Arts News

TORONTO - Highly acclaimed First Nations playwright Drew Hayden Taylor is bringing a poignant play to Toronto about a dark part of Canadian history.

TORONTO - Sr. Rose Pacatte is first and foremost a storyteller. In her 47 years as a Daughter of St. Paul, she has great stories about answering her call to consecrated life, the joy she shares with her fellow sisters and the opportunities her congregation has given her.

TORONTO - Franck Waille still has the posture of a dancer. When he stands, his back is straight, his shoulders are squared and his feet are pointed out — a more relaxed version of ballet’s first position.

SASKATOON - Many factors contribute to a positive healing experience at a hospital, including medical expertise and respectful and compassionate care by physicians, health care personnel, staff and volunteers. But for patients at St. Paul’s Hospital, where core values include holistic care, the process of healing the body, mind and spirit is enhanced through art.

Jed Malitz appends V2 to the name of his art gallery in New Orleans’ Warehouse District. The V2 stands for “Version 2” — both in art and in life.

VATICAN CITY - Having so much world-famous art housed in Rome's churches and chapels has risked turning the city's sacred spaces into sightseer circuses. A hushed prayerful atmosphere for the faithful is often broken by clicking cameras and tourists exchanging guidebook details.

All presidents beseech God to bless the United States of America. Many pray for divine aid for themselves or their policies. Some can only wonder at the inscrutable ways of the Almighty.

Then there’s Frank Underwood, who spits in God’s face.

VATICAN CITY - A new kind of ghetto needs the church's presence and people's solidarity: the "digital slum" where cyberbullying and online pornography and abuse run rampant, said speakers at a Vatican news conference.

The third and most ambitious staging yet of playwright Adam Seybold’s play The De Chardin Project begins with an image of sin. Fr. Teilhard De Chardin, played by Cyrus Lane, wakes up on a bare, black stage beside a broken tea cup. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got there and he can make out nothing of his surroundings except the broken china.

On a trip to Italy 11 months ago Catholic artist Timothy Schmalz discovered the nation’s love for St. Padre Pio. Creator of the acclaimed Jesus the Homeless sculpture, Schmalz was soon inspired to create a work of art to honour the Italian saint.