Celebrating Bernini the Catholic

Bernini's David

Father Michael Keating penned a fine tribute to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Appearing in Crisis Magazine:

He [Bernini] was from his boyhood a believer in the Catholic faith of his family and his people. In his young manhood, although occasionally erratic in his moral behavior and the practice of his faith, he was still restrained and held in place by it. And once come to maturity he embraced that faith with genuine fervor and sincere devotion. He married a lovely and excellent woman with whom he had eleven children, of whom two became priests and two entered the convent. He habitually carried a copy of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in his pocket while he worked. He would regularly stop in at the Church he built for the Jesuits, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, to pass an hour of quiet prayer. Bernini’s supreme accomplishment was not his artistic output, amazing as that was: it was rather that, by the grace and power of Christ, he did not allow his extraordinary gifts to overcome his character and destroy his life. He allowed himself to be mastered by the Faith and was steered into a safe haven.