International Institute for Culture
Restoring a Sense of the Sacred
January 10, 2003

DATE: January 10th Time: 7:30 p.m. followed by a reception Speaker: Sister Mary Paula Beirerschmitt, I.H.M., President of the American Academy of the Sacred Arts Topic: Restoring a Sense of the Sacred Cost: $15/person, $25/couple, free for students and religious   There is an urgent need to rethink the role of the arts in education, particularly sacred art. If the artist's vocation is thwarted by sincere but misguided persons, a crisis of faith is bound to occur in the human family. Artists hold the key to restoring a sense of the sacred in our culture. We learn primarily through our senses and artists are the masters of expressing the human condition. Truth, therefore, must be incorporated into the arts if faith is to be fully proclaimed. Reverence permeates all of creation because creation comes directly from the Creator. Those to whom the gift of creativity is given must also be educated in philosophical and theological truths simultaneously because these disciplines hold the structure together, more or less, like hidden beams.

Sr. Mary Paula Beirerschmitt is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and is the Founder of The American Academy of Sacred Arts in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Sr. Paula's sculptures include one of the founder of the Pallottine Fathers in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C.. The American Academy of the Sacred Arts in Philadelphia is dedicated to responding to the Second Vatican Council's call "that schools or academies of sacred art should be founded ... bearing in mind that, they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator ... to edify the faithful and to foster their piety and their religious formation". The academy, established in 1993, has committed itself to the "encouragement and placement of artists", "preservation of artistic treasures of the Church", and "artistic quality and spiritual insight". The Academy hopes to expand its support primarily of visual artists for the purpose of developing both their Catholic faith and their artistic skills "in an environment that appreciates the Church's tradition in sacred art". Sr. Paula will address the importance of restoring the role of sacred art in the life of the Church to its prominence in past ages.