preside over the art world and other mainstream tastemaking channels, I can’t help but find this somewhat of a reductive take. If anything, the trend is more likely to have emerged off the back of an increased awareness of liberal, 'progressive' politics, especially relating to the contextually relevant matter of cultural appropriation. For the most part, creators and tastemakers have wisely begun to veer away from the practice of ripping off other cultures, returning to neighbouring horizons to draw inspiration from familiar references with no explicit racial or cultural ties (with Catholicism obviously being a prime candidate for this). Even thought it might seem like an obvious and tired cliché at this point, with everything you could possibly say/do with Catholicism having already been said/done before, things could be worse e.g. the cringe 60s/70s obsession with aesthetics to do with an ambiguous rip off of Eastern spirituality.
For most people, trad motifs are simply an aesthetic – their intrigue is shallow, harmless and purely superficial. But for others it can in fact go deeper. Earlier on I regretfully talked about Dasha Nekraskova, how she and other proponents of the American New Right have taken to using Catholicism as a political signifier. As far as these people are concerned, reactionary motifs are cool: Trump hats, shotguns and “tradwife” frocks etc. In this such case, the trad aesthetic is used to point to a wider “reject modernity, embrace tradition” worldview, one which is overwhelmingly anti-liberal. The ultimate expression of this contrarian aesthetic is its association with Catholicism, arguably the most recognisable symbol of traditional values and old order. In addition to illustrating a rejection of progressive pieties, Catholicism is simultaneously a way for the New Right to differentiate itself from the wider horde of evangelical “rednecks”, the ugly and stigmatising stereotype of the mega-church going, beer-bellied, McDonald’s drive-thru frequenting, ignorant and unsophisticated white trash populist. This has got to do with Catholicism's self-imposed reputation as the most elite, civilised and intellectually rich expression of the Christian tradition (although there’s really no arguing that this is true, minus the possible exception of the Eastern Orthodox Church). Many New Right Catholics take things even further by aligning themselves with the Traditional Catholic, “trad-cath”, movement that emphasises the beliefs and customs of the Catholic Church prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Convened by Pope John XXIII, the council issued a series of major changes designed to modernise the church, the most notable being that mass could be conducted in vernacular languages rather than exclusively in Latin. Safe to say these reforms pissed a lot of people off (some on more justified, theological grounds than others) with many New Right trad-cath wannabes today interpreting this as the fateful moment the Catholic Church went “woke”…. In extreme cases, some adopt a position of 'sedevacantism' which is a belief that the current Pope is not valid due to the Vatican's break with tradition. Ultimately, many have criticised trad Catholicism for fetishising superficial aspects of Catholicism while ignoring its core teachings, essentially dismissing it along the lines of "vibes Catholicism".
J.D. Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, is a perfectly ripe for the picking example of this whole political trad Cath vibe. Framing himself as the poster boy for the New Right, Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and has since aligned himself with conservative-Catholic currents of thought. In 2021, when asked why he became a Catholic, Vance said:
“I really liked that the Catholic Church was just really old.”
Tumbleweed… You would think that someone who openly brings their religious beliefs into the political arena would think to justify their faith in a more genuine and less shallow way. Given that conservative-Catholic beliefs and conservative politics just so happen to be pretty similar, many have speculated that Vance’s association Catholicism is a calculated political decision which has more to do with him branding himself as an intellectual, high-brow religious elite (which has much to do with demarcating himself from Trump and his coarseness and blasphemy, and the New Right from depravity of Trumpism) than genuine reverence for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
While I am tempted to say that co-opting Catholicism as a petty mode of political signalling is only a thing done by weird Americans who presumably view the Catholic Church as a novelty since they belong to a land where Puritanism has always reigned, this is probably not true. Remember this guy lol:
Jacob Reese-Mogg (recently and controversially made Sir), the former Conservative MP for North East Somerset (who at one point way back in history was in the running to succeed Theresa May as prime minister) is Britain’s own staunch political Catholic. During lockdown, he was caught breaking government coronavirus restrictions to attend Latin Mass – “…not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” (Hebrews 10:24-25). While a glowing profile in The Catholic World praised his commitment to the Tridentine Mass, praying the rosary and championing of conservative Catholic values, many people were far less impressed by all this. Heretics over at The Guardian, for example, called him out for using his faith to endorse homophobic and misogynistic views; notably, when asked whether he would be opposed to abortion under all circumstances including rape and incest, he replied: “Afraid so.” Journalist Zoe Williams suggests that in response to this, Catholic religious authorities, namely the Pope, should really stand up and say something along the lines of:
“Your conception of our religion, as a means of denigration and control, is not one I share or recognise.” Or, more succinctly: “You ain’t no Catholic, bruv.”
Cringe factor of The Guardian using the words ‘ain’t’ and ‘bruv’ aside, there’s something to be said for the fact that Catholic politicians who weaponise their faith as a way of backing repressive social policies are hardly doing the good Lord’s work, that they hardly seem to be genuinely god-fearing people. Jacob Reese-Mogg certainly does not have the aura of someone who has touched by The Sacred, The Divine or The Absolute. This is “vibes Catholicism” at its worst, the version of religion cited by Eric Voegelin in Political Religions when he outlines the concept of ‘Party-Church’ ideology.
My “vibes Catholicism”
In my mind, it remains possible to sympathise with Catholicism in an innocent way that has nothing to do with conservative politics – with archaic religious worldviews that give rise to anti-abortion policies – and everything to do with recognising the of beauty it’s rich cultural legacy. Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney is a famous example of someone who advocates the positive side of Catholicism’s emotional and intellectual heritage and leaves out all the other stuff. He describes the way in which a loosely Catholic worldview has served him as a poet, stating that “Catholicism gives you a set of precision instruments”, and going on to explain how, while a novelist might seem overwhelmed by the “authoritarian” or “repressive” nature of the worldview, it is incredibly useful for someone navigating the transcendental realm of poetry. It allowed Heany to see:
“the whole cosmos ashimmer with God and to know you, a pinpoint of plasma, are part of It, He, whatever. There is a sense every volition that passes through you is registered. That you are accountable. That every action and secret thought is known out there on the rim of eternity. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s good for a young poet to have that sense of owning the whole space, the whole time, and being owned by it.”9
Heany’s words here call to mind the theological concept of the “transcendentals” – cosmic values that communicate divine meaning to the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic capacities of the human soul. In Catholic thought, these are Unity, Truth, Goodness and Beauty – forces often cited in relation to the human impulse to create art given Catholicism's history of providing a metaphysical framework for Western art and artists seeking to align their work with transcendent principles. Critic Henry Hart suggests that “poetry replaces religion” in Heaney’s work, that he “demystifies the divine Word by transforming it into the poetic word”, which sounds about right given Heaney is widely regarded for his ability to locate the numinous in words and things.10 Religion – awareness of God, the Divine, the Sacred, Numious, Mystic and Transcendental – has long served art in this way. People are generally in agreement with the fact that, of all Western religious traditions, Catholicism has served art best of all.11 To me, this is a pretty straightforward, sensical argument in favour of its vindication within a secular context, in favour of a strictly vibes “vibes Catholicism”.
On an abstract level, Catholicism symbolises a pursuit of beautiful mystery – one which has been renounced by atheism and underdeveloped and overexploited by vague new age spirituality. Many today identify with the kind of belief that can be summarised by the common credo of “spiritual, but not religious”. Although the countless number of people who have this written in their dating profile bios might beg to differ, in reality this means little to nothing. A vacuous form of highly materialistic secular spiritualism is already part of the furniture, having long been co-opted by wellness/self-help culture and pop-psychology and made compatible with / beneficial to capitalism and other existing power structures considering it has everything to do with making people feel good about themselves and little to do with anything else. In light of the general hypocrisy of the current Western pseudo-spiritual condition, it is understandable that a number of people have a newfound, albeit shallow and ironic, reverence for Catholicism – a spiritual tradition whose legacy of corruption, backwardness and ties to material culture are blatant rather than concealed.
Yesterday my dearfriend Pippa sent me a link to Irish author and art critic Brian Dillon’s review of Simon Critchley’s Mysticism for 4Columns – she knows what I like and what I’m like. It’s a super delectable, short and sexy piece (linked below) that sure enough prompted me to go purchase Critchley’s book which I very much look forward to reading. Most pleasing to me is when Dillon goes into some detail about Critchley’s favourite mystic, Julian of Norwich (also one of my own personal favourites), a 14th century anchoress whose writings are the earliest surviving English-language works attributed to a woman. (Wait so meta to be reviewing a review…) Her theology pays homage to the female body, hailing it as sacred; she envisions a maternal Christ, drawing parallels between his suffering and that experienced by a mother during childbirth, the blood of his stigmata and the life-giving breast milk of Mother Mary. Dillon notes that her writing is ‘full of rain and mud and herrings and hazelnuts’. I’m reading along happily – I’m hooked – right up until the last paragraph when, all of a sudden, his words jump out from the glimmering screen and form a noose around my neck:
‘There’s a lot to be suspicious of in the contemporary enthusiasm for the Christian martyrs, saints, and mystics—precisely because it’s not a mere social-media confection. Seemingly feminist celebration of weird or warrior-like female saints (Joan, Bridget, Lucy, et al.) can slide a touch too easily into conventional devotion. Ironic (or is it pretend-ironic?) nu-Catholic piety is in the end inseparable from the real neofascist, Opus Dei–lurking, or Project 25–sponsoring deal. Talk about the very definition of dangerous metaphysical and ideological ground.’
https://4columns.org/dillon-brian/mysticism
I’m curled up in a ball on the floor screaming and crying. Why did he have to call me out like that. Talk about alienating the target audience… I’m not a neofascist I swear. I just explained that I’m don’t think enjoying Catholicism necessarily makes you one. I have no plans of becoming a religious fanatic either. I’m just a girl who wants to bathe in the beautiful mystery, look for the numinous in things, see god in a luminescent lamppost on a dark street. I hate that he is obviously right though.
I began by talking about Andy Warhol’s Catholicism, how he loved to mix-messages when it came to art and religion. Maybe the best example of this can be seen in his Christ $9.98 pictured below. During the mid 1980s Warhol returned to the newspaper adverts that had informed his paintings of the early 1960s. Here, the artist copied a newspaper ad for a Jesus-shaped night light, roughly tracing it by hand to give it a stark graphic quality, leaving out some bits and incorporating others – the glitchy light rays and stylised robe folds. Significantly, he kept the “$9.98.” There’s beauty in seeing Christ reproduced, made utilitarian, but undeniable cynicism involved in seeing him disparaged, reduced to $9.98. This is an example of what it is to be Catholic like Andy Warhol, of how to walk the line between irony and sincerity. But one had better keep in mind that Warhol’s artistic fate eventually ends up being a cautionary tale for how thin this line actually it is, for how easy it is to fall off and land on the wrong side – everyone knows how Pop Art died: by self-consciously mocking the art world all the while gradually becoming part of it.
Olivia Laing makes an interesting and convincing case for Solanas in The Lonely City, says she’s a prime example of someone who has been “eaten by history”.
I have purposely not included any contextual images of Pop Art because I find it ugly, always have. I’m not trying to be edgy the aesthetic has just never aligned with my chosen vibe.
This visual culture is essential to the church’s identity and closely intertwined with its religious beliefs and practices; it's not just a by-product of the religion, but the religion itself. Ornamentation in churches, for example, is an integral feature of the Catholic tradition and was introduced intentionally to magnifying a sense of awe and divine reverence during the liturgical ritual, thus increasing the emotional impact on the churchgoer.
Other certified classics of the genre that I would recommend (that is if you’re into that sort of thing) include Jacques Rivette’s The Nun (based on Diderot’s OG nunsploitation novel), Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissusand Pedro Almodóvar’s Dark Habits.
An alternate and probably better feminist viewpoint would withhold that we stop sexualising these innocent and unsuspecting godly women in the first place. But this is unlikely to happen since, as mentioned, the sexy nun trope has existed since forever.
Pope John Paul II publicly spoke out against Madonna at the time, accusing her of blasphemy, banning the song ‘Like a Prayer’ and encouraging a boycott of her performances in Italy. (This is funny to me.)
This is my own translation into English from the original French which I engineered towards being easily comprehensible…
It’s worth mentioning that idea that anything placed in opposition to morality is automatically rendered erotic initially came from the Marquis de Sade, but I don’t wish to speak about him at length because he is genuinely gross.
Nigel Farndale, “Interview with Seamus Heaney”, Sunday Telegraph, April 1, 2001.
Heany’s poem ‘When All the Others Were Away at Mass’ is probably the most significant, relevant example of this vibe.
John Ruskin notably outlined factors specific to Catholicism, namely its rituals, visual symbolism, and commitment to the sacred, which fostered an environment where art could thrive.
Came here to hate, liked it
“You would think that someone who openly brings their religious beliefs into the political arena would think to justify their faith in a more genuine and less shallow way.”
He wrote an essay on his conversion for The Lamp https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance