Groups forming in archdiocese to promote beauty and art

Katie Sahm, left, helps Gabriella Einterz, a third-grade student at Lumen Christi School in Indianapolis, with an art project on March 15. Sahm, who helped found Indy Catholic Artists, teaches art at the school. (Photo by Sean Gallagher) Click for a larger version.

By Sean Gallagher

From its earliest days, the Church has encouraged artists to create works that communicate the beauty and truth of the Gospel.

Reflected in paintings on the walls of ancient catacombs to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from Gregorian chant to the Masses of Mozart, the faithful throughout the world have expressed their love of Christ and sought to evangelize through beauty.

Three organizations based in Indianapolis that promote the work and fellowship of Catholic artists are carrying on that ancient tradition.

The Catholic Writers Guild, headed by Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary parishioner Ann Lewis of Indianapolis, is a national organization that encourages Catholic poets and prose writers. Lewis hopes to establish a local chapter of the guild.

Indy Catholic Artists is a recently established group that provides spiritual support and fellowship for Catholic visual artists in the archdiocese. Father John Hollowell, associate pastor of St. Malachy Parish in Brownsburg and chaplain of Cardinal Ritter Jr./Sr. High School in Indianapolis, helped found the fledgling organization and serves as its chaplain.

And the Ministry through the Arts Project (MAP) was founded recently by Jonathan Stahl, also a Holy Rosary parishioner. This organization seeks to promote the new evangelization through encouraging the work of Catholic artists in the archdiocese and beyond.

All three leaders see the movement of the Holy Spirit in the fact that these organizations have been started around the same time.

“It certainly seems like the Holy Spirit is at work here,” Father Hollowell said. “We see all the time in our Church that when there’s a need, new energy will spring up and there are new wellsprings of grace. You usually see it coming from lots of different people.”

Catholic Writers Guild

Ann Lewis and a group of other Catholic writers across the U.S. and Canada came together in 2007 to found the Catholic Writers Guild (www.catholicwritersguild.org).

Prior to that time, Lewis had worked as a writer of children’s stories based on characters from Star Wars and various comic books. But she wanted something more.

“I felt that I was missing a part of myself,” said Lewis, 45, president of the guild. “I wanted to write my own material, first of all. But I also wanted to write [about] my faith. And it’s hard as a fiction writer to write about your faith and get it out there because there is a secular resistance to material that has any sort of religious theme to it.”

Because of the desire to have her faith inform her work and the challenges of getting it published, she and other Catholic writers who had belonged to an online group went a step further and founded the guild.

It sponsors an annual conference that includes workshops to help writers hone their craft and gives them a forum in which to build friendships. Those relationships are then fostered through online discussions throughout the year.

“You realize that you’re not alone,” Lewis said. “That’s major. There are other people that want to do what you want to do. And you can help each other to do that.”

Since the guild was founded, Lewis published a collection of short stories with Sherlock Holmes as the main character. The collection is titled, Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.

In addition to helping her and other writers in their work, the example of other guild members has nurtured Lewis’ life of faith.

“It has made me really focus on the grace of going about frequenting the sacraments and spending some time in adoration,” she said. “These are things that I really never would have considered doing before. It’s made me grow in my spiritual life. I talk to God more because I need him to talk to me.”

Lewis said that guild members who live close to each other in cities across the country have formed local chapters and sponsored workshops throughout the year as opportunities for support. She hopes that Catholic writers in the archdiocese can start a chapter.

People interested in learning more about the Catholic Writers Guild and establishing a chapter in the archdiocese can contact Lewis at president@catholicwritersguild.com.

Indy Catholic Artists

Before Father John Hollowell entered the seminary, he had focused his life on sports and working as a math teacher. At that point, the arts weren’t important to him.

But then a spiritual director challenged him to explore the relationship of beauty and the life of faith.

Now, almost three years after his ordination, Father Hollowell said that art is at the heart of his priestly life and ministry.

“The biggest confirmation for me as a priest has been to see the differences in places where there is beauty and where the music is beautiful, and the impact that beauty has on people and in my own celebration of the Mass,” he said. “It’s no longer a theory that I read in Pope Benedict [XVI’s writings]. It’s something that I’ve come to realize is very much true.”

As he came to know other young adult Catholic artists in the archdiocese, Father Hollowell explored with them the possibility of starting a group that would provide spiritual support and fellowship. Earlier this year, those discussions bore fruit in the founding of Indy Catholic Artists.

The group was promoted through e-mail and the Internet social networking website Facebook.

Their first event was a Feb. 17 holy hour of eucharistic adoration at St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis during which Father Hollowell preached about the interrelationship of faith and art. Afterward, there was time for fellowship.

Katie Sahm, who helped form the group with Father Hollowell and Melissa Scarlett, a photographer and graphic designer, was at the event, which drew approximately 30 people.

“It was really inspiring for everybody,” said Sahm, a Holy Rosary parishioner. “We just shared what we do, our life experiences, and how important and inspiring meeting each other was.”

While Scarlett and Sahm appreciate the chance to build relationships with other artists through Indy Catholic Artists, they also see a deeper purpose to the group.

“I don’t think this group will be about light topics, and just talking about why things are pretty and why that’s important,” said Scarlett, a member of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Indianapolis. “It’s much deeper and we want to tap into that, especially as Catholics. Art and beauty are a huge part of our tradition.”

Father Hollowell hopes that the new group will help “Catholic artists realize that their art has a role to play in bringing people to Christ, and that it’s not simply secondary to who they are as people. It’s the tool that Christ is calling them to use to bring other people to him.”

For more information about Indy Catholic Artists, send an e-mail to Father Hollowell at fatherjohnhollowell@gmail.com.

Ministry through the Arts Project

Jonathan Stahl grew up in a Catholic family, but said that practicing the faith wasn’t important to him during his childhood and teenage years.

Then, as a 20-year-old student studying writing and theater at the University of Indianapolis, he met an aspiring actress who related her love for beauty with her Catholic faith.

“She went to Mass and thought that it was the most beautiful and most powerful thing in the world,” Stahl said. “It kind of shocked me that all that could be said about the Mass. It was through that direct encounter with beauty and of another Catholic artist that I really got set on fire with my faith.”

Now 29, Stahl hopes to bring others closer to Christ and the Church through art in the Ministry through the Arts Project (MAP) that he founded last August (www.mapindy.org).

“It all comes down to the new evangelization,” he said. “Certainly, I want to entertain people. I want them to have a good time. We as Catholics like to enjoy and celebrate life.

“But if the new evangelization is going to work, if it’s going to be effective, artists will have to take a leadership role in it.”

Stahl hopes that MAP will encourage Catholic artists in a broad variety of media, and help make beauty and the arts a more conscious part of the life of faith of individual Catholics and parishes in the archdiocese and beyond.

One of the ways that this will happen is through MAP’s sponsorship of Catholic arts festivals.

Stahl has been in contact with people involved in Indy Catholic Artists, and hopes that the two organizations will work together to promote beauty and art in the Church in central and southern Indiana.

“I don’t think that it’s a surprise that so many groups are starting up,” Stahl said. “I think that’s the way the Holy Spirit works. But it’s not a mystical snap of the finger. It’s the incredible men and women encouraging us to go out and use our vocations to further the Gospel.” †