That difficulty becomes excruciating when the whole life of the age is far removed from Christ, for the artist is greatly dependent upon the spirit of the time….

By Christian art I do not mean ecclesiastical art … I mean art bearing on the face of it the character of Christianity. The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for "religious" art or "Catholic" art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth.

If you want to produce Christian work, be a Christian and try to make a work of beauty into which you have put your heart. Do not adopt a Christian pose…

A Christian work would have the artist, as artist, free, but as man, a saint. The consequence is that the work will be Christian in proportion that Christ is present in the soul of the artist by love.

—From Art and Scholasticism, translated by J.F. Scanlan; Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY, 1946.