Rorate Caeli

IL FOGLIO: A prayer to St. Charles Borromeo - bless the artists who stand firm where priests are giving in

Camillo Langone
   Il Foglio
November 4, 2017

Oggi, festa di San Carlo, flagellatore dei protestanti, Gasparro sta dando le ultime pennellate a questo clamoroso soggetto. Giovanni Gasparro, San Pio V e San Carlo Borromeo difendono il Cattolicesimo dall'islam e dall'eresia protestante. Olio su...
St. Pius V and St. Charles Borromeo defending Catholicism against Islam and the Protestant Heresy
By Giovanni Gasparro

St. Charles Borromeo, flagellator of Protestants, I entreat you on this your feast day, concerning the infatuation many priests have for Martin Luther, witnessed recently in Milanese exhibitions and Vatican stamps. Yet, where priests are surrendering, painters are resisting. In Imola, Sergio Padovani at present is exhibiting a portrait fittingly entitled "Martin Luther, the Heretic" while in Aldefia Giovanni Gasparro is busy putting the final brushstrokes to his work of the following sensational title: "St Pius V and St. Charles Borromeo defending Catholicism against Islam and the Protestant Heresy." Commissioned, naturally, not by an ecclesiastic, but a member of the laity. He who was called “a blind heresiarch” by St. John Bosco and by St. Peter Canisio  “an impious blasphemer” is depicted alongside a pig and with swinish eyes: inclined to evil, to guzzling and nuns, [in fact] his contemporaries used to call him Porcus Saxioniae.
St. Charles, bless these two artists who frequently paint Saints and who, today, with courage and coherence, are showing who this man the Saints dared to attack really was. 

H/T: Riscossa Cristiana
Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana