Vatican City, Jan 29, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Ugly churches with bad acoustics don't do justice to the richness and beauty of the liturgy – and it's this connection between art and faith that's vital for priests to understand today, a Vatican official insists. A project to study the training of priests and other cultural workers in the Church in the aesthetics and history of art, especially as it contributes in the creation of religious art fitting for sacred spaces, has been launched by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture.Along with the Italian bishops' conference and with support from the Foundation for Arts and Artistic Culture, the project will examine the training leaders of a diocese, such as clergy, religion teachers, catechists and more, receive on the relationship between faith and art.It will also look at what specific training exists for artists in the Church, such as architects, painters, sculptors, and musicians, so tha...
Vatican City, Jan 29, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Ugly churches with bad acoustics don't do justice to the richness and beauty of the liturgy – and it's this connection between art and faith that's vital for priests to understand today, a Vatican official insists.
A project to study the training of priests and other cultural workers in the Church in the aesthetics and history of art, especially as it contributes in the creation of religious art fitting for sacred spaces, has been launched by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture.
Along with the Italian bishops' conference and with support from the Foundation for Arts and Artistic Culture, the project will examine the training leaders of a diocese, such as clergy, religion teachers, catechists and more, receive on the relationship between faith and art.
It will also look at what specific training exists for artists in the Church, such as architects, painters, sculptors, and musicians, so that they are equipped to produce works “that fit in places of worship and are in service to the liturgy,” a press release stated.
This is important because it is not only possible to experience God through art, but beautiful art can be a path that leads us to contemplation, which is at the heart of the faith, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said Jan. 19.
“Imagine a church that is built in a refined manner, that expresses a profound beauty,” he told CNA. “And to find inside this space the possibility of silence, and contemplation, that is, it is the eyes that see. Because faith is made, most of all, of contemplation.”
“On the other hand, faith is also expression, expression of prayer, of meeting in community, of liturgy, singing, and so on,” he continued.
The role of beauty in the liturgy and in worship has to do with the physical senses, Cardinal Ravasi explained. “Thus it is necessary that a sacred space possess in its interior also the possibility to praise in a luminous way,” that the faithful can find it easy to listen “in the space.”
“This church that, for example, has bad acoustics, does not fulfill its mission because listening is as important as contemplation,” he said.
The first part of the project is conducting research focused on the current educational practices in Italy. After the research is concluded, they will consider the results and determine the questions and issues they want to focus on, then begin the appropriate initiatives, he said.
The research is primarily being conducted through an online survey.
The group's focus on education, Rivasi said, is because a proper training in art is the “function of the school.” It's also incredibly important to society, because ugly or featureless buildings do not cultivate an inner well-being, nor do they lead people to contemplation the way beauty can, he said.
The Church has long held a belief in the important connection between art and faith, which Cardinal Rivasi said are “like sisters, because they both have as their main task to try not only to represent what can be seen, or the surface of things, but also to find the more profound sense.”
“One of the great artists of the last century, Paul Klee, said that art doesn't represent the visible, but the invisible in what is visible. So the invisible, faith, represents then something of paramount importance because it speaks of God, but both have this task of trying to look for what’s beyond the surface of things,” he said.
“That's why art and faith must be sisters, even though in this past century they have parted ways and followed different paths.”
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher had just finished the morning's Shabbat service when he got an urgent message: Rabbis were needed at New York's Kennedy Airport. People were being detained under President Donald Trump's sharp travel restrictions on refugees. Would he come pray?...
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher had just finished the morning's Shabbat service when he got an urgent message: Rabbis were needed at New York's Kennedy Airport. People were being detained under President Donald Trump's sharp travel restrictions on refugees. Would he come pray?...
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A woman traveling to Indiana to care for her cancer-stricken mother, a family physician who has lived in the U.S. for two decades, and a Minneapolis woman about to become a U.S. citizen were among those caught in the net cast by President Donald Trump when he banned travelers from entering the country from Muslim-majority nations....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A woman traveling to Indiana to care for her cancer-stricken mother, a family physician who has lived in the U.S. for two decades, and a Minneapolis woman about to become a U.S. citizen were among those caught in the net cast by President Donald Trump when he banned travelers from entering the country from Muslim-majority nations....
PARIS (AP) -- Beating a politically weakened ex-prime minister proved easy for Benoit Hamon, who will represent France's ruling Socialist Party in the country's presidential election. Far harder will be convincing voters that his hard-left platform isn't the recipe for ruin his critics claim....
PARIS (AP) -- Beating a politically weakened ex-prime minister proved easy for Benoit Hamon, who will represent France's ruling Socialist Party in the country's presidential election. Far harder will be convincing voters that his hard-left platform isn't the recipe for ruin his critics claim....
(Vatican Radio) Officials say four soldiers have been killed in the bloodiest battle in weeks between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in war-torn eastern Ukraine. The fresh fighting came after monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed concern about ongoing fighting in the region that has plunged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: Kiev military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said in a statement Sunday that three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and another wounded in the battle for control of the key industrial town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.The outskirts of the Kiev-held steel town close to the rebels' de facto capital Donetsk has seen some of the fiercest clashes in the 33-month war. Motuzyanyk told media that the firefight involved artillery and large-calibre mortars.A spokesman for the separatist forces said one rebel so...
(Vatican Radio) Officials say four soldiers have been killed in the bloodiest battle in weeks between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in war-torn eastern Ukraine. The fresh fighting came after monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed concern about ongoing fighting in the region that has plunged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
Kiev military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said in a statement Sunday that three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and another wounded in the battle for control of the key industrial town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine.
The outskirts of the Kiev-held steel town close to the rebels' de facto capital Donetsk has seen some of the fiercest clashes in the 33-month war. Motuzyanyk told media that the firefight involved artillery and large-calibre mortars.
A spokesman for the separatist forces said one rebel soldier died and another one was injured in the latest clashes. The fatalities came despite a ceasefire announced in December.
MONITORING MISSION
It has added to concerns among observers of Europe's security organization OSCE. Alexander Hug, the deputy chief monitor of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine, visited the troubled region in recent days. "I have been inspired and humbled by many of the descent people I have met and disappointed and frustrated by others, especially those who making decisions," he said.
"And [I am] saddened at seeing how little has changed. The violence continues," Hug stressed.He added that both sides are violating the ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk, Belarus.
Nearly 10,000 people have died since the start of a pro-Russian rebellion in 2014 in eastern Ukraine.
Kiev and the West have accused Russia of masterminding the conflict and say it supports the rebels with weapons and troops. Moscow has strongly denied the accusations, but acknowledged that separatists received support from what it called "Russian volunteers."
Fighting has dragged on as neither side is willing to make concessions in the conflict that has sparked the worst East-West standoff since the the end of the Cold War.
(Vatican Radio) Prominent Mexicans are urging the Government to prepare a robust response to the proposals of President Donald Trump, to hit back against plans to build a Border Wall and to tax Mexican goods to pay for it. James Blears reports about the rising groundswell of anger: Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon urges: "We have to place US security issues under review, including the presence of US Agents on Mexican soil. Billionaire Carlos Slim is suggesting a program of substituting imported products and he`s proposing a BUY MEXICAN CAMPAIGN. Presidents Enrique Pena Nieto and Donald Trump have spoken on the phone, describing their chat as constructive and productive. Yet their planned meeting next Tuesday is scrapped, following President Pena`s categorical refusal to ever pay for a Border Wall, and President Trump`s tweeted reply there was NOT point to coming unless he conceded. Now President Trump says: "I respect Mexico and...
(Vatican Radio) Prominent Mexicans are urging the Government to prepare a robust response to the proposals of President Donald Trump, to hit back against plans to build a Border Wall and to tax Mexican goods to pay for it.
James Blears reports about the rising groundswell of anger:
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon urges: "We have to place US security issues under review, including the presence of US Agents on Mexican soil.
Billionaire Carlos Slim is suggesting a program of substituting imported products and he`s proposing a BUY MEXICAN CAMPAIGN.
Presidents Enrique Pena Nieto and Donald Trump have spoken on the phone, describing their chat as constructive and productive. Yet their planned meeting next Tuesday is scrapped, following President Pena`s categorical refusal to ever pay for a Border Wall, and President Trump`s tweeted reply there was NOT point to coming unless he conceded.
Now President Trump says: "I respect Mexico and I love Mexican people," The damages is already done, the North American Free Trade Agreement is doomed. And no one South of the soon to be fortified Border believes in him at all, any more.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Opening in theaters amid controversy over animal treatment on set and calls for a boycott, "A Dog's Purpose" still managed to earn $18.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Opening in theaters amid controversy over animal treatment on set and calls for a boycott, "A Dog's Purpose" still managed to earn $18.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday....
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- With enrollment in culinary institutes in decline and programs across the country closing their doors, schools such as the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, which graduated celebrity chef Alton Brown, and the Culinary Institute of Charleston, South Carolina, are committed to staying relevant and in demand....
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- With enrollment in culinary institutes in decline and programs across the country closing their doors, schools such as the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, which graduated celebrity chef Alton Brown, and the Culinary Institute of Charleston, South Carolina, are committed to staying relevant and in demand....
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Two weeks after child welfare workers removed four children from a woman's suburban Pittsburgh home in June for alleged neglect, they discovered an even bigger problem: The woman has two other children who are missing, and haven't been seen alive for more than a decade....
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Two weeks after child welfare workers removed four children from a woman's suburban Pittsburgh home in June for alleged neglect, they discovered an even bigger problem: The woman has two other children who are missing, and haven't been seen alive for more than a decade....
PARIS (AP) -- Benoit Hamon, riding to victory from left-wing obscurity on a radical proposal to a pay all adults a monthly basic income, will be the Socialist Party candidate in France's presidential election after handily beating ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls in a primary runoff vote on Sunday....
PARIS (AP) -- Benoit Hamon, riding to victory from left-wing obscurity on a radical proposal to a pay all adults a monthly basic income, will be the Socialist Party candidate in France's presidential election after handily beating ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls in a primary runoff vote on Sunday....
