The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-07-17
THE MONKS CARIGATURE
THE MONK IN PICTURES AND ON
THE STAGE is FAR DIFFERENT
FROM THE REAL MONK.

1
seen in the art stores and print shops
today is one representing the monk as
a convivial, registering sort of a per-
son, with bloated, repulsive counte-
nance, that would make it appear as
| though life to him meant nothing to
redeem the sensuality of the face that
looks out at you from among beer
mugs and wine glasses, bottles and
barrels and casks of liquor, says
Truth"
Now, there is no more effective way
of impressing lesson upon the mind
than through the medium of pictures,
and to the vast majority of the null
titudes who, year in, year out, daily
view those atrocious caricatures of a
sacred profession, this is the sole type
of monk that exists now, or ever has
existed.
/ Even Catholics, who should know
better, sometimes do not, and they,
too, come at last to accept this vulgar
monstrosity as correct portrait.
And who are those monks who are
thus burlesqued? Why, they are the
men who carried the light of civiliza-
ton and Christianity throughout the
world; who have preserved the arts
and the sciences and the literature of
Greece and Rome from the devastat-
| ing eruptions of the northern barbara
ans, and transmitted them down
| through the ages to us; then, with
sublimest courage, and patience, and
perseverance they have won these
same rude hordes of barbarians to the
Gospel of Christ, taught them the arts
of peace and industry and of this
crude material fashioned the enlight-
ened nations of Christendom.
The real monk, the ideal, the intel
lectual monk, the monk of the cloister,
the studio and the laboratory, such as
a Benedict, Bede, a Bernard, Co
lumbkill, Roger Bacon, a Dominic,
or Francis of Assist, would make
i worthy subject for the artists brush,
and would convey to the casual be-
holder, as we'll as to the student, the
lesson of their lives-the worth and
nobility of self-sacrifice. But on the
contrary, this is the body of men who
are vulgarly caricatured by cheap col
EoT-mixers and held up for the jibes
and ridicule of a generation that
knows them not, and which is there
fore prepared to accept that false
ideal for the true.
The stage is also a grievous sinner
in this regard, the monk of the play
wright being invariably truculent
fellow, woefully lacking in the princi-
pies and characteristics of manhood.
The monk Joseph, in "Richeiieu," the
creation of Bulwer Lyttons prejudiced
mind, is a specimen of this sort
Even Wagner's opera of "Tannhau-
SER is marred by the same defect,
the procession of monks in the Pill
grim's chorus resembling nothing so
much as motley band of dissipated
of the stage manager rather than of
the composer. The effect of the audi
ence, either in play or opera, is not
in favor of the monk.
From time to time we notice adj
vertisements that, to put it mildly,
are in execrable taste. We suppose,
for instance, that Coates Plymouth
Gin can bid for the patronage Of
the public without caricaturing a
monk. Is an obese, sensual looking
Iobject in monkish garb, an irresisti-
Ible proof of the quality and potency
of Coates's gin? Must the monk who
titled the fields of Europe and kept
burning the light of learning, and
whose deeds of heroism and self-sacri-
lice sparkle gem-like on the pages of
history, must he be dragged forward,
glass in hand, to proclaim the merits
of Coates's Plymouth gin? If the
proprietor must have an illustrated
advertisement, why not press into
service a topper, broken down and
others, is best qualified to exhibit in
his own person, the prowess of gin,
or any other intoxicant. Or the dis
tiller could get sorrowing wife or
mother to tell how liquor sailed her
heart with desolation, and set her
son and husband on the road to dis
honor. Or, again, he might procure
La picture of an orphan asylum, and
show that many of the children are
there because of the drink he is
proud to advertise. But Catholics
should be quick to resent caricatures
of what they hold in veneration.
They should not permit them to pass
unchallenged, and we venture to say
that any protest will merit the COM
Imendation of the fair-minded Protes-
| tant. Elsewhere we have banished
the stage Trishman with his scurril-
lily and idiotic buffoonery. We can,
if we wish, eliminate the caricature
of monks from the public press.