Praxiteles

Mass at Notre Dame de Paris to mark the 850th. anniversary of the consecration of the present Cathedral
29 May 2013

Messe traditionnelle à Notre-Dame de Paris : les photos et l’enregistrement audio

Vatican to spend millions on new churches… and on artists to furnish them

Art may have become the new religion, to judge by the queues for many of our major exhibitions, but now it looks as though religion is going to become the new focus of artists.

The Vatican has revealed that it is going to spend millions of euros on building new churches, and it wants to commission the world’s greatest contemporary artists to furnish them.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said that it was time for the church to re-establish its role as a major patron of contemporary art.

“Art and faith are sisters,” he said. “They both have the same aim of discovering the foundations of reality – not just reflecting the superficial.”

He was speaking at the opening of the Venice Biennale, the world’s pre-eminent contemporary art festival, in which the Holy See has taken part for the first time. It has spent ¤750,000 on building a pavilion in one of the most prominent positions on the exhibition site and filled it with the first of the cutting-edge art pieces it has commissioned.

Interactive films made by the Milanese art group Studio Azzurro, based on the Book of Genesis, feature deaf performers enacting the creation of animals and prisoners that of man.

It leads on to a room of photographs showing man’s destruction of the environment, by the Czech artist Josef Koudelka, and concludes with a painting covered in ice that is slowly melting, by the American-Italian artist Lawrence Carroll.

“Our presence at the Biennale is the first step in a long journey that involves not only the building of churches in a contemporary style, but the creation of new liturgical objects,” Cardinal Ravasi said. He confirmed that contemporary artists will be paid to design new altars, baptismal fonts, tabernacles and lecterns.

Among his favourite architects, he said, are the Spanish Santiago Calatrava and the Japanese Tadao Ando, as well as past Modernist masters, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto.

“We will get artists from all continents involved and in particular we need women artists; they have another language.”

A plan to fill one of the rooms of the pavilion in Venice with work by the Colombian-born sculptor Doris Salcedo, featuring flowers of the Amazon, was thwarted by incessant rain over the last week in the Italian city, he said.

The move into contemporary art and architecture is a clear attempt by the Vatican to open its doors at a time when, rocked by scandal, it stands accused of being out of touch and secretive.

The cardinal, who writes his own tweets, has criticised priests in the past for their “boring” and “irrelevant” sermons, and is one of the prime movers in the effort to make the church more relevant to the secular society of Western Europe.

In an effort to embrace other aspects of popular culture, he is also launching a Vatican cricket team. He was ordained in 1966, is a former professor and archeological scholar, and was widely tipped to become the new pope earlier this year.

His affection for paintings developed, he said, when as the prefect of the Ambrosian library for 20 years he saw, on an almost daily basis, a Caravaggio painting of a fruit basket that hung on the library’s walls.

“It pushed me into a surprising new form of linguistics,” he said.

The programme of designing the new churches will begin next year, to be followed by the fine art commissions thereafter.

“For 20 centuries art and faith walked together, but in the last 50 years they have been separated,” Cardinal Ravasi concluded. “It is time now to get over that divorce.

Modern Catholic churches resemble museums, says Vatican

Opposition is mounting in the Holy See to a spate of recent, ultra-modern churches, in Italy and abroad, by high profile architects.
“The lack of integration between the architect and the faith community has at times been negative,” said Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican’s Pontificial Council for Culture. “Sometimes it goes wrong.”

Cardinal Ravasi said a church built in 2009 in Foligno, Italy by the celebrated Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas, which resembles a monolithic concrete cube, has been “highly criticised”.

In his native town of Merate in Lombardy, Cardinal Ravasi said the local priest needed to bring his own image of the Madonna to mass, because Mario Botta, the architect who designed the church, had not installed one.

“The problem is that in Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, things like the altar, the images, are essential, while architects tend instead to focus on space, lines, light and sound,” said Cardinal Ravasi.

The last architects to work closely with the church were back in the 17th century Baroque era, he added.

Cardinal Ravasi’s attack was backed last month by Antonio Paolucci, the head of the Vatican museums, when he spoke at the launch of a book celebrating the building of dozens of new churches in the suburbs of Rome since the 1990s.

Instead of praising the churches, Mr Paolucci lashed out, claiming that: “At best, these are like museums, spaces that do not suggest prayer or meditation.”

Cardinal Ravasi conceded that one of Rome’s most controversial new churches – Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church, which resembles a yacht with spinnakers hoisted – had won over locals, but complained that “the building materials were the focus of pre-construction meetings, not the liturgical life”.

Cardinal Ravasi was speaking after inaugurating the Vatican’s first ever art exhibit at the Venice Biennale on Saturday, which focuses on the Book of Genesis through photography and paintings by a Los Angeles artist, Lawrence Carroll, who uses melting ice in one work.

Vatican officials believe the show can help heal what they call a century old “fracture” between religion and art, and Cardinal Ravasi said the Church now had its sights on commissioning modern liturgical art, for installing in churches.

“The Venice Biennale exhibit has been the first step on a journey,” he said. “Further down the line could come liturgical art, meaning we could commission modern artists to create altars, fonts, tabernacles, lecterns, pews and kneelers,” he added.

But after letting modern architects push the envelope too far, the Church will keep a wary eye on liturgical art commissions, he said.

“We will need to build up dialogue with artists before we commission any liturgical art,” he said.

[align=:39biv5uf]Monument by Duncan Stroik to Columba Marmion[/align:39biv5uf]

Rome, Italy, Nov 15, 2012 / 12:22 am (CNA).- Cardinal Raymond L. Burke recently unveiled a monument he commissioned for his titular church – Saint Agatha of the Goths – of a saintly Irish monk who was ordained there in 1881.

“Cardinal Burke loves to build and loves to beautify … and this is a monument to this great man and this great event in his life, to remind us where this saint was ordained,” said Duncan G. Stroik, the monument’s designer, in a Nov. 14 interview with CNA.

The monument, to Blessed Columba Marmion which was dedicated Oct. 25, is located on the side aisle of the church and features a bas relief profile of the blessed above a Latin inscription.

The inscription proclaims, “Here in the church of Saint Agatha of the Goths, June 16, 1881, Joseph Marmion was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Dublin by Tobias Kirby, rector of the Irish College. Then, after entering the Order of Saint Benedict and taking the name Columba at the Abbey of Maredsous, he was elected the third abbot of the same community.”

“Excelling in priestly virtue and renowned for his sanctity, he died January 30, 1923, and was beatified September 3, 2000 by Pope John Paul II.”

It also notes that “His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke took care to erect this monument in AD 2012.”

Stroik said that the extraordinary beauty of Roman churches is due to the fact that they are cared for by cardinals. Part of being made a cardinal by the Pope is that each cardinal receives a titular church.

“It’s the cardinals’ responsibility to take care of their titular church, that’s why churches in Rome have been so beautified, is because the cardinals are spending money on their churches,” Stroik said.

When Cardinal Burke was given Saint Agatha of the Goths, he saw that “here’s a man who is going to be named a saint in matter of time, and there’s no monument to him in the church where he was ordained, so that was the impetus for the monument,” Stroik recalled.

Reflecting on the importance of beauty in drawing man’s heart to Christ, Stroik said, “Are not our churches theology in stone? Beauty draws us in and affects us … when we do things for the glory of God, it should be our best. Since he is beauty, our best should be beautiful.”

The monument is made of Giallo marble – to “pick up the beautiful rich marbles in the apse” – and the abbot’s profile was sculpted by Giuseppe Ducrot.

Stroik said it was designed to be both unique and to fit in with the rest of the church in a harmonious way. Below the inscription is a coat of arms for Bl. Marmion, which features an abbot’s crozier and two shamrocks to represent his native land.

Joseph Marmion was born in Dublin in 1858 and went to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome for his final seminary studies. At the time, Saint Agatha of the Goths was the site of the Irish College.

He served as a parish priest, professor, and spiritual director while he served the Dublin archdiocese.

After five years as a diocesan priest, he obtained permission from his bishop to join the Benedictine monastery of Maredsous, Belgium. After becoming abbot, he continued to devote himself to spiritual direction, focusing his retreats on Christ as the model for the life of Christians.

His classic spiritual works include “Christ, the Life of the Soul,” “Christ in his Mysteries,” “Christ the Ideal of the Monk,” and “Christ the Ideal of the Priest.”

Stroik has authored a book, “The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence, and the Eternal,” which will be available in Dec. 2012 from Liturgy Training Publications.

From the Osservatore Romano (18 May 2013)

Ancora manca il modello
di Antonio Paolucci
Director General of the Vatican Museums

Quando un edificio destinato al culto (si tratti di una chiesa cristiana o di una sinagoga, di una moschea islamica o di un tempio scintoista) è “giusto”? Quando cioè lo possiamo definire allo stesso tempo bello, funzionale e simbolicamente efficace? La risposta è una sola, non ammette deviazioni né varianti.
Un edificio destinato al culto si può dire riuscito e diventare perciò un’opera d’arte quando la cultura dell’epoca che lo ha voluto si identifica con le forme architettoniche e artistiche tipiche di quel culto, quando ne sostanzia e ne sostiene, significandoli e trasfigurandoli, i sentimenti, le idee e la dottrina. Prendiamo l’età del Barocco. Il Barocco che è stato l’ultimo grande stile internazionale di matrice cattolica. Ci sarà pure una ragione se San Marcello al Corso o San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane a Roma hanno i loro cloni a Lima e all’Avana, a Santiago del Cile e a Santo Domingo, se le chiese conventuali di Napoli o di Palermo le incontriamo uguali, nella planimetria, nel decoro artistico, nella organizzazione simbolica a Goa in India, a Macao in Cina, a Cracovia in Polonia? Questo succede per una ragione precisa. La cultura del Seicento è immaginifica, metaforica, teatrale, vuole toccare il cuore, accarezzare i sensi, sollecitare insieme le passioni e la fantasia.
Ebbene, quella cultura è entrata nell’immaginario religioso ed è diventata arte sacra.
Queste cose ho detto il 14 maggio scorso in Campidoglio, presenti il sindaco Gianni Alemanno e il cardinale vicario Agostino Vallini, parlando del volume Electa curato da Liberio Andreatta, Marco Petreschi e Nilda Valentin che illustra le 45 nuove chiese costruite nella diocesi di Roma fra il 2000 e il 2013. Il libro è bello e importante, deve essere considerato una vera e propria antologia, o piuttosto un manuale, di edilizia sacra italiana contemporanea. Organizzato in schede, ognuna fornita di eccellente documentazione fotografica a colori, il volume presenta una serie di opere di indubbia qualità.
È ormai entrato nei manuali l’edificio di Meier, impropriamente noto come le Vele. Non di vele in realtà si tratta ma di tre gusci in cemento bianco che qualificano un edificio assolutamente pregevole ma che potrebbe funzionare altrettanto bene per un museo in Texas o per un auditorium a Melbourne. Mi piace di più, non foss’altro perché ha tentato di dare una connotazione trascendente allo spazio presbiteriale, il Santo Volto di Gesù di Piero Sartogo con quella copertura leggera aerea che innerva lo spazio alludendo alla forma simbolica di un grande rosone gotico fuori scala.
Altre volte la chiesa è concepita come un blocco organico, articolato in spazio del culto e in servizi parrocchiali; la chiesa intesa come una specie di fortino chiamato a presidiare il deserto multiculturale e multietnico delle sterminate periferie romane. Penso alla parrocchia dei Santi Elisabetta e Zaccaria di Giuliano Panieri. In qualche caso intervengono suggestioni neobarocche (il San Pio da Pietrelcina di Alessandro Anselmi) oppure si propongono assetti più tradizionali anche se modulati nelle forme e nelle proporzioni della contemporaneità. Così Sandro Benedetti in Santa Maria a Setteville.
Gli esempi potrebbero continuare e i risultati sono quasi sempre di pregio. Manca però – questa è in estrema sintesi la mia impressione – la “forma chiesa”. L’edificio bello, funzionale, simbolicamente efficace in grado di servire da modello, ancora non c’è. Almeno io non l’ho trovato.

Ah! all is revealed!!

Have you seen this:

SNIPPET: Irish emigrants of the late 17th century , in particular, established strong links between Ireland and the Canaries Many Irish Catholic merchant families with business connections with Spain fled from Ireland after the Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations and plantations. Their commerical links with Spain through the wine trade led them to the Canaries where they began to build new lives and fortunes in Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

The names of Irish emigrants to the Canaries in historical records include: Walsh (which became Valois), Murphy, Meade, Brooke (which became Arroyo), O’Shanahan, Callaghan (which changed to Cologan), Madden (now Madan), Fitzgerald, Commyns, Power, Creagh, White (now Blanco), Hanty, Key Wadding, Roche, O’Shea, Russell, Forrestal, Lynch, O’Daly, MacGee and many others. The Cologan family is still prospering in Puerto de la Cruz. One of them became the Marquis de la Candia and his fine house and private chapel can be seen in the La Paz district of the city. There are streets in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, and in Puerto de la Cruz named after Leopoldo O’Donnell, first Duke of Tetuan, Jose Murphy, Cologan, Valois and Blanco.

The great houses of some of these emigre families are still to be seen in Tenerife, like the Hotel Marquesa in Puerto de la Cruz which was the palatial home of Bernardo Walsh from Waterford, or the old Royal Custom House overlooking the little harbour of Puerto de la Cruz which was once the residence of the Commyns family. The tomb of Bernardo Walsh and his wife, Francisca Fitzgerald (of another Waterford family) is in a side chapel dedicated to St. Patrick in the church of Nuestra Senore Pena de Francia in Puerto de la Cruz and a huge painting of St. Patrick, donated by Bernardo to the church, is displayed there every St. Patrick’s Day.

Families such as these brought with them to Tenerife such customs as the veneration of Patrick and also St. Fiacre, the local patron saint of gardeners, who is depicted in paintings in many houses in Tenerife. The tradition of lighting bonfires on 22 June, the eve of the feast of St. John was alive in Tenerife as in Ireland until recently.

— Excerpt, “Irish Roots” magazines 1997 #1

Other Irish families working out of Jerez de la frontiera Southern Spain in the 17 th century were the Goughs from Dublin and the Morgans. A scion of both families was Fra Francisco Gough y Fletcher Morgan Cabeza de Vaca – the great patron of Bartolomeo Esteban Murillo !!

Perhaps the Iglesia Nuestra Segnora de la Peña de Francia in Porto de la Cruz in Tenerife ?

If so, this is the Retablo de la Inmaculada Concepción, late XVII century, dominated by the arms of the kingdom of Ireland (just visible behind the chain of the sanctuary lamp), and the gift of the Walsh family to the parish. The attic has a picture of the Cristo de La Laguna. The upper register, has a descent from the Cross flanked by the apparition of Our lady and the Christ Child to Santa Rosalia of Palermo and a Assumption of Our Lady. The niches in the lower register have statues of Santa Rita of Cascia, a Madonna and St. Patrick. The altar mensa is a a late 19th century reproduction of the original.

It may be currently run by the Augustinians.

Some more information on Saint Martin aux Bois:

http://saint-martin-aux-bois.org/