Gay Sensibilities and High Mass

Andrew Sullivan recently commented on the natural connection between Catholic estethics and the sensory sorts of things that gay men (whether by nature or by social conditioning) appreciate.

I’ve often wondered how many straight Catholics fully appreciate how gay their church has always been. Especially in the old days. High Mass was, in its heyday, more elaborate and choreographed than a very melodramatic Broadway musical.

There was some negative reaction to this comment, along the lines of, “How superficial! To think that some people only go to church for the entertainment value!” That’s not what Sullivan is saying.  The point he’s making, and one that I try to make here, is that Catholicism has a fundamentally sensual approach to reality. And gays pay close attention to those sensory things, which makes for a lot of natural overlap.

If God really did become man and take our flesh to Himself, and even keep it after He ascended to His Father, then we need to take fleshly things (imagery, sound, smells, texture) seriously, especially in our religion. That doesn’t mean that High Mass is a sussed-up spiritual drag show or grand opera with crucifixes, even if it ought to be pressing some of the same buttons.

Interesting St. Sebastian Site

I came across this blog dedicated to our patron saint, Sebastian. Lots of neat information.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

One of the greatest artists in human history, and one of the leading lights of the Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti was also a man who understood the Catholic attraction to the beauty of the human form, a beauty in which God deigned to clothe Himself in the Incarnation.

It’s hard to imagine a modern artist being paid by the Pope to decorate a church with the vibrant nudes that Michelangelo used for the Sistine Chapel. Or of any esteemed Catholic artist today who would fashion a crucifix with a naked Christ. Or so daringly combine the strength of devotion with the strength of the unveiled male body. Michelangelo did it all.

In spite of the opposition to this glorying in the human form, Michelangelo is but one representative of an authentic current of Catholic esthetics that figures that if God has created man’s body as good and that if Christ has glorified that by His own coming as man, then art is free to use that form to glorify God, even in ways that aren’t explicitly “religious,” as we see in some of the “merely” decorative nudes that Michelangelo uses in the Sistina. Indeed, if man in his body and soul is truly the culmination of God’s creation, then he becomes the most fitting creature to be represented by art.

The artist’s own sexuality gave him a particular insight into the beauty of the male form and a sensitivity to its beauty. This perhaps was a gift that allowed him to offer his particularly vigorous art to God’s glory and for the building-up of the generations that have come after him.

That peculiar (queer?) viewpoint comes through also in some of his written art, the exquisite sonnets that he composed. This page discusses his sexuality, as seen through certain of his sonnets.

It’s too bad that our own culture, warped perhaps by mutant strains of Calvinist Puritanism (both of the religious and non-religious sorts), equates human flesh with nothing but lust. The old Catholic genius, rooted in Christ’s own flesh, saw the body as an expression of God’s glory, and the erotic as one of the most vivid metaphors for the overpowering presence of the Divine.

Saint Sebastian

One of the things I want to feature on this blog is a representation of traditional Catholic art and literature that can be seen as having a homoerotic sensibility. This is not to say that the artists were necessarily gay, although some were, or that they were promoting sexual activity of one sort or another. What interests me is the place that homoerotic imagery plays in the Catholic tradition.

Portayals of Saint Sebastian seem a logical place to start.

For a plethora of images of Saint Sebastian, check out this online gallery.

And, for everything you ever wanted to know about St. Sebastian and his place in the history of art, see this amazing page, which takes special note of the homoerotic subtext to the cult of this saint.