This unusual book presents a living Christian mystic who is both a progressive Roman Catholic priest and a visual artist of great renown. It is a large format paperback with 200 pages of glossy paper and dozens of illustrations and photos, most in color.
The co-authorship of the volume has Pramuk, a professor and writer and friend of the artist, helping McNichols tell his story of faith and the artist’s journey. In a short introduction, Pramuk concludes with a wish: “I pray that this book brings you into the presence of a Love and Mercy beyond all names, yet nearer still than we are to ourselves.”
It will appeal most of all to fellow progressive Catholics who identify with the struggle to emphasize the social justice aspects of their faith in the world.
We found most powerful chapter 6, called “Arrows into the Heart of the Church,” which is a phase McNichols uses to describe the paintings and illustrations he prepared and published throughout the 1980s. These included covers for Catholic magazines; icons of “holy prophets” including the late Jesuit priest and political activist Daniel Berrigan; and a famous or infamous, often reproduced, black-and-white drawing titled “AIDS Crucifixion, 1986” showing Christ on the cross in his underwear, bleeding to death, while a bible-thumping preacher screams at him and a sign on the cross above his head reads: “AIDS Homosexual, Faggot, Pervert, Sodomite.”
The icon is perhaps Father Bill’s most recognized medium, and the book describes how he was mentored in icon-writing by Robert Lentz.
The subjects of McNichols’ icons shown throughout the book also include Sister Thea Bowman, Dorothy Day, St. Lazarus of Bethany (the one whom Jesus raised from the dead), St. Joseph on the Rio Grande (protecting and guiding a migrant across), and the ninth century Persian Sufi mystic and martyr Al-Hallaj; the artist describes the composition of that icon: “I see him in jail, waiting to go out and be crucified. His son watched it happen. His connection to God, to Allah, was so profound that literally he said, ‘I am Allah.’ ‘I am God.’”
