The big scary guy behind the Pope

Just a quick note to say last week’s edition was published Friday afternoon, which meant far fewer people than normal read it! Whoops sorry! If you want to read a bit about Shia LaBeouf, debt forgiveness and Danny Devito as the Virgin Mary, go back!

Here’s your religion roundup:

Judge ponders what Jesus would do: Not cover HIV prevention. Pentecostals infiltrate the Vic Libs! Will he or won’t he: Pope says trips to Moscow and Kyiv are ‘up in the air’. While on the subject of popes, Pope beatifies pope! Oh, also Notre Dame’s windows are getting fixed.

Why is there a big scary guy behind the Pope?

I didn’t have room for this last week, but Michael posted it in the Modern Relics Discord (please join in!) so I’m taking that as a signal there’s still interest.

I guess I had always just sort of accepted there was a huge dude behind the Pope in the Paul VI Audience Hall, where he does his weekly audiences if he can’t do them outside. Or maybe the video has always been framed in a way where I couldn’t see the artwork properly?

Actually that’s not true. In this video of a circus troupe performing for Pope Francis (to the tune of Megalovania from the computer game Undertale), the looming statue is clearly visible. To be fair, it’s not the weirdest or most arresting part of that video. I wrote about this before too (don’t worry I got you).

Anyway, the statue came to the attention of Twitter users, who decided it made Francis look like a JRPG boss. The consensus is to take out the healers on either side before focussing fire on His Holiness directly.

So what’s going on here? Why is there a giant brass zombie where the Pope does some of his most public-facing work?

The piece is The Resurrection, by Pericle Fazzini, and it depicts Jesus rising from the crater of a nuclear bomb in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was completed in 1977 and represents the threat of nuclear war during that time. Apparently the shapes surrounding Jesus are rocks, roots and twigs, but I don’t know about you — I absolutely see fire and skulls in there.

It also invokes the second coming — the belief that Jesus will one day return at the end of the world.

From Public Delivery’s good explainer:

[T]he rising Christ, emerging from the chaos of destruction and death … may be ominous and inspire discomfort, it is also a reminder of the hope that one gets if they put their faith in Christ.

I actually appreciate adding a horror element into the most keenly anticipated event in the Christian faith. Cherubic Renaissance Jesus is over — we’re doing Lovecraft Christ now.

I think there’s more to be explored about the Vatican as a patron of the arts in the modern era. I want more weird Christian modern art!

“Gnostic terrorist organization”

Here’s some context, r/somnivexillology is a subreddit where people recreate flags they saw in their dreams. We need to examine u/SMOK3L3SSFIR3’s brain in a scientific experiment because they are a genius like Einstein.

Bonus: Here’s the “Flag of Italy in 2030”

This imam knows exactly what a waifu is

Britney Spears is an atheist now, apparently

I’ve written a bit about how Britney Spears has been vibing with Rome over the last year or so, but now her Catholic era seems to be over.

From the Christian Post:

In the recording in which Spears claimed that if God really existed, she wouldn't have suffered or lost the autonomy to make her own decisions for 13 years: "God would not [have allowed] that to happen to me if God existed. I don't believe in God anymore because of the way my children and my family have treated me."

Things still seem to be difficult for her — I hope she will be ok!

Where are my Orthopop girlies at

Send them to Eurovision!!

Here are some Renée Descartes memes

I’m the boss and we’re allowed to do philosophy here if we want. There’s no law against it, and I checked with God and he said it was ok.

The VeggieTales theme if it were sung by mewithoutYou

Muslim fashion is Star Wars

My colleague Erwin Renaldi observed that Muslim fashion shows have a lot in common with Star Wars costuming — or is it the other way around? Write the piece, Erwin! I want to read it.

“The LORD maketh Leviathan to nap with his gaze upon heaven”

Meet Loab, the horrific woman haunting an AI

This Twitter thread from @supercomposite has gone viral over the last few days. Disturbingly, there’s a woman haunting one of those AI image generation thingys.

There are a lot of explainer posts, but I’d like to shout out it’s only dark, a Substack about folklore and horror by Alex Zawacki who also has a good Twitter. His post is the best I’ve read because it nails all the cultural stuff as well as the tech stuff. I’m not a horror guy, but this is just the right amount of interesting and creepy.

From it’sonly dark:

As with any demon, Loab draws power from her name. Having named her and publicized her image online, [user] supercomposite has ensured that future AI image generators will include her in their datasets, and will be far easier to summon.

And finally, a request

When searching for newsletters on Substack’s own ecosystem, it displays the name and tagline of each one. Mine is currently “Modern Relics: Artefacts found at the crossroads of religion, popular culture and the internet.”

I wonder, is this clear? Is it interesting enough to click on? Is it even accurate?

I’m curious to know, what do you think Modern Relics is about? What has been your impression of what’s happening here? Please put your thoughts in the comments, or reply to this email.