Yet over time, the marriage between art and faith grew stale — the Vatican’s culture minister even called it a “divorce” — with the Roman Catholic Church finding itself estranged from the art world it did so much to create.

Now, in a bid to revive its ancient tradition of arts patronage, the Holy See will participate with its own pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, a leading international arts festival.

The exhibition, unveiled on Tuesday (May 14) at the Vatican, will feature works by contemporary artists taking their cues from the Book of Genesis.

It’s an about-face for the church, which has often found itself as the subject of some controversial – some would say blasphemous – works of contemporary art.

The most famous case is probably “The Ninth Hour,” a 1999 sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan depicting Pope John Paul II being hit by a meteorite.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s culture minister who was considered a strong contender during the recent papal conclave, has made reconciliation with the art world a top priority since his appointment in 2007.

In 2009, Ravasi promoted a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and some of the world’s leading artists in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, 45 years after the first such event hosted by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

The Vatican first tried its hand at commissioning art two years later, when it called on 60 artists – from painters to architects to movie directors – for a show to mark the 60^th anniversary of Benedict’s ordination to the priesthood.

At the 2013 Venice Biennale, the Vatican didn’t commission artists to create religious art, such as crucifixes or other works that could be used for church liturgies — though this will eventually be an objective of the Vatican arts patronage, according to Ravasi.

Uncreation photo courtesy Pontifical Council for Culture (http://bit.ly/10lOLTr)

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Rather, under the title “Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation,” the Vatican asked artists to reflect on the Genesis account of the creation of the world and the fall of humanity.

The artists’ personal religious faith was not a factor in their consideration, Vatican officials said.

Italy’s multimedia group Studio Azzurro was entrusted with the theme of “creation,” while Czech photographer Josef Koudelka, who photographed the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague, was chosen to represent “un-creation.”

His photographs “expose an abandoned, wounded world, and at the same time are able to transform fragments of reality into works of art,” said Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums, who curated the exhibit.

American painter Lawrence Carroll was assigned to the theme of “re-creation,” working with “salvaged materials,” according to Paolucci.

The Vatican pavilion will cost nearly $1 million, covered entirely by donations and corporate sponsors.

According to Ravasi, the Vatican’s participation at Venice Biennale is just “a first step” in re-establishing an “authentic dialogue” between art and faith. Whether there will be further artistic ventures will be up to Pope Francis, he added.

For now, the Vatican is considering participating at Milan’s Universal Exposition in 2015.

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St. Peter’s Square during Pope Francis’ inaugural Mass on Tuesday (March 19) at the Vatican. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini

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Data published in the 2013 Statistical Yearbook of the Church also show that while the number of priests in the Americas and in Europe is declining compared to the overall Catholic population, those losses were offset by increasing ranks of permanent deacons.

There are now about 41,000 permanent deacons worldwide, a 40 percent increase over the past decade. The vast majority of them — 97.4 percent — live in the Americas or in Europe.

According to Maureen Tilley of Fordham University, the diaconate is becoming increasingly appealing to “older ‘second-career’ men,” as younger men remain reluctant to take the vow of celibacy required by the priesthood.

“The number of second-career vocations has been booming not just among Catholics but also among U.S. Protestants,” she said.

Moreover, according to Tilley, high unemployment may be another factor, leading men to consider a “broader variety of vocations such as volunteer service including a call to the diaconate.”

According to Vatican data, the Catholic population worldwide surpassed 1.2 billion in 2011.

But while growth in the Americas and Europe mirrored the growth of the general population, Catholic growth in Africa and Asia was almost double the regions’ population growth.

The world’s 413,418 priests at the end of 2011 showed a slight increase from the previous year, continuing a trend of slow growth that began in 2000 after decades of decline.

A rapid increase in vocations in Africa and Asia — to the tune of more than 3,000 new priests in a year — balanced the shrinking ranks of the priesthood in Europe. In the Americas, the number of priests remained stable.

Data provided by the Vatican’s statistics office doesn’t distinguish between North and South America.

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Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd upon leaving St. Joseph’s Church in New York following an ecumenical prayer service in 2008. RNS photo by Gregory A. Shemitz.

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Benedict XVI, the emeritus pope, returned to the Vatican on May 2, two months after his resignation, while Tawadros is only the second Coptic pope to visit the Vatican, after the historic visit of Pope Shenouda III to Pope Paul VI in 1973.

Tawadros – on his first foreign trip since he was elected in November – is staying at the Vatican’s guesthouse where Pope Francis is also living. Benedict is now living in a revamped convent a 5-minute walk away, but there were no plans for the two men to meet.

During his stay, the Coptic pope will meet with the heads of various Vatican departments as well as with the Coptic community in Italy.

Pope Francis waves to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday (March 19) at the Vatican. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini

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Francis, 76, and Tawadros, 60, talked in private for 15 minutes and then held a joint prayer service in the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater chapel. The Catholic pope was dressed in the traditional white cassock while the Coptic pope wore a long black robe. In their public remarks, they addressed each other as “Your Holiness.”

Copts, who trace the origin of their church to the evangelist Saint Mark in the first century, make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, while Catholics are a much smaller minority.

Since the Arab Spring revolution that overthrew Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, both Christian communities have been the target of increasing violence as Egypt’s political crisis fueled social instability.

In their public speeches, the two Christian leaders didn’t refer explicitly to the increasing number of sectarian attacks against Christian churches in Egypt.

But Francis did talk about an “ecumenism of suffering” among Christians. He added that in the “broader context of society and relations between Christians and non-Christians … from hard suffering can blossom forth forgiveness and reconciliation and peace.”

In the joint prayer service, the two popes prayed for “all countries and communities which are victims of conflict and violence” and for “peace and harmony without discrimination and injustice.”

Since his election last November, Tawadros has sought closer relations among Egypt’s Christians and has promoted the creation of the first Council of Christian Churches in the country.

In his speech on Friday, Tawadros invited Pope Francis to visit Egypt. But an official invitation from the Egyptian government would be required for the trip to take place.

The Coptic Church is the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Tawadros has harshly criticized the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that rules Egypt, accusing president Mohamad Morsi of neglecting the plight of the country’s religious minorities.

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Pope Francis waves from the pope-mobile during his inauguration Mass at St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday (March 19) at the Vatican. World leaders flew in for Pope Francis’ inauguration Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday where Latin America’s first pontiff will receive the formal symbols of papal power. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini

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The Argentine pontiff addressed some 800 leaders of female religious orders who are in Rome for the meeting of the International Union of Superiors General.

Speaking about the nuns’ vow of chastity, the pope stressed that it must be a “fertile” chastity, generating “spiritual children in the Church.”

With one of the more colorful off-the-cuff expressions that have become a hallmark of his young pontificate, Francis said that “the consecrated are mothers: they must be mothers and not ‘spinsters’!”

“Forgive me if I talk like this, but this maternity of consecrated life, this fruitfulness, is important!” he added.

Echoing a theme that has often resonated in his public speeches, the Jesuit pope also lashed out against “careerists” and “social climbers” who “use the Church … as a springboard for their interests and personal ambitions,” saying they do a “great damage” to the church.

The Vatican-mandated overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella organization for U.S. nuns, loomed large over the May 3-7 meeting of Catholic sisters, which is devoted to discussing the issues of authority within the Catholic Church.

On Sunday, Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, who heads the Vatican office that oversees religious orders, told the meeting that he had been left in the dark about the Vatican investigation into LCWR. The Vatican’s top spokesman on Tuesday said it was “not justified” to infer that there was a “divergence” on how to deal with American nuns.

In his Wednesday speech, the pope reminded the nuns that it is “absurd” for religious women to think of carrying their vocation “outside of the church.”

“It isn’t possible that a consecrated woman or man might ‘feel’ themselves not to be with the church,” he said.

After the pope’s speech, a group of nuns was allowed to briefly greet the pope personally. Sister Florence Deacon, president of the LCWR, “was present at the audience but did not have the opportunity to greet the pope,” according to LCWR spokeswoman Annmarie Sanders.

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Jeanne Monahan, new president of March for Life, is spearheading efforts for the annual March for Life, the large anti-abortion protest on the National Mall that will mark the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. RNS photo by Adelle Banks.

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Jeanne Monahan, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, and Lila Rose of Live Action will be among those who will march through central Rome on Sunday morning, from the Colosseum up to Castel Sant’Angelo, a few hundred meters from the Vatican.

While the annual March for Life in Washington — which celebrated its 40^th anniversary in January — attracts hundreds of thousands of people and heavy media coverage, in Europe anti-abortion movements have often kept a lower profile and haven’t been able to shape social discourse as in the United States.

Polls regularly show high levels of support for abortion rights throughout Europe. A January poll by Eurispes found that 64 percent of Italians favor legalizing abortion pills.

In Italy, abortion is currently legal in hospitals up to the third month of pregnancy.

Last year, Italy’s March for Life was held for the first time in Rome. In 2011, the very first march wended through the small northern town of Desenzano del Garda.

Around 15,000 people took part in the 2012 March, according to organizers who predict significantly larger attendance this year.

The president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, praised the initiative in a letter.

The march is a way of “reawakening consciences” and “mobilizing men of good will” against abortion, he wrote.

Italy’s March for Life is part of a wider movement that has seen European anti-abortion movements become bolder in recent years.

In 2012, anti-abortion groups from 20 different countries launched a petition asking the European Parliament to recognize that life begins at conception. They aim to collect 1 million signatures from each of at least seven of the 27 countries of the European Union by November.

In an interview with Religion News Service, Monahan said that while some of what makes the March for Life successful in the U.S. can be exported to Italy, “each culture is unique,” and this must be taken into account when trying to replicate the American model overseas.

Monahan, who will be honored by the organizers of Rome’s rally, said that what the American experience can teach Italy’s and Europe’s anti-abortion movements is “getting the grass roots together” to “put a little bit of bully pressure on our legislators.”

“We can do something through our legislators and really feel results; it really makes the difference,” she said.

For Virginia Coda Nunziante, chief organizer of Italy’s March for Life, the idea for an Italian rally came from her several years of participation in the Washington march.

“We saw how it really mattered for (American) civil society, and we decided to try to fill this void,” she said.

Coda Nunziante said Italy’s anti-abortion movements want to learn from their American counterparts’ success in “creating a culture of life, mobilizing youth and getting across to the wider public that abortion really kills innocents.”

But she acknowledges that funding for Italy’s march falls far short of that for the American anti-abortion movement.

“We have been able to get some politicians on board. We want to pressure politicians, because they are the ones who change the law,” she said.

For Monahan, American and European anti-abortion movements “can help each other and learn.”

Her main advice for the organizers of Italy’s March is to avoid trying to “twist people’s arms” in getting their messages across: “We don’t have to manipulate people or convince them. Truth is very attractive and our role is only to bring it into the light.”

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St. Peter’s Square – Rome. During the process to elect a new pope, Cardinals will stay in the Casa Santa Marta, a $20 million hotel-style residence inside the Vatican walls built by Pope John Paul II. Cardinals may not leave the Vatican grounds until a conclave concludes. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons (http://bit.ly/XqMJiW) / Public Domain.

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The Vatican’s Institute for the Works of Religion, known as the Vatican Bank, has a long history of secrecy and scandals, and it has reportedly been involved in several shady operations during the course of its history. In recent years, top bank officials have been put under investigation by Italian magistrates for alleged money laundering.

For decades, the Vatican Bank operated outside of international oversight, thanks to the Holy See’s status as an independent state.

Facing increasing international scrutiny, the Vatican set up an independent financial watchdog, the Financial Intelligence Authority, in April 2011 as part of its effort to bring its financial practices in line with international standards.

The move was partially a consequence of new rules set by the European Union that threatened to shut the Vatican out of financial markets if it didn’t comply with international regulations against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The new memorandum of understanding between the Financial Information Authority and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will allow the Vatican to “strengthen its efforts to fight money laundering and terrorism financing globally,” according to a Vatican statement.

“This is a clear indication the Holy See and the Vatican City State take international responsibilities to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism very seriously, and that we are cooperating at the highest levels,” said the director of the Vatican agency, Rene Brulhart.

“The Vatican has shown that it is a credible partner internationally and has made a clear commitment in the exchange of information in this fight.”

The Financial Intelligence Authority has signed information-sharing agreements with three other countries, and 20 more similar accords are currently being negotiated.

The Vatican Bank has assets estimated as high as $9 billion. Last year, it contributed with a $61 million gift to the Vatican budget.

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In a story first reported by National Catholic Reporter, Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for religious orders, said on Sunday (May 5) that the tensions sparked by the Vatican crackdown of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious caused him “much pain.” Photo courtesy Cristina Gallo/Agência Senado via Wikimedia Commons (http://bit.ly/16coew3)

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In a story first reported by National Catholic Reporter, Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for religious orders, said on Sunday (May 5) that the tensions sparked by the Vatican crackdown of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious caused him “much pain.”

Braz de Aviz’ remarks reflect the turf battles encumbering the Vatican, as Pope Francis sets about to reform the Roman Curia, or central bureaucracy, and add a new layer of intrigue to one of the major stories involving the American church in recent years.

In April 2012, the Vatican issued a “doctrinal assessment” that criticized the LCWR for not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

The Vatican also chided the organization for “serious doctrinal problems” among many LCWR members, and said LCWR conferences suffered from “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain was appointed to overhaul the group’s practices and perceived theological ambiguities.

While the choice to discipline U.S. sisters became one of the defining acts of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Francis last month “reaffirmed the findings” of the Vatican investigation and the “program of reform” for LCWR, which represents the majority of America’s 57,000 nuns.

Speaking at the meeting of the International Union of Women Superiors, Braz de Aviz said the decision to issue the critical report on U.S. sisters was taken without even informing or consulting his office.

When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, informed him of its findings, Braz de Aviz said, the investigation was already completed.

At a subsequent meeting with CDF leaders, Braz de Aviz complained about the lack of information-sharing between Vatican departments, according to the NCR report.

“We will obey what the Holy Father wants and what will be decided through you … But we must say that this material which should be discussed together has not been discussed together,” Braz de Aviz told the then-CDF chief, American Cardinal William Levada.

In an official interview given during the event, the cardinal said that “dialogue” between LCWR and the Vatican is “possible,” noting that “it isn’t just a matter of ‘we are right, they are wrong,’” he said.

Braz de Aviz also expressed his appreciation for the Rome gathering’s decision to discuss issues of authority within the Catholic Church. “It is a problem I feel a lot too, not in order to weaken authority but to put (authority) under a higher light,” he said.

According to Vatican Radio, the cardinal spoke of the “need for a wide-ranging review of structures of power within the Catholic Church.”

Francis is expected to briefly meet with a group of women superiors, including LCWR’s president Sister Florence Deacon, on Wednesday (May 7).

During his Sunday homily at the conference, Braz de Aviz also described the process that led to the appointment of his new deputy, José Rodríguez Carballo, in what is Francis’ only appointment within the Roman Curia so far.

The No. 2 position had been left vacant after Benedict transferred Archbishop Joseph Tobin to Indianapolis last October.

Francis asked Braz de Aviz to present him with a list of three names, and only asked who was Braz de Aviz’ preferred choice. The cardinal then named Carballo as his favorite candidate, and the pope simply accepted his suggestion.

“It’s a very simple way of doing things … it doesn’t overcomplicate things,” Braz de Aviz said.

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(Left) Pope Benedict photo by Gregory A. Shemitz, (right) Pope Francis photo by Andrea Sabbadini.

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Benedict, 86, flew by helicopter from the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, where he spent the past two months since his resignation on Feb. 28.

All the Vatican’s top officials, including Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, showed up at the Vatican’s helipad to welcome Benedict, while Francis chose to meet the the former pope in front of the Mater Ecclesiae convent where Benedict will live out his retirement.

Francis greeted his predecessor “with great and fraternal cordiality,” according to a Vatican statement, before the two men stopped briefly in the convent chapel to pray.

Benedict was accompanied by his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, who is also serving Francis as prefect of the papal household, charged with setting the new pope’s schedule and arranging his audiences.

According to the Vatican’s statement, the former pope is “happy to be back in the Vatican, where he intends to dedicate himself … to the service of the church primarily through prayer.”

Benedict’s return was a low-profile event; Vatican TV didn’t cover it and the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, didn’t mention the former pope’s return in its afternoon editions.

While some church observers worry that Benedict’s presence could overshadow Francis and his course of reforms, John Thavis, a former Rome bureau chief for Catholic News Service and a frequent Vatican commentator, said the side-by-side popes shouldn’t cause a “crisis in the church.”

Thavis wrote in his blog that Benedict understands that “even an offhand remark by the retired pope … could echo within the hierarchy or across the blogosphere, and possibly be construed as criticism or divergence from the current pope.”

Before resigning, Benedict said he would “withdraw into prayer” and live his final years “hidden from the world.” He also pledged his “unconditional reverence and obedience” to his successor.

According to Rebecca Rist, a specialist in church history at the University of Reading in Britain, the two popes will have a “very cordial” relationship, unlike the 13th-century scuffles between Celestine V and his successor Boniface VIII.

Boniface persuaded Celestine that it was “in the best interests of the Vatican for him to resign,” Rist said. But Boniface, “fearing that enduring loyalties to the former pontiff could provoke a schism,” ordered Celestine imprisoned until his death.

In the small Mater Ecclesiae convent inside the Vatican walls, Benedict will be assisted by Gaenswein and four members of Memores Domini, the conservative lay group that staffed his apartment during his pontificate.

During the past two months, the convent was renovated to suit the needs of the former pope. His residence will include a guest room for his older brother Georg Ratzinger, who is also a priest.

KRE/AMB END SPECIALE

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A Resurrection scene painted by the Renaissance master Pinturicchio was restored to reveal a small depiction of naked men with feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing. A man on horseback is also visible. Photo courtesy Vatican Museums

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Writing on April 27 in the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, the director of the Vatican Museum, Antonio Paolucci, said the previously unnoticed detail was discovered in a Resurrection scene painted by the Renaissance master Pinturicchio.

Covered by centuries of soot, the restoration of the painting revealed a small depiction of naked men with feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing. A man on horseback is also visible.

According to Paolucci, Pinturicchio’s fresco dates back to 1494, just two years after Christopher Columbus “discovery” of the Americas.

The fresco is located in the so-called Borgia Apartment within the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, three rooms used by Pope Alexander VI, the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, as his personal living space.

The depiction is consistent with Columbus’ account of being greeted by naked men who painted themselves black or red and danced for the European explorers on the coast of what he believed to be Eastern Asia.

Paolucci points out that Alexander VI, a Spaniard, was in close contact with the Spanish monarchy that had financed Columbus’ voyage.

Elected in 1492, Alexander VI showed a keen interest in the newly discovered continent. In 1493, he published the document dividing the uncharted New World between Spain and Portugal, the world’s major naval powers in that time.

A Resurrection scene painted by the Renaissance master Pinturicchio was restored to reveal a small depiction of naked men with feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing. A man on horseback is also visible. Photo courtesy Vatican Museums

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In his L’Osservatore Romano article, Paolucci writes that he can’t say for sure that the men in Pinturicchio’s fresco are Native Americans. But he says that it is hard to believe the Borgia papal court would be unaware of Columbus’ discovery and account, even if very recent.

“What if the early impression of those naked men, good and even happy, who gave parrots as gifts and painted their bodies black and red, came to life in the small dancing figurines in the background of Pinturicchio’s Resurrection?” Paolucci wrote.

KRE/LEM END SPECIALE

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(Left) Pope Benedict photo by Gregory A. Shemitz, (right) Pope Francis photo by Andrea Sabbadini.

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) More than two months after his resignation, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will return to the Vatican on Thursday (May 2) to live in a small retrofitted convent.

Benedict’s return will present the Vatican with the unprecedented situation of a reigning pope and a retired pope living a short distance from each other.

The potential difficulty is compounded by the fact that Benedict’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, will move in with the former pope while he continues to serve as the prefect of the papal household, charged with managing the schedule for Pope Francis.

Benedict’s second secretary, the Rev. Alfred Xuereb, a Maltese priest, has also been serving as a personal aide to the Argentine pontiff since his election.

The two popes have already met and prayed together when Francis visited Benedict at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo. They also have often spoken on the phone, according to the Vatican.

Ahead of his resignation, Benedict, now 86, said he would “withdraw into prayer” and live his final years “hidden from the world.”

But observers fear that the staunchly conservative former pope could become a lightning rod for those who might oppose Francis’ announced reforms, especially if he ever deviated from Benedict’s precedents.

Francis set up a group of eight cardinals from around the world to advise him on the running of the church and on how to rein in the scandal-plagued Roman Curia, the church’s central bureaucracy.

The creation of the group has sparked expectations of wide-ranging reforms among Catholics.

But in an interview on the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on Tuesday (April 30), Archbishop Angelo Becciu, deputy to Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, shot down media speculations of possible reforms, saying it was “premature” to draw any conclusions.

Since his election on March 13, Pope Francis has given the papacy a distinctly different style than the aloofness of his predecessor, washing the feet of young female inmates during Holy Week and shunning the luxurious papal apartments in favor of a Vatican guesthouse.

But doctrinally, Francis has so far walked on the same path as Benedict. He recently allowed an investigation on American nuns launched by his predecessor to continue.

Announcing Benedict’s return, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, denied rumors of Benedict’s declining health. “He’s an elderly man, weakened by age, but he has no illness,” he said.

In the small Mater Ecclesiae convent inside the Vatican, Benedict will be assisted by four members of Memores Domini, the conservative lay group that staffed his apartment during his pontificate.

His apartment will include a guest room for his older brother Georg Ratzinger, who is also a priest.

Benedict will return to the Vatican by helicopter, just as he left on February 28. Lombardi told Vatican Radio that Pope Francis will greet him at the Mater Ecclesiae convent.

KRE/AMB END SPECIALE

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