It is sacrilegious, not in accordance with Catholic University’s principles, and merely sows division.
It is sacrilegious, not in accordance with Catholic University’s principles, and merely sows division.
J ohn Garvey is a fundamentally bright and decent man. I’ve had a number of run-ins with him during my tenure as an undergraduate student at the Catholic University of America. About two years ago, shortly after I enrolled at Catholic, I stood among a group of students in line to attend an event for Catholic’s College Republicans Club. Swearing like a sailor while fraternizing with other students, I turned around after being alerted to a presence behind me. Expecting a harsh condemnation for my liberal deployment of the English language from a tall, elderly man with a commanding presence, I instead received a pat on the back, a handshake, and an exchange of warm pleasantries. John Garvey is welcoming, compassionate, and brilliant. But if he hasn’t already, he is on the precipice of making a career-defining mistake.
The Newman Guide to Catholic Colleges is the industry standard for Catholic families navigating higher education. Catholic University, the flagship university of the Vatican in North America, obviously ranks near the top of its list. For a long time, this made complete sense to me. Theology and Philosophy are required courses. Buildings are adorned with Catholic iconography. The campus boasts the Basilica of the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic church in North America, where it hosts regular convocations.
As president of Catholic University, John Garvey has prioritized the aligning of the university with Catholic teaching. Shortly after his installation as the 15th president of Catholic University, he broke generations of precedent and ordered that the university’s dorms be separated by sex. Garvey dismisses class the day of the March for Life so that students can protest abortion. Garvey famously stood up for Amy Coney Barrett when her faith was defamed during her confirmation to the Supreme Court. Garvey also stood up for me, in a letter defending speech on campus, after I hosted a controversial speaker in February of this year. Until recently, I saw Garvey as a principled, faithful, and courageous Catholic leader, even if he was the first layman to hold his office.
But then, a few weeks ago, I discovered what was obviously and undeniably a painting depicting George Floyd as Jesus Christ in the university’s Columbus Law School. After I tipped off a reporter at The Daily Signal, the story blew up. Every single major conservative news outlet picked up the story. Overnight, nearly 20,000 signatures were gathered on multiple petitions to have the painting removed. Millions of Catholics were infuriated, and rightfully so. The centerpiece of their faith had been cheapened and politicized at what many thought was a serious, respectable Catholic institution.
John Garvey did not speak publicly on this matter until three days after the story broke. Students expected exactly what Garvey was known for: an articulate theological and political defense of whatever conclusion Garvey had, after serious contemplation, arrived at. What students received was anything but. It was short, bombastic, incoherent — almost antagonistic. The statement began with the remarkably ill-informed claim that “many see the male figure as George Floyd, but our Law School has always seen the figure as Jesus.” This strains credulity. When asked whether the painting depicts Floyd or Jesus, Kelly Lattimore, the artist, responded, “yes.” The plaque underneath the painting explains that it was created to commemorate Floyd’s death. The video of the unveiling ceremony, which has since been made private after inquiry by the press, referenced Floyd. Instead of speaking the truth, as Christ commands, Garvey advanced a sophistic deception, hedging that deception based on what one group of people are supposedly able to “see” versus what millions of others have concluded based on all available evidence: It’s not Jesus. It’s George Floyd. Every honest person knows that.
Evidence to this effect is not hard to find. In an Instagram caption, Lattimore said that he intentionally removed the “nail holes” from the hands of the figure in question. These “nail holes” are stigmata, the wounds that Christ received following his crucifixion and self-sacrifice for humanity. These wounds became identifying marks of Christ and his closest associates in Catholic theology, such as Saint Francis, whom Christ branded with the marks before Francis’s death. If the man in the painting is without marks caused by his selfless sacrifice on the cross, he is definitively not Jesus, because Christ’s sacrifice and manner of death is inseparable from his identity and significance to Catholicism. If he’s not Jesus, not a specific saint, and also not a political figure — who is he, why is there a painting of him, and why did a painting of this man receive a grandiose unveiling ceremony? To many, the identity of the male figure as Floyd is clear beyond a reasonable doubt. But if the university can at least admit that his identity is disputable, it ought to err on the side of caution and prudence and remove the painting on the off chance that the painting might distort or contradict Catholic teachings on idols and icons.
Predictably, no one engaged with arguments such as these on their merits. Those enraged at the depiction of their savior were, of course, labeled “racist” by the handful of people who embarrassingly tried to defend the depiction. But the race of the figure in the painting is not the concern here. Throughout time and history, especially before communication across cultures and countries became as easy as it is today, there have been many depictions of Jesus with features and skin colors different from what he probably would have had. As Billy Graham famously said, “Jesus was not a white man like me, nor was he as black as some of you. We don’t know the color of his skin, but it must’ve been a dark color like the people of his day, because he was a man like them.” The issue at hand here is not the depiction of Jesus Christ as black, but the depiction of Jesus as another specific, identifiable, human being. There is no mortal man worthy of comparison to the sinless Son of Almighty God. To do so delegitimizes the Son of God, either as a result of politicization, obfuscation, or deception. To inject progressive identity politics into the church and the Catholic University of America serves no purpose other than to appease cultural tyrants. As the almost universally negative reaction to the painting makes clear, this is not a winning strategy for sharing the Good News.
The statement went on to share news that the original painting hung in the Columbus Law School had been stolen and was replaced with the smaller one that hung in the Campus Ministry Office at Catholic. Activists can’t win the game if they can’t play by the rules: Whoever stole the painting should be ashamed for harming the legitimacy of the good-faith, international effort to have it removed the right way — by the same people who hung it up. Yet the painting never should have been there in the first place. It is deeply embarrassing — to students, parents, and alumni — that at a university worth nearly $300 million, staffed with hundreds of people who have studied theology for decades, no one could have predicted that reasonable folks might find the painting objectionable. I don’t know whose idea it was to purchase the painting, or to hang it, or to keep it displayed, or to put one back up after it was stolen. But the buck stops with John Garvey.
The statement ends with a reference to the speaker engagement I hosted earlier this year with controversial anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson — an engagement that Garvey defended, eloquently and substantively, and at length, in his letter titled “Speech on Campus.” Invoking his letter about speech, he wrote to the campus about the painting, stating, “Our ‘no cancellation’ policy does not apply only to the administration.” Those who paid close attention to the events of last spring, and to Garvey’s letter, can tell you that Catholic University does not have a “no cancellation policy.” The Catholic University of America routinely forbids speakers and student groups from discussing perspectives in contradiction with the Catholic Church. Abby Johnson was permitted to speak only because the subject matter of her speech was in accordance with Catholic teachings on abortion. The debate over speech is largely a distraction from the more important theological debate at hand in that the university did not endorse Johnson’s appearance as they did the painting but merely permitted it. If Johnson’s speech was permitted only because it was in accordance with Catholic teaching, Garvey is implicitly stating that the painting is too. This is a dangerous, deceptive falsehood that mandates further clarification and action from the university.
John Garvey is not being “canceled,” or “bullied.” He is being held accountable by student activists for permitting his staff to defile the Son of God and distort the church’s teachings at a university in which speech that does so is explicitly forbidden. He is retiring soon, and if he does not reverse course, this controversy will mar his legacy. Decades of service advancing the Catholic University’s causes and mission will be overshadowed by his cowardly refusal to face down a few wolves in sheep’s clothing. I look forward to more of the thoughtful debate and dialogue that opponents of the painting have engaged in. But ultimately, the painting must be removed. It is deeply sacrilegious; not in accordance with our university’s mission, speech policy, or Catholic teaching; and provides no worthwhile contribution to our university’s dialogue other than division.