Artists, Prophetic Beauty, & the Vatican

 

Issei Watanabe, a Japanese cellist, plays a cello made from wood recuperated from migrant boats abandoned near Lampedusa, Italy, before a meeting between Pope Francis and more than 200 artists in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican June 23, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“I believe the world will be saved by beauty.” 

 Prince Lev Nikolyaevich Myshkin in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

There are times when I'm convinced that the world would be a better place if the Roman Catholic church was shuttered after a giant garage sale to dispose of assets. There is the terrible history of a patriarchal system which declares its leader infallible. There is the persistent misogyny, and colonial complicity, and rampant sexual abuse. I could go on.

And yet...there are many aspects of Roman Catholicism which are meaningful to me and the current Pope, Francis, keeps offering rays of hope in the darkness. His compassion for the poor and dispossessed, and his willingness to confess the sins of the church are important. His Laudato Si encyclical on the environment is simply the best analysis of the Christian response to the climate crisis of any denomination. 

The RC's have long understood that the creative arts are an expression of praise for the Creator in a way that Protestants seldom appreciate. Often critics point out the vast wealth represented in the architecture and art of the Catholic church and that in a world of need this is obscene. While I understand the outrage I also appreciate the legacy of beauty through the centuries to the present day.

Recently Francis held a symposium on the arts at the Vatican, within one of humanity's iconic artistic masterpieces, The Sistine Chapel. He included artists, musicians, performers, from a variety of disciplines, even some who have been considered sacrilegious  Here is a portion of a press release from American Catholic bishops: 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Under Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis told more than 200 musicians, writers, poets and other artists to be like prophets, pursuing true beauty and using their art to shake up the societies where they live.

Artists and prophets "can see things both in depth and from afar" while "peering into the horizon and discerning deeper realities," he said June 23. "In doing so, you are called to reject the allure of that artificial, superficial beauty so popular today and often complicit with economic mechanisms that generate inequality."

The audience with an international group of artists marked 50 years St. Paul VI inaugurated the modern and contemporary art collection in the Vatican Museums by celebrating Mass in the Sistine Chapel with artists from around the world.

Pope Francis told the artists to distance themselves from depicting a "cosmetic" form of beauty "that conceals rather than reveals" and to instead create art that "strives to act as a conscience critical of society, unmasking truisms."

"Like the biblical prophets, you confront things that at times are uncomfortable; you criticize today's false myths and new idols, its empty talk, the ploys of consumerism, the schemes of power," Pope Francis said.

There have been many experiences in my lifetime where I felt an upwelling of my spirit and a sense of the Spirit of the living God when in art galleries, cathedrals and other sacred spaces. Thank God for a religious tradition which has honoured and encouraged the arts.