Ars longa

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 20, 2003

Gay Jesuits dial-up the Queer Shock another notch at St. Louis University. Even the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's art reviewer balks at a priest/artist's displacement of sacred motifs by homosexual kitsch:

The Rev. Dennis McNally makes paintings that might look familiar if you've seen the erotically suggestive sculptures of nubile young men that dot the SLU campus. One work, "The Trinity," features Christ, his mother and St. John, a revision of Catholic dogma that might skirt heresy. According to the church, the Trinity represents the three personae -- the father, the son and the holy ghost -- that exist within one God. It is the central concept of the Catholic faith, and it does not include Mary or John, the feminist and homoerotic implications of their inclusion notwithstanding.

The other McNally work is a Crucifixion, "After Cimabue," that might be more appropriate hanging in the antechamber of a sadomasochistic dungeon than on the walls of a Jesuit museum. The Rev. McNally shows a hunky Jesus clothed in a loose and surprisingly revealing loincloth.

In fairness, it should be mentioned that the U.S. Jesuits' homepage links a document containing three consecutive paragraphs without any plug for transgendered bishops, same-sex marriage, or gender-bending Trinitarian iconography.