Wednesday, September 19, 2007
CARDINAL SENTIMENTS I AGREE WITH
At least up to the apology:
Berlin (AFP) - A German archbishop who caused outrage by describing modern art as "degenerate" in a bitter reminder of the Nazi era on Wednesday said he regretted the "misunderstanding" caused by his choice of words.
"I expressly regret that this term gave rise to misunderstanding when what I said was taken out of context in a partial quotation," Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the archbishop of Cologne, wrote in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily.
Meisner said in a sermon in Cologne Cathedral last Friday that art which had no link to religion was "entartete Kunst", the standard term employed by the Nazis in their persecution of artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee.
When culture becomes disconnected from religion, from the worship of God, religion becomes ritualism and the culture becomes degenerate," he said in a sermon marking the opening of an exhibition of medieval and modern art from the diocese's collection.
Read more...
Some of the greatest artwork in the world was inspired by faith. Modern art, on the other hand, isn't worth the time it takes to look at it. It's too bad the Cardinal decided he had to apologize for speaking the truth!
