Restoring Beauty in Sacred Buildings and Art

Restoring Beauty in Sacred Buildings and Art
Catholic Art Guild founder Kathleen Carr at the first conference of the organization, "Beauty and the Restoration of the Sacred," in Chicago on Oct. 29, 2017. Ruth Durkin Photography
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CHICAGO—The Catholic Art Guild has set out to restore the sacred role of art in Roman Catholic churches, hosting its first conference, “Beauty and the Restoration of the Sacred.” It’s yet another step in the recent resurgence of beauty in art.

As Father Joshua Caswell said at the well-attended conference on Oct. 29, the mission of the Catholic Art Guild can be demonstrated with a story about St. John Cantius, for whom the church sponsoring the guild is named. One day, a servant girl dropped and broke a jug of water. She wept at the thought of being punished by her mistress. St. John, in compassion, picked up the pieces of the jug and, through prayer, not only restored the broken vessel to a seamless condition, but also turned the water to milk.

Sharon Kilarski
Sharon Kilarski
Author
Sharon writes theater reviews, opinion pieces on our culture, and the classics series. Classics: Looking Forward Looking Backward: Practitioners involved with the classical arts respond to why they think the texts, forms, and methods of the classics are worth keeping and why they continue to look to the past for that which inspires and speaks to us. To see the full series, see ept.ms/LookingAtClassics.
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