I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious.
I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones.
I am an artist first and a photographer second.
As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to.
My work is intensely personal.
Artists are a free society's greatest advocates and its best bulwarks. Their triumphs are civilization's triumphs.