Vatican says 262 artists have accepted
invitation to Nov. 21 meeting with the Pope
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY, Nov. 5 (CNS) -- More than 260 painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, playwrights, musicians, architects and other artists have accepted a Vatican invitation to meet Nov. 21 with Pope Benedict XVI.
The gathering under Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel will bring the artists together to mark the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's letter to artists and the 45th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's meeting with artists.
With the help of an international committee, the Vatican chose 500 artists from around the world to invite to the gathering. The invitations were based on leadership in their fields and not on their religious backgrounds, said Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Because of scheduling conflicts, travel and the fact that the Vatican is not offering any type of compensation for their time, the vast majority of those who accepted the invitation are Italian, the archbishop said.
At a press conference Nov. 5, the council said it had received confirmation of participation by 262 artists. They included: Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor; U.S. installation artist John David Mooney; Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid; French writer and actress Florence Delay; Irish poet Ciaran O'Coigligh; U.S. video artist Bill Viola; Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt; Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli; U.S. actor F. Murray Abraham; and Algerian film director Rachid Benhadj.
Archbishop Ravasi said that while some of the invitees had not replied as of Nov. 5, all of those who sent regrets explained they did so because of previous engagements and not for ideological reasons.
The archbishop said he had high hopes that Bono, the lead singer of U2, would be able to make the audience, but the Irish musician said previous commitments would prevent his attendance.
The artists will be given a tour of the Vatican Museums' gallery of modern religious art Nov. 20. Afterward, they will be able to socialize with each other at a reception in the museums sponsored by the Italian beverage company Martini & Rossi, said Msgr. Pasquale Iacobone, a staff member of the council.
The meeting with the Pope Nov. 21 will take place in the Sistine Chapel and will begin with a "musical interlude": the performance by the Sistine Chapel choir of a motet by the 16th-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Msgr. Iacobone said.
Pope Benedict will address the artists and will listen with them to another Palestrina motet, he said.
After the Pope leaves, he said, the artists will return to the Vatican Museums for another reception and Archbishop Ravasi will personally give each artist a gift from the Pope: a medal coined especially for the occasion.
The Church proposes dialog
with contemporary artists
Translated from
the 11/6/09 issue of
On tHE tenth anniversary of John Paul II's letter to artists and the 45th anniversary of Paul VI's meeting with artists, Benedict XVI will renew the Church's offer to dialog with the world of art.
Individual photos, from left: Mons. Ravasi, Mons. Iacobone, and Director Paolucci.
The contents and reasons for the initiative, which will take place in teh Sistine Chapel, were presented Thursday morning, Nov. 5, at the Vatican Press Office by Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Prof. Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums; and Mons. Pasquale Iacobone, official responsible for the art-and-faith department of the Council for Culture.
In this second news briefing on the event - the first was on Sept. 11 - a list of more than 250 names were released who have said they will be at the event. Some 500 invitations had been sent to artists in five categories - painting and sculpture; architecture; literature and poetry; music and song; cinema, theater, dance and photography.
"They belong to all the arts," Mons. Ravasi said, "and include non-Catholics, although Catholic artists will be substantially represented." He made clear that the invitations do not include any subsidies.
The meeting is intended to revew the friendship and dialog between the Church and artists in the hope of inspiring new occasions to collaborate.
It will be a start, Mons. Ravasi said, "a seed, a moment representing the desire of the Church for a productive dialog with the world of art, that must necessarily develop in stages adn through various modalities, including through national or territorial institutions".
Mons. Ravasi spoke of the evident 'divorce' that occurred in time between the Church - which after promoting the great artistic revolutions in the past, "appears to have settled with commonplaces or even noble artisanship" - and contemporary artists, many of whom are "more attracted to self-referential experimentation and provocative works". Thus, he said, the need to "find a meeting ground for dialog".
Mons. Iacobone described the organizational work for this event.
"Before the summer, we sent out 500 invitations to artists in five continents, who were selected by a committee on the basis of the individual artist's prestige, professional excellence and particular interests. The present list represents those who answered positively. Notwithstanding the short notice, the acceptances have been more than we expected."
The program for the invitees will start on Friday, Nov, 20. when they will be formally welcomed at the Vatican, who will then visit the Vatican Museums' collection of modern and contemporary art which had been started by Paul VI.
Museums director Paolucci said, "The situation faced by Benedict XVI goes back to the middle of the 20th century, to tha great intellectual that Paul VI was, someone who did not hesitate to expose himself personally to seek out a new rapprochement with the world of art."
"On May 7, 1964," Paolucci recalled, "he met with artists of his time at the Sistine Chapel, as Benedict XVI will do on Nov. 21".
Mons Ravasi will deliver opening remarks, followed by a reading of exceprts from John Paul II's letter to artists om April 1999 and then Pope Benedict's address. The Sistine Chapel choir will perform motets by Palestrina.
Afterwards, the guests will attend a reception at which they will each be given a commemorative medallion minted for the occasion.
After the new briefing on the Sistien Chapel event, Mons. Ravasi also answered questions about the European court tuling against the display of the Cross in Italian schoolrooms.
"I hope that this will reconsidered because it concerns one of the great symbols of Western culture," he said, and referred to the Nov. 3 L'Osservatore Romano article in its Nov. 4 issue, citing the Italian novelist Natalia Ginsburg defense of the Cross as a univeral symbol, printed in the Communist newspaper in 1991.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/11/2009 14:08]