Moroni’s new mistaken identity Twice this week, a Catholic publisher apologized for using an image of the Angel Moroni on the covers of two new books. Everyone who publishes makes mistakes, so I always try to remember what it’s like to err and that it’s best to forgive others in the hopes I’ll be forgiven, too. That said, there are some interesting things to unpack here. First, the image involved may be familiar to you, if you follow art competitions sponsored or paintings purchased by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If not, you may be interested to learn that the artist who painted the image used on the Catholic book covers is Jorge Cocco Santángelo, who grew up a Catholic in Argentina and became a Latter-day Saint in 1962. He developed a style he calls sacrocubism — taking a sacred subject and creating a painting influenced by the cubist movement associated with Pablo Picasso. Santángelo calls his work “art for the spiritual intellect.” He entered his painting “The Call” in the church’s 10th triennial international art competition and won a purchase award. The church then commissioned 16 more paintings from him about the life of Jesus Christ for the Church History Museum. On Tuesday, the Catholic News Agency published two stories about how Oregon Catholic Press had placed Santángelo’s “Angel VIII” on the covers of “Today’s Missal Music Issue 2021” and “Respond & Acclaim.” Whoops. “OCP, please, please recall these books!” one person said on Twitter. “This is an image of the ‘angel’ Moroni, which comes from Mormonism. This is not compatible with Catholicism in any way, and is highly inappropriate for a Catholic publisher to place in Catholic parishes. Recall these books immediately!” Some were harsher. Others were kinder. A couple sounded a more interfaith note, like this one: “Don't we all believe in the angel in Revelation with the trump? Just because another religion happens to believe similar things — why is this a problem?” I appreciated that thought. While I think it’s more than fair to be frustrated to find a Latter-day Saint image mistakenly used on Catholic book covers, the harsher tones of some of the Twitter complaints were hardly interfaith-oriented. |