The Bishop Orders a Statue

Not since Michelangelo took revenge on a Vatican critic of his Last Judgment by limning the carper in the front row of the damned have prominent Roman Catholics so openly condemned an artistic project conducted under impeccable Catholic auspices.

The project: a colossal statue of Christ to be erected in front of the new headquarters of the National Catholic Welfare Conference--voice of the U.S. hierarchy--on Washington's Massachusetts Avenue. In an open competition 64 models were submitted, from which three finalists were picked. The winner is to be chosen in October. Last week all three models were catching it, hot & heavy.

"Grotesque," said one Catholic observer. "I simply shuddered when I saw them," said another. Said a third: "Three bad cases of modified Epstein." A fourth was more specific: "One looks emaciated; another looks like an aviator ready to take off, and it is impossible to make anything out of the third model."

Both the N.C.W.C. and the Liturgical Arts Society, Inc., which ran the competition, preserved a discreet silence. But indirectly they hinted that 1) the finalists will probably revise their models before submitting them again in the fall, 2) critics would do well to suspend judgment until then, 3) the subject of the statue--"Christ, the Light of the World"--is far from easy to portray in bronze.

All three finalists, in fact, had widely differing ideas about the subject. Manhattan's Suzanne Nicolas decided that divine law was the light, depicted Christ as lawgiver. Robert C. Koepnick of Dayton, Ohio felt that Christ's words were the light of mankind, showed Him preaching. Brooklyn's George Kratina went symbolic, depicted Him with outflung arms and spreading, streamlined garments, levitating overhead like a benevolent aurora borealis.

None of these ideas was part of the original inspiration which came six years ago to Bishop John Francis Noll of Fort Wayne. The Bishop had visualized a huge figure of Christ as "Light of the World," which, if erected in Washington, would serve as a beacon to warn Catholics of "the necessity of national Christian action against the almost worldwide tide of Communism which seems to be sweeping toward us."

Bishop Noll first went after the necessary funds, with the help of Our Sunday Visitor, which he founded in 1912 while a parish priest, and which now boasts the biggest circulation (510,000) of any Catholic paper in the world. His loyal readers chipped in $125,000 for the statue, with the same zeal they showed in backing Bishop Noll in drives against movie and magazine indecency. Next the Bishop discovered that sites for new statues in Washington are as rare as seats in a Washington restaurant. The few statueless sites are mostly public property.

Resourceful Bishop Noll got the N.C.W.C. to make the fagade of its new headquarters a windowless 90-foot Indiana limestone backdrop for his figure, with a sheer semicircular niche as the actual setting for the statue. Then he arranged for the sculptural competition, offered $3,000 for seven cash prizes, plus a contract with the winner for a 15-foot statue.

Even after the sculptor is selected and his final design approved, Bishop Noll will have to solve at least one more problem before he can see his statue completed: where to find enough bronze to cast it. But the Bishop is somewhat comforted by the thought that the plaster figure will not reach the casting stage until 1944.

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