UNITED STATES
Voice from the Desert
Long before accusing cardinals of complicity in the clergy abuse scandal became common fare, artist, writer, and survivor advocate Vinnie Nauheimer painted “Cardinal Sins” one of four completed paintings in a collection that is called “Stations of the Abused.”
This oil painting on canvas depicts a cardinal with three heads, which represent hear, see and speak no evil. The doves holding the vestments up represent the Holy Spirit who has made the abuse public and the two children represent all the children who have suffered at the hands of the clergy. Mr. Nauheimer would like his painting or a huge likeness of it hung up in the Sistine Chapel or personally handed to all the cardinals gathered to elect the new pope.
Artist, Vinnie Nauheimer, says that the vast beauty of the Sistine Chapel is not conducive to remembering the atrocities committed upon the bodies of Catholic Children around the world. They need a powerful visual message reminding them of their moral obligations and not the pomp and circumstance of the past. This painting drives home the culpability of the College of Cardinals. They are guilty by either acts of commission for their part in the clergy abuse cover-up or for acts of omission by keeping silent about the egregious sins they, to their disgrace, kept silent about.
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