Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Jesuit Father Don Doll’s photographic works have been celebrated and awarded numerous times for their ability to capture and highlight the experiences of people across the globe. From remote villages in Sub-Saharan Africa to the dances of Native Americans in their traditional garb, Fr. Doll has spent decades capturing his subjects in their element since he was first introduced to photography when assigned to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota as a young Jesuit in the late 1960s.

He’s photographed Jesuits assisting Tsunami victims in India and Sri Lanka in 2005; refugees in Burundi, Rwanda and the Congo in 2007; and Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad along the Darfur border in 2008. Most recently, one of Doll’s photos was selected by 1001 Stories of Common Ground‘s Positive Change in Action competition showcasing pieces which highlight the positive changes in the Arab world.

Currently, Doll is a professor of photojournalism at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. where he holds the Charles and Mary Heider Endowed Jesuit Chair. Recently, he took time out from his busy schedule to speak with National Jesuit News by phone for our monthly podcast series. You can listen to the interview with Doll below:

A painting of the crucifixion, owned by a small Jesuit residence at Oxford, is alleged to be the work of the great Renaissance master, Michelangelo.

Bought by the Campion Hall Residence in the 1930s at a Sotheby’s auction, the painting was thought to be a work by Marcello Venusti, a contemporary of Michelangelo’s.

Historian and conservationist Antonio Forcellino, says infra-red technology has revealed the true creator of the masterpiece.

“You can immediately see the difference between this work and that of Venusti,” said Forcellino, who used infra-red techniques to study layers beneath the finished painting. He writes in his new book, The Lost Michelangelos, that “no one but Michelangelo could have painted such a masterpiece”.

According to BBC News, regarding the news, residents felt “a mixture of excitement and slight concern.”

“It’s a very beautiful piece, but far too valuable to have on our wall any more,” said Jesuit Father Brendan Callaghan, the community’s superior. “Simply having it hanging on our wall wasn’t a good idea.”

It has been removed from a wall of the Jesuit academic community and sent to the Ashmolean Museum for safekeeping.

Jesuit Father Henry Garnet was tried and hanged in 1606 for his knowledge of the previous year’s Gunpowder Plot, in which Robert Catesby and others nearly blew up the English Parliament and King James I of England. Witnesses said spectators pulled the priest’s legs as he hung in the air to give him a speedy death and spare him more prolonged attention from the executioner.

In Jesuit Father Bill Cain’s play “Equivocation,” the man pulling on Garnet’s legs is William Shakespeare, the playwright for the theatrical company The King’s Men. He is commissioned by Robert Cecil, a power-player behind King James I, to write a play declaring the government version of the events of the plot. The King himself wrote the first draft.

The play revolves around the cost of a government lie and how politics can become personal. Presented in modern language and dress, Equivocation presents a dilemma: tell the truth and lose your head or write propaganda and lose your soul? This political thriller reveals the complexities of the truth, the perils of compromise, and the terrible consequences of equivocation.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of Equivocation will be playing at the Arena Stage in Washington DC starting in November 2011. For tickets, visit the Arena Stage’s box office online.

Jesuit Father Henry Garnet was tried and hanged in 1606 for his knowledge of the previous year’s Gunpowder Plot, in which Robert Catesby and others nearly blew up the English Parliament and King James I of England. Witnesses said spectators pulled the priest’s legs as he hung in the air to give him a speedy death and spare him more prolonged attention from the executioner.

In Jesuit Father Bill Cain’s play “Equivocation,” the man pulling on Garnet’s legs is William Shakespeare, the playwright for the theatrical company The King’s Men. He is commissioned by Robert Cecil, a power-player behind King James I, to write a play declaring the government version of the events of the plot. The King himself wrote the first draft.

The play revolves around the cost of a government lie and how politics can become personal. Presented in modern language and dress, Equivocation presents a dilemma: tell the truth and lose your head or write propaganda and lose your soul? This political thriller reveals the complexities of the truth, the perils of compromise, and the terrible consequences of equivocation.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of Equivocation will be playing at the Arena Stage in Washington DC starting in November 2011. For tickets, visit the Arena Stage’s box office online.

Jesuit Father Joseph Feeney, a professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, spoke of Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins as “an environmentalist poet” at a recent Gerard Manley Hopkins Conference at Regis University.

“He celebrated nature, he grieved for the destruction of nature, and he urged the preservation of nature,” said Fr. Feeney.

Hopkins (1844-1889) was born in England to Anglican parents, and he was received into the Catholic Church by another prominent convert, Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman in 1866. Hopkins joined the Society of Jesus the next year.

Jesuit Father Peter Milward, a professor emeritus of English at Sophia University in Tokyo, also attended the conference and said Hopkins and Newman both represent the “second spring” of Catholicism in England.

Both men were “revolutionaries in terms of their time,” Fr. Milward said, and Hopkins’ poetry is comparable to “the greatest language of William Shakespeare.”

For more on the Hopkins conference, visit Catholic News Agency.