Beauty Paves the Way for the Word
by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND
An absence of Church aesthetics and a dearth of faith-infused art and literature are stalling the New Evangelization, speakers at the Napa Institute’s annual conference contend.
NAPA, Calif. — Leonardo Defilippis, the founder and director of St. Luke Productions, dreamed of bringing the story of St. Faustina Kowalska, the 20th-century Polish nun, to the stage, and pondered how to make her message about God’s mercy relevant to young people.
In the end, Defilippis’ play, Faustina: Messenger of Divine Mercy, juxtaposes stage actress Mara Vargo’s visions of purgatory with filmed soliloquies by a modern woman and man who doubt they are worthy of forgiveness.
“Art should prepare us for the Passover: We are all going to die,” Defilippis told the Register during an interview at the Napa Institute’s annual conference held in northern California this summer.
“Art has to deal with good and evil, and distinguish between them, as Jesus does.”
Defilippis was among a lineup of Church leaders, academics and artists at the Napa conference who acknowledged the challenge that a distracted, secular culture poses to the New Evangelization. The speakers noted that faith-inspired works of culture fueled the growth of Catholicism for two millennia, and suggested that they should be at the center, rather than the periphery, of 21st-century catechetical outreach.
“Beauty creates an encounter where we experience our own humanity. But it goes beyond that,” said Defilippis.
Great works of culture bring the artist and their audience “into the deeper reality of Christ, the Incarnation,” and so into the mind and heart of the Creator, he added, reflecting on the mission of St. Luke Productions.
During an address at the Napa Institute, Cardinal William Levada, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, agreed that the modern world presented special problems for catechists, but that in every age the Church grappled with such difficulties.
“When we talk about the New Evangelization, we should remember that, from the beginning, evangelization has always been in crisis. It has never been easy,” said Cardinal Levada, who called for a “new apologetics” to bolster the New Evangelization.
Part of an effective catechetical strategy, he said, referencing Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), was to make the faith “attractive” to a world in need of hope and starved for love.
“Evangelization is broader than just preaching,” he emphasized. It includes the witness of Christian virtue, charitable outreach and cultural works — “all ways of awakening the questions and hungers that lurk in all people by reason of their humanity.”
- The Way of Beauty
Dominican Father Peter Cameron, the editor of Magnificat, the popular Catholic monthly publication that features great works of art on its cover, underscored the importance of wedding the beauty of faith with the inconvenient truths that stir up hostility in an age of relativism.
“In a world without beauty, the good also loses its attractiveness,” said Father Cameron, quoting the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Father Cameron said that Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, summoned the Church to “the way of beauty.”
“This ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith: a new esteem for beauty that serves as a means of touching the heart,” said Father Cameron, who is also a playwright.
This insight came to life, he said, in The Mission, the 1986 award-winning film that portrays the transformative ministry of 18th-century Jesuit missionaries in South America. In one scene in the film, a Jesuit priest overcomes the wariness of local Indians by playing the oboe.
“The Indians are so captivated by his music they take the priest by the hand,” Father Cameron observed.
In a similar way, he continued, “Magnificat’s evangelical use of art aims at getting people to drop their weapons and take beauty by the hand.”
Indeed, the balm of beauty heals the wounds inflicted by original sin, he said, “re-establishing the state of friendship that existed at the beginning between God and man.”
Great art and literature can also transmit complex doctrinal teachings, he said, and observed that Dante’s purgatorio helped to secure a “consensus” on Church’s teaching on purgatory.
- Telling Powerful Stories ....
- When Beauty Goes Missing ....
- Turning a Corner? ...
In the end, Defilippis’ play, Faustina: Messenger of Divine Mercy, juxtaposes stage actress Mara Vargo’s visions of purgatory with filmed soliloquies by a modern woman and man who doubt they are worthy of forgiveness.
“Art should prepare us for the Passover: We are all going to die,” Defilippis told the Register during an interview at the Napa Institute’s annual conference held in northern California this summer.
“Art has to deal with good and evil, and distinguish between them, as Jesus does.”
Defilippis was among a lineup of Church leaders, academics and artists at the Napa conference who acknowledged the challenge that a distracted, secular culture poses to the New Evangelization. The speakers noted that faith-inspired works of culture fueled the growth of Catholicism for two millennia, and suggested that they should be at the center, rather than the periphery, of 21st-century catechetical outreach.
“Beauty creates an encounter where we experience our own humanity. But it goes beyond that,” said Defilippis.
Great works of culture bring the artist and their audience “into the deeper reality of Christ, the Incarnation,” and so into the mind and heart of the Creator, he added, reflecting on the mission of St. Luke Productions.
During an address at the Napa Institute, Cardinal William Levada, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, agreed that the modern world presented special problems for catechists, but that in every age the Church grappled with such difficulties.
“When we talk about the New Evangelization, we should remember that, from the beginning, evangelization has always been in crisis. It has never been easy,” said Cardinal Levada, who called for a “new apologetics” to bolster the New Evangelization.
Part of an effective catechetical strategy, he said, referencing Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), was to make the faith “attractive” to a world in need of hope and starved for love.
“Evangelization is broader than just preaching,” he emphasized. It includes the witness of Christian virtue, charitable outreach and cultural works — “all ways of awakening the questions and hungers that lurk in all people by reason of their humanity.”
- The Way of Beauty
Dominican Father Peter Cameron, the editor of Magnificat, the popular Catholic monthly publication that features great works of art on its cover, underscored the importance of wedding the beauty of faith with the inconvenient truths that stir up hostility in an age of relativism.
“In a world without beauty, the good also loses its attractiveness,” said Father Cameron, quoting the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Father Cameron said that Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, summoned the Church to “the way of beauty.”
“This ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith: a new esteem for beauty that serves as a means of touching the heart,” said Father Cameron, who is also a playwright.
This insight came to life, he said, in The Mission, the 1986 award-winning film that portrays the transformative ministry of 18th-century Jesuit missionaries in South America. In one scene in the film, a Jesuit priest overcomes the wariness of local Indians by playing the oboe.
“The Indians are so captivated by his music they take the priest by the hand,” Father Cameron observed.
In a similar way, he continued, “Magnificat’s evangelical use of art aims at getting people to drop their weapons and take beauty by the hand.”
Indeed, the balm of beauty heals the wounds inflicted by original sin, he said, “re-establishing the state of friendship that existed at the beginning between God and man.”
Great art and literature can also transmit complex doctrinal teachings, he said, and observed that Dante’s purgatorio helped to secure a “consensus” on Church’s teaching on purgatory.
- Telling Powerful Stories ....
- When Beauty Goes Missing ....
- Turning a Corner? ...
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