Washington D.C., Dec 31, 2015 / 05:54 am (CNA).- Chances are you've heard of the phrase “15 minutes of fame.” And you've probably seen the neon-colored canvases of Campbell soup cans or Marilyn Monroe's face – even if you don't know the artist behind them. For those who've never studied Andy Warhol and his prolific body of work, they've still most likely encountered it in many of the pop icons of the late 20th Century. But while Warhol may be known best for the his visionary depiction of fame and popular culture, his art can also be understood as iconic – in another, much more literal, way. Why? Because he was an ardently practicing Byzantine Catholic, say those close to the artist and his work. In fact, they say, Warhol's art is actually best understood through the lens of faith and iconography.   However, these same voices warn that both the art world and Catholics alike have tended to oversimplify or ignore aspects of the man that, to this day, refuses to be categorized.   “Warhol's a very complicated person and whatever angle we really try to take to his art, we can take one angle to come from but it's always going to be incomplete if we don’t take another angle as well,” said art historian Dr. James Romaine. Romaine, who also serves as president of the international Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art, said that the widespread read on Warhol's work – that it's largely a critique of consumerism – actually isn't at odds with a more religious interpretation of his art.   “The more popular description of Warhol's work being concerned with popular culture, commodity culture, I think that's all true,” he told CNA. “And I don't see it as being inconsistent in any way with what we’ve already talked about with sacred art,” he said. “I see these same sides of Warhol's work as enhancing each other.” So who was Andy Warhol? Or should we say – who was Andrew Warhola? A Humble Beginning The artist who would become Andy Warhol was born as Andrew Warhola on Aug. 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents, Ondrej and Julia Warhola immigrated to the United States in 1914 and 1921, respectively, from what is today Slovakia. They raised their family of three sons in the Byzantine Catholic Church. Andrew was often sick as a child, and spent much time bedridden, collecting pictures and drawing. His father passed away in an accident when he was just 13. After high school, Warhol studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, later renamed Carnegie Mellon University. Following graduation in 1949, he moved to New York City, where he worked in magazine illustration and advertising, and also started signing his last name “Warhol,” rather than “Warhola.” His mother joined him in New York in 1952, where she lived with her son until her death in 1972. Throughout the 50s and 60s, Warhol gained attention for his painting techniques, and later photography, film, installments and multi-media exhibitions. The late 1960s also brought Warhol close to death when he was shot near the entrance to his Factory workspace. After the shooting, Warhol continued to work prodigiously, co-founding Interview Magazine, designing record covers, producing television programs, and continuing to paint both commissioned works and his own artistic series. He passed away suddenly on Feb. 22, 1987, during a routine gallbladder surgery. In the nearly 30 years since the artist's death, his art has left a lasting impact on society not only due to the vast popularity of his work, but the major themes he wrestles with and explores. “Warhol has been celebrated by critics and art historians for his ability to probe some of the most challenging themes of modern society: identity politics, celebrity, death, religion, desire, and the capitalist machine,” said Jessica Beck, assistant curator for The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. “From the very beginning of his career, Warhol had a particularly keen understanding of the power and weight of images,” she told CNA, “and he was able to produce a body of work that remains extremely relevant and accessible to contemporary audiences.” But while a small amount of religious work has been explored by scholars such as Lynne Cooke and Jane D. Dillenberger, largely these themes – “relative to the Pop paintings of Campbell's Soup and Coca-Cola or the celebrity portraits” – are “somewhat under-researched,” Beck said.An Abiding Faith For Warhol, faith was an integral part of family life and a daily practice – and both of these remained important to the artist until his death, according to his nephew, Donald Warhola. While many assume he was non-religious, Andy Warhol “was far from an atheist,” Warhola told CNA. “He was a practicing Byzantine Catholic, and actually attended a Roman church later in his life.” This dedication to the faith was a critical part of Andy's daily life. Warhola recalled that his uncle would visit his neighborhood Roman Catholic parish in New York City “and pray every day.” After Warhol passed away, the priest approached the Warhola family at his memorial “and said to us that he was going to miss his daily talks with Uncle Andy.” From among Warhol's personal collection displayed in the Warhol Museum after his death are religious items such as a sculpture of the Sacred Heart. But for the Warhola family, the Catholic faith was more than daily practice, and was a key part of their family life and source of personal strength. “Sunday was meant for worship,” Donald said. He added that his grandparents – Andy Warhol's parents – raised their sons to place Church and visiting with family first on Sundays. Even when Andy Warhol moved from Pittsburgh to New York City in order pursue his art career, faith remained an important familial touchstone.   “Always he would ask if I went to Church because it was a Sunday,” Warhola said of his phone calls with his uncle. “He was very religious: it was a very big part of his upbringing as well as mine.” “I know Uncle Andy was the character who had that through his upbringing and I know that he depended on God for strength.” Donald Warhola also got to know his uncle in a working environment was well, installing a computer system for Andy for several months before his death at Andy Warhol Enterprises in New York. At work, Donald describes his uncle as “quiet” but also a hard worker and fair employer, bringing their family emphasis on hard work into the workplace. “He wasn't too much different, but it was interesting to see Uncle Andy in that element and his work element as opposed to the more casual, laid back visiting at his place.” These “really basic and old school” lessons from his uncle stuck with the then-24-year-old Warhola. Donald recounted meeting someone in New York who wanted to design the young worker a “fancy business card” to use for future job searches. Uncle Andy told him “a fancy business card won't get you work,” but promised that if he did a good job at his work, he would write his nephew a good referral and help find him a good job. “The funny thing is that after that, on jobs that I took, it seems that I never got business cards,” he laughed. “Subconsciously something landed in my mind to avoid business cards.”   Other colleagues of Warhol also noticed the artist’s Catholic faith and devotion, such as Bob Colacello. He relayed that Warhol's faith “was not an act,” after attending Mass with Warhol and visiting the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, according to Jane Dillenberger's work in “The Religious Art of Andy Warhol.” Warhol's diaries also provide a record of his internal religious life, documenting weekly Mass attendance, volunteer work at a parish soup kitchen, and his experience of meeting and shaking hands with then-pontiff Saint John Paul II in 1980. He also recorded his anxiety being surrounded by the “scary” crowds in St. Peter's Square waiting for the Pope, although he fought off his nervousness in order to sign autographs for several nuns. Warhol additionally wrote that he screamed after the assassination attempt on John Paul II in 1981.Art as Iconography Just as faith played an important place in Warhol's life so too did it surface as an important topic in his art. He worked on several explicitly religious pieces, including appropriations and reinventions of Raphael's “Madonna” and da Vinci's “Last Supper.” A camouflage version of the latter, Romaine observed, can be interpreted as “bringing back the halo on and over Christ’s head,” which was removed in da Vinci's original humanist painting. For Romaine, however, Warhol's religious themes run into all his work – even that thought of as non-religious. “If I had to describe Andy Warhol’s work in just one or two sentences, I would describe it as the world seen not as it is, but the world seen as it might be transformed by grace.” Romaine explained that in the Eastern Catholic churches, religious icons play a vital role in worship and spiritual life. As opposed to altar pieces or other sacred art in the Western Church, “the icon is more of a specific presence of the saints there with an icon,” he said. “The sacred image is not directly bringing the Virgin Mary into the Church, whereas with the icon, the presence of the saints is believed to be more directly there.” He said that by viewing Warhol's work – particularly his paintings – with an eye towards iconography, “I see all of Warhol's work as potentially sacred.” As an example, Romaine pointed to the now-iconic printing of the Campbell soup can. “Soup cans are disposable food,” he said. “But the way Warhol depicts them, he removed them from a time and place context in which they're disposable, into a timeless realm in which they're almost like icons.” The soup can also had a ritual tie to Warhol's life. He recalled Warhol's brother mentioning “Andy eating Campbell’s soup every day, having a soup and sandwich every day, and the importance of religious imagery in their home” – including over the kitchen table where Warhol ate his soup. Similarly, Romaine said, people are presented in a glorified, redemptive manner in Warhol's paintings. The artist finished the now-classic screen print of Marilyn Monroe shortly after the actress's sudden death after a tumultuous life. Yet, Warhol's work “doesn't depict her as a tragic figure,” he remarked, “not that we shouldn't have sympathy for her.” “He celebrates her. He sees her in a way as being, in fact, beautiful.”    Warhol also portrays Elizabeth Taylor, another actress dealing with scandal at the time of the painting. “He's depicting those women at critical moments in their lives. Warhol depicts her as kind of redeeming her through his imagery.” “If you're familiar with the Christian concept of the transfiguration...Christ appears to his disciples not as he is, but in a glorified way. He's not just this guy walking around, but he's glorified.   Romaine commented that in the way the soup can or Marilyn Monroe, or Liz Taylor are presented, it reminds him of the Transfiguration, where Christ is presented to the disciples in the fullness of His glory. Likewise, in these images, Romaine said, “I kind of see Warhol seeing the whole world as potentially glorified.” This glorification of the popular is one of the markers of Warhol's art, Romaine noted. “His work is so much connected with the lowest of the low commodity culture makes the transfiguration that takes place in his work, all the more miraculous, all the more important.” “If he's depicting the Virgin Mary as sacred, it's sort of obvious already, but if you're depicting the soup can as sacred, it’s really transformative.” Daniel Warhola agreed that, while “we never had a conversation on that topic,” it makes sense to him that Eastern iconography would have an influence on his uncle's artwork. “Perhaps I'm jaded because I grew up in the same environment but to me it seems obvious: the Byzantine Catholic Church is all about Heaven on Earth and you are stimulating the various senses and your eyes with the various icons and beautiful stained glass windows, and you know that the smell of incense and the sounds,” he stated. Among the important sensory parts of the liturgy, he continued, are “the icons, sort of the celebrities of religion.” “To me it’s very obvious that the way he presented his pop art, you take these iconic figures out of society, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and make them iconic in the way he presented them.”A Complicated Man However, while Andrew Warhola was a man of faith and his Catholic understanding of the world did make its way into his art, Andy Warhol also dealt intimately with themes such as fame, popular culture, mass production and sexuality – that would become nearly ubiquitous in the 30 years after his death. “I’ve just always thought Uncle Andy was able to predict what was going to be popular ahead of his time,” Donald Warhola said. He called his uncle's work “progressive” in that it “was ahead of his time.”   “From a standpoint of when I look at the body of work that he did in the 60s and 70s, even 80s, he was always touching on what was going to be popular in the future.” Warhola pointed to his uncle's prediction that “in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” and art projects such as the filming of ordinary people living their lives. “I think if you look at reality TV, some people, not everyone, are intrigued by just watching someone live their life,” he said, adding that while Warhol was exploring the medium of what has become reality TV in the 60s and 70s,  at the time.“it was not popular and it was controversial and not understood.” “It was almost like he was looking for future trends in his art.” Some of the trends Warhol explored extensively were that of sexuality and sexual orientation, which he revisited throughout his professional career. “There's no question that Andy Warhol was homosexual,” Romaine said. Indeed, several scholars, such as Dillenberger, have documented that he was open about his attractions since the 1950s, and several of his art projects explore his fascination with voyeurism and the sexually explicit. However, in interviews late in his life Warhol also proclaimed that he was “still a virgin” and eschewed participation in the acts he depicted. “After twenty-five,” Warhol told Scott Cohen in a 1980 interview, “you should look, but never touch.” “I don't know exactly what that means for him, but because of his religious upbringing but even more so because of his intense shyness he wrestled with any sort of a sexual relationship,” Romaine commented. “His art then becomes a means by which he can realize some of the sexual longing that he has that he’s not able to realize in relationships.” These tensions between faith and sexuality, introversion and explicitness wrapped themselves around some of Warhol’s work with identity, Romaine said, bringing up the series “Ladies and Gentlemen,” portraits of drag queens and transsexual attendees at New York clubs. “It’s a sort of play on the perception and the answer is 'yes' – it’s both a lady and a gentleman: there's this slippage of identity.” The “and” in the title, Romaine continued, is “insightful” and important to understanding the point Warhol explored in the piece. “It's sort of the one image that portrays being a drag queen as a sort of divided identity,” Romaine continued, and in putting both parts of the “lady” and the “gentleman” portrayed together in one series he's attempting to resolve “a conflict.” In looking back, Warhol's nephew also sees the question of identity as one that concerned his uncle personally and that Andy Warhol explored in his work. “I've always thought,” Warhola told CNA, “that there’s two personas: there's the Andrew Warhola persona that I, for the most part, got to know, and the Andy Warhol persona.” “And I think that the Andy Warhol persona that almost gave my uncle the permission to do the things that Andrew Warhola would not feel comfortable doing or being.” “It's almost like an actor who goes out and plays a role, then they're able to act out maybe different aspects of their personality or life that they’re not totally comfortable with as their own individual,”  Donald said. “That’s just my own interpretation: I just think that maybe Uncle Andy experienced that.” Warhola also suggested that perhaps some of the character Andy Warhol became and the work the artist produced was itself a type of creation. This persona, Warhola added, grew and changed with public expectations and “wherever people took that, he was okay with it.” “Almost like he could see himself as a work of art, and let you create the narrative,” his nephew said. “‘I'll put out the information out there and you can create the narrative as you see fit. I'll be what you almost want me to be,' in some ways.” There may be another reason for allowing for a tension between his public and personae, Warhola added: business. “Also my uncle saw that controversy sells, and that if you’re getting  attention, it doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative – that's what you need to be out there.”Art as Reconciliation Towards what would be the the end of his life, however, Andrew Warhola shifted focus from feeding the expectations others had for Andy Warhol. “He wasn’t painting necessarily for other people, but was more painting from his soul, and he did a lot of various religious works,” Donald Warhola noted, bringing up “The Last Supper” paintings and the “Heaven and Hell” series. “The themes kind of changed – at least what caught my attention changed,” he said. “It seemed like again he wasn’t worried so much about ‘gee, what can I paint that everyone’s going to like?’ It was more like he was trying to make statements with his artwork.” Warhola added that while earlier in his uncle’s career, the artist was concerned with staying “totally relevant” to avoid fading from popularity like other contemporary artists, later on Warhol eventually stopped orienting his artwork around other's expectations. “At a certain point, he just figured 'I'm going to paint what I want to paint.'” “After that it was more subtle, and then I think he became more profound closer to his death.” Romaine suggested, however, that the resolution of identity and other themes in Warhol's work can be seen throughout his career – and underlying that resolution is a distinctly Catholic theme. He directed attention to the resolution of male and female identities in “Ladies and Gentlemen” and other paintings, brought together with the understanding of iconography he sees in Warhol’s corpus. The resolution, Romaine said, is “this striving for grace in a broken world.” Another example of an artistic imagining that not only elevates the base, but resolves conflict and redeems a subject, Romaine said, are the prints of Marilyn Monroe. “Marilyn Monroe at the time he paints her is a picture of identity conflict,” he said, “And in his image, I think he tries to pull her together.” “This desire in his depictions of Marilyn, to reconcile these different Marilyns with each other I think projects from his own desire in his own life of having so many internal conflicts: of being on the one hand successful, and on the other feeling like a failure, on being on the one hand desirous of relationships and being unable to realize them,” Romaine said. “These conflicts that exist at the very core of Warhol's being, then drive him to create an art in which these conflicts are reconciled. Conflicts that can’t be reconciled in life can be reconciled in a work of art.”This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 27, 2015.   Read more

Washington D.C., Dec 31, 2015 / 05:54 am (CNA).- Chances are you've heard of the phrase “15 minutes of fame.” And you've probably seen the neon-colored canvases of Campbell soup cans or Marilyn Monroe's face – even if you don't know the artist behind them. For those who've never studied Andy Warhol and his prolific body of work, they've still most likely encountered it in many of the pop icons of the late 20th Century. But while Warhol may be known best for the his visionary depiction of fame and popular culture, his art can also be understood as iconic – in another, much more literal, way. Why? Because he was an ardently practicing Byzantine Catholic, say those close to the artist and his work. In fact, they say, Warhol's art is actually best understood through the lens of faith and iconography.   However, these same voices warn that both the art world and Catholics alike have tended to oversimplify or ignore aspects of the man that, to this day, refuses to be categorized.   “Warhol's a very complicated person and whatever angle we really try to take to his art, we can take one angle to come from but it's always going to be incomplete if we don’t take another angle as well,” said art historian Dr. James Romaine. Romaine, who also serves as president of the international Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art, said that the widespread read on Warhol's work – that it's largely a critique of consumerism – actually isn't at odds with a more religious interpretation of his art.   “The more popular description of Warhol's work being concerned with popular culture, commodity culture, I think that's all true,” he told CNA. “And I don't see it as being inconsistent in any way with what we’ve already talked about with sacred art,” he said. “I see these same sides of Warhol's work as enhancing each other.” So who was Andy Warhol? Or should we say – who was Andrew Warhola? A Humble Beginning The artist who would become Andy Warhol was born as Andrew Warhola on Aug. 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents, Ondrej and Julia Warhola immigrated to the United States in 1914 and 1921, respectively, from what is today Slovakia. They raised their family of three sons in the Byzantine Catholic Church. Andrew was often sick as a child, and spent much time bedridden, collecting pictures and drawing. His father passed away in an accident when he was just 13. After high school, Warhol studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, later renamed Carnegie Mellon University. Following graduation in 1949, he moved to New York City, where he worked in magazine illustration and advertising, and also started signing his last name “Warhol,” rather than “Warhola.” His mother joined him in New York in 1952, where she lived with her son until her death in 1972. Throughout the 50s and 60s, Warhol gained attention for his painting techniques, and later photography, film, installments and multi-media exhibitions. The late 1960s also brought Warhol close to death when he was shot near the entrance to his Factory workspace. After the shooting, Warhol continued to work prodigiously, co-founding Interview Magazine, designing record covers, producing television programs, and continuing to paint both commissioned works and his own artistic series. He passed away suddenly on Feb. 22, 1987, during a routine gallbladder surgery. In the nearly 30 years since the artist's death, his art has left a lasting impact on society not only due to the vast popularity of his work, but the major themes he wrestles with and explores. “Warhol has been celebrated by critics and art historians for his ability to probe some of the most challenging themes of modern society: identity politics, celebrity, death, religion, desire, and the capitalist machine,” said Jessica Beck, assistant curator for The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. “From the very beginning of his career, Warhol had a particularly keen understanding of the power and weight of images,” she told CNA, “and he was able to produce a body of work that remains extremely relevant and accessible to contemporary audiences.” But while a small amount of religious work has been explored by scholars such as Lynne Cooke and Jane D. Dillenberger, largely these themes – “relative to the Pop paintings of Campbell's Soup and Coca-Cola or the celebrity portraits” – are “somewhat under-researched,” Beck said.An Abiding Faith For Warhol, faith was an integral part of family life and a daily practice – and both of these remained important to the artist until his death, according to his nephew, Donald Warhola. While many assume he was non-religious, Andy Warhol “was far from an atheist,” Warhola told CNA. “He was a practicing Byzantine Catholic, and actually attended a Roman church later in his life.” This dedication to the faith was a critical part of Andy's daily life. Warhola recalled that his uncle would visit his neighborhood Roman Catholic parish in New York City “and pray every day.” After Warhol passed away, the priest approached the Warhola family at his memorial “and said to us that he was going to miss his daily talks with Uncle Andy.” From among Warhol's personal collection displayed in the Warhol Museum after his death are religious items such as a sculpture of the Sacred Heart. But for the Warhola family, the Catholic faith was more than daily practice, and was a key part of their family life and source of personal strength. “Sunday was meant for worship,” Donald said. He added that his grandparents – Andy Warhol's parents – raised their sons to place Church and visiting with family first on Sundays. Even when Andy Warhol moved from Pittsburgh to New York City in order pursue his art career, faith remained an important familial touchstone.   “Always he would ask if I went to Church because it was a Sunday,” Warhola said of his phone calls with his uncle. “He was very religious: it was a very big part of his upbringing as well as mine.” “I know Uncle Andy was the character who had that through his upbringing and I know that he depended on God for strength.” Donald Warhola also got to know his uncle in a working environment was well, installing a computer system for Andy for several months before his death at Andy Warhol Enterprises in New York. At work, Donald describes his uncle as “quiet” but also a hard worker and fair employer, bringing their family emphasis on hard work into the workplace. “He wasn't too much different, but it was interesting to see Uncle Andy in that element and his work element as opposed to the more casual, laid back visiting at his place.” These “really basic and old school” lessons from his uncle stuck with the then-24-year-old Warhola. Donald recounted meeting someone in New York who wanted to design the young worker a “fancy business card” to use for future job searches. Uncle Andy told him “a fancy business card won't get you work,” but promised that if he did a good job at his work, he would write his nephew a good referral and help find him a good job. “The funny thing is that after that, on jobs that I took, it seems that I never got business cards,” he laughed. “Subconsciously something landed in my mind to avoid business cards.”   Other colleagues of Warhol also noticed the artist’s Catholic faith and devotion, such as Bob Colacello. He relayed that Warhol's faith “was not an act,” after attending Mass with Warhol and visiting the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, according to Jane Dillenberger's work in “The Religious Art of Andy Warhol.” Warhol's diaries also provide a record of his internal religious life, documenting weekly Mass attendance, volunteer work at a parish soup kitchen, and his experience of meeting and shaking hands with then-pontiff Saint John Paul II in 1980. He also recorded his anxiety being surrounded by the “scary” crowds in St. Peter's Square waiting for the Pope, although he fought off his nervousness in order to sign autographs for several nuns. Warhol additionally wrote that he screamed after the assassination attempt on John Paul II in 1981.Art as Iconography Just as faith played an important place in Warhol's life so too did it surface as an important topic in his art. He worked on several explicitly religious pieces, including appropriations and reinventions of Raphael's “Madonna” and da Vinci's “Last Supper.” A camouflage version of the latter, Romaine observed, can be interpreted as “bringing back the halo on and over Christ’s head,” which was removed in da Vinci's original humanist painting. For Romaine, however, Warhol's religious themes run into all his work – even that thought of as non-religious. “If I had to describe Andy Warhol’s work in just one or two sentences, I would describe it as the world seen not as it is, but the world seen as it might be transformed by grace.” Romaine explained that in the Eastern Catholic churches, religious icons play a vital role in worship and spiritual life. As opposed to altar pieces or other sacred art in the Western Church, “the icon is more of a specific presence of the saints there with an icon,” he said. “The sacred image is not directly bringing the Virgin Mary into the Church, whereas with the icon, the presence of the saints is believed to be more directly there.” He said that by viewing Warhol's work – particularly his paintings – with an eye towards iconography, “I see all of Warhol's work as potentially sacred.” As an example, Romaine pointed to the now-iconic printing of the Campbell soup can. “Soup cans are disposable food,” he said. “But the way Warhol depicts them, he removed them from a time and place context in which they're disposable, into a timeless realm in which they're almost like icons.” The soup can also had a ritual tie to Warhol's life. He recalled Warhol's brother mentioning “Andy eating Campbell’s soup every day, having a soup and sandwich every day, and the importance of religious imagery in their home” – including over the kitchen table where Warhol ate his soup. Similarly, Romaine said, people are presented in a glorified, redemptive manner in Warhol's paintings. The artist finished the now-classic screen print of Marilyn Monroe shortly after the actress's sudden death after a tumultuous life. Yet, Warhol's work “doesn't depict her as a tragic figure,” he remarked, “not that we shouldn't have sympathy for her.” “He celebrates her. He sees her in a way as being, in fact, beautiful.”    Warhol also portrays Elizabeth Taylor, another actress dealing with scandal at the time of the painting. “He's depicting those women at critical moments in their lives. Warhol depicts her as kind of redeeming her through his imagery.” “If you're familiar with the Christian concept of the transfiguration...Christ appears to his disciples not as he is, but in a glorified way. He's not just this guy walking around, but he's glorified.   Romaine commented that in the way the soup can or Marilyn Monroe, or Liz Taylor are presented, it reminds him of the Transfiguration, where Christ is presented to the disciples in the fullness of His glory. Likewise, in these images, Romaine said, “I kind of see Warhol seeing the whole world as potentially glorified.” This glorification of the popular is one of the markers of Warhol's art, Romaine noted. “His work is so much connected with the lowest of the low commodity culture makes the transfiguration that takes place in his work, all the more miraculous, all the more important.” “If he's depicting the Virgin Mary as sacred, it's sort of obvious already, but if you're depicting the soup can as sacred, it’s really transformative.” Daniel Warhola agreed that, while “we never had a conversation on that topic,” it makes sense to him that Eastern iconography would have an influence on his uncle's artwork. “Perhaps I'm jaded because I grew up in the same environment but to me it seems obvious: the Byzantine Catholic Church is all about Heaven on Earth and you are stimulating the various senses and your eyes with the various icons and beautiful stained glass windows, and you know that the smell of incense and the sounds,” he stated. Among the important sensory parts of the liturgy, he continued, are “the icons, sort of the celebrities of religion.” “To me it’s very obvious that the way he presented his pop art, you take these iconic figures out of society, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and make them iconic in the way he presented them.”A Complicated Man However, while Andrew Warhola was a man of faith and his Catholic understanding of the world did make its way into his art, Andy Warhol also dealt intimately with themes such as fame, popular culture, mass production and sexuality – that would become nearly ubiquitous in the 30 years after his death. “I’ve just always thought Uncle Andy was able to predict what was going to be popular ahead of his time,” Donald Warhola said. He called his uncle's work “progressive” in that it “was ahead of his time.”   “From a standpoint of when I look at the body of work that he did in the 60s and 70s, even 80s, he was always touching on what was going to be popular in the future.” Warhola pointed to his uncle's prediction that “in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” and art projects such as the filming of ordinary people living their lives. “I think if you look at reality TV, some people, not everyone, are intrigued by just watching someone live their life,” he said, adding that while Warhol was exploring the medium of what has become reality TV in the 60s and 70s,  at the time.“it was not popular and it was controversial and not understood.” “It was almost like he was looking for future trends in his art.” Some of the trends Warhol explored extensively were that of sexuality and sexual orientation, which he revisited throughout his professional career. “There's no question that Andy Warhol was homosexual,” Romaine said. Indeed, several scholars, such as Dillenberger, have documented that he was open about his attractions since the 1950s, and several of his art projects explore his fascination with voyeurism and the sexually explicit. However, in interviews late in his life Warhol also proclaimed that he was “still a virgin” and eschewed participation in the acts he depicted. “After twenty-five,” Warhol told Scott Cohen in a 1980 interview, “you should look, but never touch.” “I don't know exactly what that means for him, but because of his religious upbringing but even more so because of his intense shyness he wrestled with any sort of a sexual relationship,” Romaine commented. “His art then becomes a means by which he can realize some of the sexual longing that he has that he’s not able to realize in relationships.” These tensions between faith and sexuality, introversion and explicitness wrapped themselves around some of Warhol’s work with identity, Romaine said, bringing up the series “Ladies and Gentlemen,” portraits of drag queens and transsexual attendees at New York clubs. “It’s a sort of play on the perception and the answer is 'yes' – it’s both a lady and a gentleman: there's this slippage of identity.” The “and” in the title, Romaine continued, is “insightful” and important to understanding the point Warhol explored in the piece. “It's sort of the one image that portrays being a drag queen as a sort of divided identity,” Romaine continued, and in putting both parts of the “lady” and the “gentleman” portrayed together in one series he's attempting to resolve “a conflict.” In looking back, Warhol's nephew also sees the question of identity as one that concerned his uncle personally and that Andy Warhol explored in his work. “I've always thought,” Warhola told CNA, “that there’s two personas: there's the Andrew Warhola persona that I, for the most part, got to know, and the Andy Warhol persona.” “And I think that the Andy Warhol persona that almost gave my uncle the permission to do the things that Andrew Warhola would not feel comfortable doing or being.” “It's almost like an actor who goes out and plays a role, then they're able to act out maybe different aspects of their personality or life that they’re not totally comfortable with as their own individual,”  Donald said. “That’s just my own interpretation: I just think that maybe Uncle Andy experienced that.” Warhola also suggested that perhaps some of the character Andy Warhol became and the work the artist produced was itself a type of creation. This persona, Warhola added, grew and changed with public expectations and “wherever people took that, he was okay with it.” “Almost like he could see himself as a work of art, and let you create the narrative,” his nephew said. “‘I'll put out the information out there and you can create the narrative as you see fit. I'll be what you almost want me to be,' in some ways.” There may be another reason for allowing for a tension between his public and personae, Warhola added: business. “Also my uncle saw that controversy sells, and that if you’re getting  attention, it doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative – that's what you need to be out there.”Art as Reconciliation Towards what would be the the end of his life, however, Andrew Warhola shifted focus from feeding the expectations others had for Andy Warhol. “He wasn’t painting necessarily for other people, but was more painting from his soul, and he did a lot of various religious works,” Donald Warhola noted, bringing up “The Last Supper” paintings and the “Heaven and Hell” series. “The themes kind of changed – at least what caught my attention changed,” he said. “It seemed like again he wasn’t worried so much about ‘gee, what can I paint that everyone’s going to like?’ It was more like he was trying to make statements with his artwork.” Warhola added that while earlier in his uncle’s career, the artist was concerned with staying “totally relevant” to avoid fading from popularity like other contemporary artists, later on Warhol eventually stopped orienting his artwork around other's expectations. “At a certain point, he just figured 'I'm going to paint what I want to paint.'” “After that it was more subtle, and then I think he became more profound closer to his death.” Romaine suggested, however, that the resolution of identity and other themes in Warhol's work can be seen throughout his career – and underlying that resolution is a distinctly Catholic theme. He directed attention to the resolution of male and female identities in “Ladies and Gentlemen” and other paintings, brought together with the understanding of iconography he sees in Warhol’s corpus. The resolution, Romaine said, is “this striving for grace in a broken world.” Another example of an artistic imagining that not only elevates the base, but resolves conflict and redeems a subject, Romaine said, are the prints of Marilyn Monroe. “Marilyn Monroe at the time he paints her is a picture of identity conflict,” he said, “And in his image, I think he tries to pull her together.” “This desire in his depictions of Marilyn, to reconcile these different Marilyns with each other I think projects from his own desire in his own life of having so many internal conflicts: of being on the one hand successful, and on the other feeling like a failure, on being on the one hand desirous of relationships and being unable to realize them,” Romaine said. “These conflicts that exist at the very core of Warhol's being, then drive him to create an art in which these conflicts are reconciled. Conflicts that can’t be reconciled in life can be reconciled in a work of art.”This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 27, 2015.   Read more

Lincoln, Neb., Dec 30, 2015 / 04:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Neb. vividly remembers his father asking him what on earth he planned to do with his English degree. “Open up an English shop?” Bishop Conley said with a laugh. Most English majors can probably relate. But even today – decades after his undergraduate studies – Bishop Conley stands by his belief that a liberal arts curriculum is the foundation of a well-founded education and the true calling of the education system. “We live in an age that is so pragmatic, so utilitarian,” he said. “People go to university primarily to learn a skill in order to build a career and because of that hyper-emphasis on career paths, I think students lose out on really what universities have always been. And that is really the liberal arts.” “For students to really have a well-rounded education, to be truly educated in the best sense of the world, they need to be familiar with these great works (of Western Civilization).” A liberal arts education is precisely what Bishop Conley hopes to provide students at the University of Nebraska through his latest initiative in the Diocese of Lincoln: The Newman Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture. Starting next fall, the institute will offer fully accredited academic courses on Catholic intellectual tradition and the humanities – particularly literature, history and philosophy – through a joint initiative with the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and St. Gregory the Great Seminary in neighboring Seward, Neb. The courses are designed for students of any major and faith background. Bishop Conley inaugurated the institute in September with a discussion on wonder and a reading of poetry. However, he was quick to stress that a liberal arts education “is not just a dreamy kind of poetic education.” “We want this program to be an experience of delight and wonder; something that (students) will long to go and be immersed in,” he said. But “there is a practical aspect to this as well.” “The broader your education is and the wider read you are in literature and poetry and music … the more marketable your talent is going to be. It’s almost paradoxical! These classic works present to the students what centuries of students have benefited from.” The institute is named for Blessed John Henry Newman, who founded the Catholic University of Ireland in the 19th century. Bishop Conley described Newman as a champion for the liberal arts in education. “Newman wanted students to experience the great richness of Western Civilization,” Bishop Conley said. “A liberal education means someone who is liberated by the fullness of the truth.” Bishop Conley experienced this liberation firsthand as an undergraduate involved in the short-lived Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas. “The (program) was the impetus for my conversion to the Catholic faith,” he said. “I used to tell people that I read my way into the Catholic Church. That was true to a certain extent, but when I look back at it, it was more than that. It was the whole experience: relationships, friendships and the community I was a part of. It really had a tremendous impact on my life.” Students involved in the Integrated Humanities Program not only explored classic literature but also star-gazed, travelled the world, memorized and recited poetry together and even learned how to waltz. Bishop Conley said students can expect similar things from the Newman Institute. “This is not just an academic program,” he said. “We’re going to offer opportunities that will engage the whole person.” The Newman Institute’s thoroughly Catholic underpinning will set it apart from the Integrated Humanities program and even the humanities program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where the Institute is based. “We want to teach these courses in the full vision of philosophy, history, art, architecture, music,” he said. “And theology is woven in all of these.”This article was originally published on CNA Sept. 17, 2015 with the headline, 'What's the point of education? Bishop Conley has some ideas' Read more

Santa Fe, NM, Dec 30, 2015 / 12:26 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Billy the Kid, a notorious bank and stage-coach robber of the Wild West, met his match in the most unlikely of people when he met Sister Blandina Segale. According to legend, and to Sr. Blandina's journal and letters, one of Billy the Kid's gang members had been shot and was on the brink of death when the doctors of Trinidad, Colo. refused to treat him. Sister decided to take him in and cared for him for three months, nursing him back to health. But Billy the Kid (William Leroy) was still unhappy. Word got out that the outlaw was coming to town to scalp the four doctors of Trinidad in revenge. When he arrived, Sr. Blandina intervened, and convinced him to call off his mission on behalf of his man she had saved.   After that incident, Sr. Blandina and Billy the Kid became friends. She once visited him in jail, and he once called off a stage-coach robbery as soon as he realized Sister was one of the passengers. When she wasn't calling off outlaws, Sr. Blandina was founding schools, building hospitals, teaching and caring for orphans and the poor, and advocating for the rights of Native Americans and other minorities. All in a day’s work. Her heroic virtue and enduring works are why her cause for sainthood was opened in New Mexico last summer, earning her the title “Servant of God” and allowing people to ask for her intercession. Since then, several documents have come to light corroborating her stories, and the necessary miracle for the next big step – beatification – seems to be well on its way. “Sainthood isn’t about an award, it isn’t about honoring, it’s about helping the faithful know that there is a source of God’s grace being worked on Earth,” said Allen Sanchez, president and CEO for CHI St. Joseph's Children in Albuquerque, which Sr. Blandina founded. Sanchez also serves as the petitioner for the cause of Sister’s sainthood and has studied her life extensively.Her early years Sr. Blandina, born Maria Rosa Segale, was just four years old when she emigrated with her parents from the small town of Cicagna, Italy to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1854 (she had her 5th birthday on the boat ride over). At the age of 16, Maria Rosa joined the Sisters of Charity and took the name Sr. Blandina. When she was just 22 years old, she was sent – alone – to Trinidad in Colo. territory to teach in the public school there. A few years later, she was sent further south, first to Santa Fe and then to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was probably quite an adjustment, Sanchez said, going from Europe and the more settled parts of America to the still very rough-and-tumble west. While in New Mexico, Sr. Blandina helped found the public health care system and the public school system by building the first hospitals and schools in Albuquerque, often asking for the temporary release of prisoners to help her with the labor.   Much of what is known about Sr. Blandina’s life comes from a series of letters she wrote her sister, Sr. Justina Segale, who was back in Ohio. The compiled correspondences, which span the years of 1872-1894, were published ten years before Sr. Blandina’s death in 1941. “You’re able to see the history of New Mexico happening within her interactions,” Sanchez said.Sister stops a lynch mob To open a cause for sainthood, examples of heroic virtue of the person must be shown. The specific example of heroic virtue that her petitioners are using involves another story that could only take place in the Wild West; the story that earned her the title “The Fastest Nun in the West” from a 1966 CBS feature on the incident. Sr. Blandina was teaching school in New Mexico when one of her pupils told her, “Pa’s shot a man, and they’re going to hang him.”    That’s when Sr. Blandina went to work. She met with the shooter, and was able to convince him to write a confession. She then met with the dying man, and convinced him to forgive his shooter – in person – before he passed away. After the two men were reconciled, Sr. Blandina then had to face down the lynch mob that was coming to kill the shooter, who, because of Sister, was instead taken to the circuit court and was given life in prison. After nine months, he was released to go back home to care for his four children. “She disarms them from their guns, their hanging rope and their hate,” Sanchez said of sister and the lynch mob. “She must have been charming to them!” he added. “I think they would fall in love with her and do what she would ask them to do, because she cared for them and she honestly was able to see the dignity of every human being from the innocent orphans to the guilty outlaws.” Sr. Blandina also made several trips to Washington, D.C. to meet with legislators and to advocate on behalf of the Native Americans, whose reservation boundaries were being drawn at the time. And although her own life is being evaluated for sainthood, Sr. Blandina herself knew all about the canonization process – she helped to petition to Rome for the cause of two different saints in her lifetime; St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Kateri Tekakwitha. She also helped bring now-St. Katherine Drexel and her sisters to the West to help serve the Native American populations.The next step In order to be beatified – one step away from canonization – there needs to be proof of an otherwise – inexplicable miracle brought about through that person’s intercession. There are several possible examples of this being explored, which makes those petitioning for Sr. Blandina hopeful that her cause will advance quickly. “We know of a baby that was born prematurely with a malfunctioning valve in the heart and collapsed lungs,” Sanchez said. “This family immediately contacted us, said they were praying the Sr. Blandina novena for the baby. The doctors had very little hope for the baby living, but four days later they couldn’t find the problem in the heart, it was as if it didn’t exist to begin with. Doctors are saying it’s inexplicable, so we’re pursuing that, there’s many stories like that that are being pursued to see if Sr. Blandina was involved.” The example of her life on earth is also important for the faithful today, Sanchez said, because Sr. Blandina knew how to address both immediate problems as well as more systemic problems of social justice. “She would follow through from the charity to the social justice,” he said. “For example, she would help feed and house the railway workers, but then she would also ask why the railway workers weren’t being cared for. And that’s the call for us today. Charity is important, that’s where you start, and then you move to the social justice from there.” Sister’s cause for canonization may take several years, depending on the approval of her heroic virtue and miracles attributed to her intercession, but Sanchez said the board that is petitioning her cause is hopeful that things will progress quickly. “I’d say we’re more than halfway through the diocesan phase. For her to be called ‘venerable’, we just have to prove her heroic virtue,” he said. If he had to describe her personality, Sanchez said, he would say she was tough but spunky, holy but unafraid of conflict. “She wasn’t afraid of conflict and to roll up her sleeves and get the work done,” he said. “And she was always giving credit to the Gospel, to Jesus’ work.” The best part of the process, Sanchez said, has been getting to know Sr. Blandina. “I didn’t know this was going to be so fun and so inspiring,” he said. “And I really know her; she’s become my best friend.”This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 1, 2015. Read more

Washington D.C., Dec 30, 2015 / 10:04 am (CNA).- Of the countless Catholic couples who have come through Father T.G. Morrow's office in Washington D.C. for marriage counseling, two remain imprinted in the priest's mind even today. In many ways, these two Catholic couples were the ideal; they were open to life, they formed their children in the faith and they frequented the sacraments. But both of these marriages fell apart. The culprit? Anger. “Anger is a poison,” Fr. Morrow, a moral theologian and author of “Overcoming Sinful Anger” (Sophia Press, 2014) told CNA. “If a husband and a wife are angry with each other a lot, it destroys the relationship. It makes it so painful that people want to get out of that relationship.” Everyone experiences the feeling of anger. It's a natural, uncontrollable response to the behavior of others, he said. And anger can sometimes be righteous – St. Thomas Aquinas once said anger that's aligned with reason is praiseworthy. But most often that natural response of anger morphs into sinful anger, which is motivated by a desire for revenge, the priest noted. And this sinful anger has a devastating effect on relationships. “It's extremely important that people realize that (anger) can be a very serious thing, especially if they have major outbursts that really hurt other people,” Fr. Morrow said. Anger is so destructive that many marriage experts recommend couples have five positive interactions for every negative interaction.   “This anger, when it’s expressed badly, is a poison to every relationship,” he said. “Married people need especially to be careful about this…to work on this and to overcome this.” Since the feeling of anger is natural and unavoidable, Fr. Morrow said it is important to know how to express anger or displeasure in an effective and positive way. The first step: decide if it is worth getting angry. “People get angry about little, trifling things,” he said. “You have to say “Is this worth getting angry about?” If not, then you have to let it go. Just forget it.” If your anger is justified and a confrontation would promote the good of the other, use humor or diplomacy to express your anger. If a confrontation would not promote the good of the other, then Fr. Morrow suggested offering that anger to God as a sacrifice for your sins and the sins of the world. “(Anger) won’t go away automatically in one try,” he explained. “We have to keep giving it to God as a sacrifice.” Fr. Morrow said this approach to anger does not mean every person should suddenly become a doormat who is too cowardly to express dissatisfaction with the actions of another.   He used the example of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. Many of the men in Tagaste at the time had violent tempers, and St. Monica’s husband was no exception. When he would come home and yell at St. Monica, she would stay quiet. Some time after her husband’s explosion of anger, St. Monica would approach her husband and calmly address his treatment of her and his complaints. “She was the furthest thing from a doormat,” Fr. Morrow explained. “She had a specific goal that she wanted to become holy and she wanted to covert her son. She pursued her goals ardently and as a result she converted her violent husband and eventually converted Augustine.” For more information, check out Fr. Morrow’s book “Overcoming Sinful Anger” (Sophia Press, 2014). The 102-page book reads like a manual and draws from Fr. Morrow’s experience as a marriage counselor and spiritual director and his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. Photo credit: www.shutterstock.comThis article was originally published on CNA Aug. 14, 2015. Read more

Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec 29, 2015 / 03:55 pm (CNA).- An up-and-coming Catholic musician in Michigan aims to expose listeners to God in the same way she did during her school years – through beauty found in “truly good” forms of art. &ld... Read more

Denver, Colo., Dec 29, 2015 / 05:41 am (CNA).- New York Times columnist, best-selling author and all-around pundit David Brooks made headlines earlier this year for his bold new book making the case for a societal return to morality.   Perhaps lesser known, however, is some of the inspiration behind the work – a humble priest described by Brooks as an “insanely joyful” man who sparked a nagging, internal question. Why was this cleric so happy and fulfilled? What followed was a meticulously researched and engaging book which poses a provocative thesis: we as a modern society are cultivating outwardly impressive but ultimately superficial “resume virtues” – not character. And it's costing us dearly, the author says, both personally and communally. In a conversation with CNA editors, Brooks recounted his experience with the priest along with his thoughts on why his book – “The Road to Character” (Random House/2015) – is so important, and how it speaks to everything from politics, to religion to education. He also gave a hat tip to Pope Francis, whom he called “the embodiment of being a Christian.” Below is the full Q&A, edited for clarity.You're very brave – all of your recent headlines explicitly touting the need for “morality.” Your book's glaring reference to “sin.” Has there been any fallout from this? What's the reaction been from your peers? A friend of mine who is an editor at another publishing house – a really good editor – called me and said, you know, I love the way you talk about your book, but I wouldn't use the word “sin” – it's just such a downer, so you should use the word “insensitive.” I of course think that “insensitive” is very paltry substitute for the word “sin,” so there has been some pushback on that. And, there’s some hostility towards religion in general. The book is not super religious, but it does have religious characters, and certainly religious words and religious context. But I'd say the main reaction has just been welcoming. People are hungry for a conversation. And so, whether people are Christian, Jewish, atheist – I've been sort of surprised by the general desire to be in this general field of conversation.When did you realize in your own life that you'd been building “resume virtues” instead of forming your character? There wasn't one big thing – but there were certain moments in my life when I saw people who had spiritual and moral gifts that I lacked. One of them was a guy named Monsignor Ray East, who is a priest in the Anacostia neighborhood in D.C. – a very poor neighborhood. He was part of a lunch I do every year for Catholic Relief Services, which I do with my friend, Mark Shields. And every year, Monsignor East would give the benediction. He was just insanely joyful – such an insanely joyful man, and I was just so struck by him. Just being in his presence would lift me up for a few weeks. I had the realization that whatever I had achieved in career terms, I haven't achieved the inner joy that he possesses. And I was just curious: how do you get that?In your book, you talk about a cultural shift over the last 50 plus years away from humility – and a natural sense of self-effacement people had – into the notion of the “big me.” What caused this? There are many aspects, of course. One of them derives from the consumer society, that teaches that you have these desires and you should satisfy them, and so you should just go around satisfying your desires. And so I think you come to believe that your desires are good and to have tremendous trust in them – and that is a shift away from what people thought in previous centuries. Second, after WWII, people had been through deprivation and had seen a lot of darkness, from the Holocaust and just the death that WWII created. (A series of books from the time promoted the idea) that when we look inside ourselves, we see that our nature is beautiful and full of good and that we need to love ourselves more. That too is a sharp break from the biblical tradition which says that we are broken – so there was both a commercial and philosophical shift that happened.A recent Pew survey documents the rise of “nones” – religiously unaffiliated people – in the U.S. With the general decline of those who identify as religious, would you say this correlates to a general lack of emphasis on character? They go along together – character is the ability to commit to things outside of yourself, whether it is a political movement, or faith, or friendship, or a love affair, or a cause. I think people have a harder time committing. They are more autonomous, more individual, they have FOMO (fear of missing out) so they don't want to ruin any option, and that leads to a general era of de-commitment. People are walking away from political parties, from organized faith – they are just living more individually. And I think that's due to our inability to commit to things.What about education? How does the school system help or hinder your concept of the need for more virtuous people? I think obviously Catholic schools can teach us specific code, specific theology, but public schools really can't. I do think that they can familiarize students with the religions and the faiths and the philosophies that are out there. So what I do when I teach a course is say: here are a bunch of moral ontologies, different systems that people have come up with. There is a Greek system favoring honor and courage, the Jewish faith favoring obedience and law, the Christian system favoring grace and humility – I'm not going to tell you which one to pick, but here are a bunch of systems, do what seems true to you. But we don't even give students the words or an education there. I think we have to at least make them literate in spirituality and moral matters.Let's move to politics. Many of the U.S. founding fathers either implied or explicitly said that democracy will only work if we are a nation comprised of people with character. What are the implications of your thesis for the American experiment? I think that our founders were very clear on that. A healthy country requires a decent citizenry. And they also believed that statecraft is soulcraft – that in forming a government we’re helping to shape the character of the people within it. I think as we’ve lost the whole vocabulary and the whole focus, we now focus a lot on economics and economics as really the gateway between all social thinking and government policy. And that’s not true – that doesn’t evaluate what people seek...And so we've kind of neutered the public square. I'm not the kind of person who thinks we're in a state of national decline or anything like that. I think people find ways to behave decently towards one another as best as they can. But I just think we’re inarticulate and that we could be living satisfying and more fulfilling lives if we actually had words and more – greater – self-consciousness and better road maps for how to lead a life of depth and kindness.Is social media to blame for some of our narcissistic, “big me” tendencies as a society? I'm not hugely fearful about it. I don't think Facebook is making us lonelier. I don't think video games are making us more violent. The two things I do think are: first, social media and the desire for likes and attention on Instagram and such is amplifying the self where we are broadcasting ourselves and just sort of being big about ourselves and win fame. And I do think social media damages our attention span. I've certainly noticed that in myself where I have trouble reading for long periods of time without checking my phone. So I do think that's probably the most harmful thing that’s happened to us. Moral reflection takes stillness. You've got to hear that soft voice inside...So I think those are the two things I worry about.What, in a concrete, practical sense can your readers take away from your book? What effect do you want to have on people? First, I just want them to live in this space and think about this world. Second, I think we become better people by copying others. So I hope they’re excited by some of the characters and they just want to live a life like Dorothy Day or live a life like Philip Randolph. I think that’s how we are motivated – by exemplars. As for the practical things, some of them are mundane. I have a friend who when he goes home at night he asks how he did in his struggle against his core weakness that day and he resolves ways to do better. I think you can surround yourself by friends and also by heroes – people you can put on your walls in your room who remind what a decent, good life looks like. I think you can have discussion groups raising the subjects of: how do you turn suffering into a moral occasion? How do you build your relationships? So there's a spiritual component. I think you learn from Samuel Johnson the virtue of reading and how just having a settled philosophy of life is important in having and living a life of character. You can learn from Francis Perkins about a vocation. You can ask, what is the mortal world around me calling me to do right now? I think there are a few different things that can be done. There's no seven step process to doing it but there's a lifelong journey that I'm hoping people find different avenues towards.As a Catholic news entity, we'd be remiss if we didn't ask your opinion on Pope Francis... I have a quote in the book from Dave Jolly, a veterinarian, who says ‘the message is the person’ - the way we communicate, what we value is not necessarily from the theology that we found, but by the way we act, the way we are. And I think Pope Francis is the perfect exemplification of that. I'm not a huge expert in Catholic theology but I like the way he handles himself and I admire the way he behaves in matters large and small. So to me, he simply is the embodiment of being a Christian. He radiates love, radiates joy, shows mercy, shows empathy. That's the way Jesus asks Christians to live and Pope Francis lives that way. And so the message is the person.  This article was originally published on CNA May 21, 2015. Read more

Denver, Colo., Dec 28, 2015 / 12:02 pm (CNA).- When Amendment 64 legalized the sale of recreational marijuana to anyone over the age of 21 in Colorado, Dr. Christopher Thurstone’s work became even more complex. A child psychiatrist and medical d... Read more