Right-wing German cardinal Meisner dies

This video says about itself:

Degenerate Art – 1993, The Nazis vs. Expressionism

9 October 2012

This is a documentary from 1993 by David Grubin (written, produced, and directed) about the art exhibit under the Nazi regime of what they considered to be the most corrupting and corrosive examples of what they called ‘Entartete Kunst‘ or ‘Degenerate Art.’ The exhibit, which opened in July of 1937, was meant to be laughed at and despised. I ran across it in a class on Modernism and Post-Modernism. The film is not generally available at the time of this writing (other than on VHS). Personally, I could think of no better backdrop for the ideas and pathos of expressionist art than Nazi Germany, shown by a great deal of actual footage (most provided by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — they had an exhibit of their own based on the event that same year). The music is similarly striking, including Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Wagner. All of the art shown, by the way, is referenced by name in the end credits, which I include.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Controversial German Cardinal Meisner passed away

Today, 11:45

The former Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, 83, has died. Meisner was from 1989 to 2014 Archbishop of Cologne, Germany‘s largest diocese. He was the most important representative of the conservative wing in the German Catholic Church in those years.

Meisner regularly made the news with controversial statements. In 2005, he compared abortion with the Holocaust. Two years later, he called art without a religious purpose “entartet”, a term used by the Nazis for art that did not appeal to them.

Meisner was on track with Pope John Paul II and especially with his compatriot Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), who asked him to remain after reaching retirement age.

With the present Pope Franciscus he had less affinity. Last year, he signed an open letter asking Francis for an explanation of the papal letter Amoris Laetitia. It states that the ecclesiastical view of marriage and family must be more connected to this time.