Desecration of Sacred Art Reveals Modernist Apostasy in Rome
EWTN News (February 4, 2026) reports on the controversial restoration of a fresco in Rome’s fourth-century St. Lawrence Basilica, where an angel painted in 2000 as part of King Umberto II’s funerary monument was altered to resemble Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The likeness drew crowds of secular onlookers, prompting the amateur restorer to whitewash the image after Cardinal Baldassare Reina (Diocese of Rome) condemned its “improper use.” Parish priest Daniele Micheletti admitted the fresco had become a “divisive” tourist attraction, undermining the chapel’s sacred purpose. This spectacle exemplifies the conciliar sect’s surrender of sacred spaces to worldly vanity.
Sacred Art Reduced to Political Caricature
The fresco’s transformation into a secular curiosity exposes the theological bankruptcy of the post-conciliar establishment. Sacred art, ordained by the Church to elevate souls to God (ars sacra ad Dei gloriam), was defiled by a trivial resemblance to a living politician. The very notion that a modern leader’s face could replace an angelic figure—a messenger of divine truth—reveals a collapse of supernatural perspective. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas (1925), Christ’s kingship demands that all human affairs submit to His eternal law: “He is the author of prosperity and true happiness for individual citizens as well as for the state.” Yet here, a funerary monument inscribed with “Agendo da cristiano, si rassegnò alla volontà divina” (“Acting like a Christian, resigned to the divine will”) became a stage for earthly vanity.
“No, I certainly don’t look like an angel,”
Meloni’s flippant social media response underscores the profane mentality dominating the neo-church. Rather than rebuking this sacrilege, Micheletti initially “downplayed the controversy,” a cowardice symptomatic of clergy who prioritize public relations over doctrinal fidelity. Cardinal Reina’s belated condemnation—issuing from a usurper structure—rings hollow, as his own office tolerates liturgical abuses far graver than a botched fresco.
Silence on the Supernatural: The True Scandal
The article omits the most damning evidence of apostasy: no mention of reparation for sacrilege, the danger to souls, or the necessity of prayer. Visitors flocked to the church “for nonreligious reasons—without attending Mass or participating in prayer,” yet Micheletti only objected to the disruption, not the desecration. This mirrors the conciliar sect’s wider failure to guard churches as houses of God rather than museums for gawkers. Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemned the claim that “the Church ought to be separated from the State” (Error 55), yet here, the church’s custodians surrendered sacred art to secular spectacle.
The restoration itself—completed by an untrained sacristan—epitomizes the post-conciliar disdain for sacred tradition. True Catholic art follows the via pulchritudinis (way of beauty) to manifest divine truths, as seen in the mosaics of Ravenna or Michelangelo’s Pietà. By contrast, Valentinetti’s amateur work degrades angels into political caricatures, reducing celestial beings to tools of earthly humor.
A Symptom of Conciliar Collapse
This scandal flows inevitably from Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, which encouraged “adaptation” of sacred art to “modern requirements” (SC 123-124). When churches abandon timeless forms for contemporary novelty, they invite profanation. The fresco’s whitewashing—a pragmatic erasure, not a penitential act—confirms the neo-church’s inability to consecrate culture to Christ the King. As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili Sane (1907), Modernism reduces dogma to “a certain interpretation of religious facts” (Error 22), here applied to art.
Worse, the article frames the controversy as a quaint mishap rather than spiritual warfare. EWTN—once a beacon of orthodoxy—now amplifies the conciliar sect’s naturalism, ignoring how this incident fulfills Our Lady of La Salette’s prophecy: “The churches will be locked up or desecrated.” True Catholics must flee such compromised structures and seek priests who offer the Immemorial Mass, where angels adore the Lamb without distraction.
Source:
Church fresco angel that resembled Italian prime minister painted over to end controversy (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.02.2026