Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

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 other influential English Catholics nearly blew up Parliament and King James I of England. Witnesses said spectators pulled the priest’s legs as he writhed 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.

“We don’t do politics,” Shakespeare says. “We do histories. True histories of the past.”

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 on November 18, 2011. For tickets, visit the Arena Stage’s box office online.

The ad shown above was selected last week as one of the best Apple ads by an editor at Huffington Post. A longtime photojournalism professor at Creighton University, Jesuit Father Don Doll, appeared in the it (along with rocker Todd Rundgren) — dropped an e-mail about the experience to Catholic News Service. In an email titled “A bit of Creighton in Apple history,” Father Doll told the story:

“Here’s how I was invited to be in the Apple campaign ‘What’s on your PowerBook?’ Creighton graduate, Christian Wolfe, who had excelled in my publication design course, was an Los Angeles BBDO account executive with the Apple account who called asking if I had a black clerical suit, and if I would consider being in an Apple ad campaign. I called my Jesuit superiors in Milwaukee to see if there were any issues with my appearance in an ad. They didn’t have any.

“Apple flew me out first class, put me in in a San Francisco boutique hotel. We went out to the little, formerly Catholic church now a nondenominational wedding chapel, in Tiburon, across the bay from San Francisco, where I met Todd Rundgren (whom I had never heard of before!), and Michael O’Brien, the photographer, whom I did meet years earlier as an award winning National Press Photographer.

“Michael O’Brien exposed 76 rolls of 120 film over 2-3 hours. The ad was run in black and white and color in numerous national magazines. I received numerous calls from former students who saw the ad.”

And, Father Doll, an award-winning photographer himself, noted that he was ”pleased with the ad as it showed a priest in a good light.”

For those who are curious, some of the things listed on Fr. Doll’s PowerBook included: wedding homilies, grant proposal for a book, scans of pictures taken in Ireland, and “design for my Christmas card.”

[H/t: The Deacon's Bench]

For the 300th birth anniversary of Jesuit Rudjer Boskovic, the Croatian and Vatican Post jointly published a postage stamp with his figure on it.

In 1742,  Boskovic was consulted, with other men of science, by Pope Benedict XIV, as to the best means of securing the stability of the dome of St. Peter’s in which a crack had been discovered. His suggestion of placing five concentric iron bands was adopted.

The dome, for which his lasting solution saved Michelangelo’s work from destruction, is featured in the stamp’s background.

The presentation was hosted on September 13th by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Croatia, who in addition to the stamp, decided to mark the third centenary of Boskovic‟s birth also by publishing the book “Rudjer Boskovic in the Diplomatic Service of the Dubrovnik Republic” in two bilingual editions: Croatian – French and Croatian – English

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.