VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Ask and you shall receive. The art world is ready to collaborate with the church in creating inspirational modern art, said some artists who took part in a landmark meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.
After decades of disinterest or suspicion, the rapport between art and religion is ready to be restored. If the church wants art to support its mission, all it has to do is call.
“The artist is really at the service of society, but to serve you have to be asked,” said John David Mooney, a sculptor and installation artist from Chicago.
Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi told Vatican Radio that the church has to take the first step in approaching artists and getting to know their work “because it’s for sure that artists will never take that step.”
Mooney and Zanussi were among the more than 250 international artists invited by the Vatican in an effort to revitalize dialogue and collaboration between the worlds of faith and art.
For decades the church has expressed a need for beautiful, inspiring modern art for places of worship. It has also lamented society’s overload of superficial, indecent or provocative art that fails to speak to the human soul.
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