The Catholic Menace Part 3
by Pastor Mark Downey
June 17, 2012
Scripture Reading: Matthew 23:24-28
As an artist, it is not difficult to appreciate Michelangelo’s monumental masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel. It is no secret that Michelangelo’s relationship with the RCC became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church. In two places in the masterpiece, Michelangelo left self portraits, both of them depicting himself in torture. He gave his own face to Saint Bartholomew’s body martyred by being skinned alive. Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism (not to be confused with spiritism), for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church.
Likewise, Jesus showed great courage in identifying the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees as whited sepulchers, a practice that lost the ceremonial import of Levitical defilement around places of unclean corpses and turned into beautification projects as if to honor the prophets to whom the Lord accused them of murdering.