"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Inspired by Sal Ravilla at Catholic Light, I set out to find the answer to a longstanding question: What is the provenance of that vaguely Mayan-appearing clip-art that illustrates church bulletins, not only wherever the earthenware chalice is raised and the folk guitar strummed, but in seemingly every other parish in the land?
Turns out Brother Steve Erspamer, SM, is to church-bulletin art what Marty Haugen is to modern hymnody. The Marianist from St. Louis is the illustrator of several widely-used clip-art books published by Liturgy Training Publications of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and also is featured in OCP's Liturgy Notes.
No doubt once regarded a progressive alternative to pre-Vatican II pious art, the block-print-troll style of Brother Erspamer might be called Kumbaya Kitsch.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
