I greeted the grave of Walker Percy with a glass of whiskey in my hand. My drink had been cold when I first began my walk across the grounds of St. Joseph Abbey, but the plastic cup had lost its cool touch in the sunshine. It was a warm May afternoon in southeast Louisiana.
A group of nearly 40 people circled Percy’s tombstone. The stone itself was small and unremarkable, lying flat in the ground alongside a sea of nearly identical markers. There was no obvious indication that the man it honored was a celebrated American writer, winner of the 1962 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. But my group knew; we had come with bourbons and books in hand to pay respect to a great Catholic artist.
One of our hosts, Daniel Fitzpatrick, moved to the front of the group, opening his copy of Percy’s 1971 novel Love in the Ruins to a marked page. He cleared his throat.
“I believe in God and the whole business,” he read aloud, “but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all.” The group laughed and raised their drinks in a salutatory toast.
Mr. Fitzpatrick is the editor of a publication called Joie de Vivre, which describes itself as a “quarterly Catholic journal of art, culture, and letters for south Louisiana.” The journal is affiliated with the St. Louis IX Art Society, a Catholic nonprofit based in the region that seeks to “transform the heart and lift the soul to God through transcendent beauty.”
The society, co-founded and led by Jordan Haddad, a theology professor at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, hosts events that celebrate the arts and uplift creative Catholics. These include chamber concerts, poetry readings and lectures on the intersection of Catholicism and the arts.
A pilgrimage to the grave of Walker Percy has become an annual tradition for the society. It serves as an integral piece of one of their most dynamic programs, the Louisiana Arts & Culture Festival, which was held at St. Joseph Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Covington, La., for the second consecutive year this past May.
During the two-day event, dozens of attendees celebrated Mass with the Benedictine monks who live there, attended talks and breakout sessions, ate lunch with artists and, yes, sipped bourbon while strolling across the beautiful and expansive abbey grounds. The talks covered a wide range of Catholic cultural topics, from discussions of architecture to literature to iconography. There were so many breakout options that one could not attend even a third of what was offered.
The St. Louis IX Art Society and Joie de Vivre celebrate Catholic art with a focus on the specific cultural history and traditions of New Orleans and South Louisiana. The organizations’ names speak to the French history of the area, and their content often features regional artistic inheritances—like their celebration of Percy, who spent much of his life and career in Covington.
But while the St. Louis IX Art Society is distinct in its regional focus, its mission—to inspire profound encounters with Christ through engagement with artistic beauty—is a goal shared by other, similar Catholic apostolates that have recently emerged in cities around the United States.
In my conversations with a diverse group of Catholic artists, the same themes kept emerging. A love for beauty so strong that it drives people to seriously and intentionally pursue the arts as a vocation. A need for community, both for accomplished artists and for all Catholics who are seeking to deepen their appreciation of how God speaks through creative expression. And a belief that art—by harnessing and celebrating beauty—can help bring people into the Catholic faith and can be a tool of spiritual inspiration and even evangelization.
Generations of faithful Catholics have crafted beautiful stained-glass windows, built massive cathedrals and composed orchestral masterpieces. As the artists I spoke to in Covington and around the country would say again and again, philosophers and theologians have always told us that God is truth, goodness and beauty. To be Catholic is to inherit one of the most impressive and influential artistic traditions in the history of the world.
But encountering God through art is not only a fundamental part of the church’s past. It is also an essential part of our present, living faith and, as these artists would tell you, a key part of how our church and our world will continue to find hope in times to come.
The Need for Community
A few weeks before my trip to Louisiana, I found myself in a back pew of the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village. The Dominican friars who run the parish had partnered with a group called Arthouse2B—an arts collective grounded in the Catholic faith—to host what they called a Mass for Artists. The event offered an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the spirituality of artists, and served as the opening of Arthouse2B’s new art exhibition, “Feast,” which would debut in McGuire Hall (the basement of St. Joseph’s) following the Mass.
The church was full of young couples, older men and women, vowed religious in habits, and families with children. After Mass, the crowd made their way downstairs, talking enthusiastically with one another. Paintings, drawings and photography pieces lined the walls. At the door, someone handed me a beautifully made “gallery guide,” which revealed that most of the pieces were available for purchase. Prices ranged from around $50 to several thousand dollars.
An extensive selection of hors d’oeuvres, sweets and drinks was displayed on a large table in the back of the room. Children laughed and ran around; a member of the Sisters of Life offered a young boy some cheese. Erin Scarfone took to the center of the room, microphone in hand. As the co-founder and driving force behind Arthouse2B, she welcomed all artists and guests and introduced the theme of the show. Discussing the decision to title the show “Feast,” she said, “We [as Catholics] know the end, and we know it’s not death… It’s a banquet, a feast. But we know we are not there yet. So we are left with a hunger.”
All the artwork in the room was meant to capture that hunger, she explained.
Following Ms. Scarfone’s address came a series of performances: poetry readings, monologue recitations, a piano performance. Malachy Napier, C.F.R., long-bearded, habited and barefoot, performed an original song on ukulele called “Ode to a Mango.” As artist after artist performed, the crowd listened attentively, roared with laughter, erupted with applause. There were nowhere near enough chairs; people sat on the floor without complaint.
Weeks after the Mass for Artists, I visited Ms. Scarfone at her apartment, the place where the idea for Arthouse2B originated (and the inspiration for its name: apartment unit 2B).
Ms. Scarfone described Arthouse2B as an artist collective and a Catholic apostolate. She said the group grew from a question she had begun asking herself as a young artist and devout Catholic: “What does it mean to be an artist equally serious about my faith and my craft?”
Ms. Scarfone was living in New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic, which she described as a “desolate time.” Before the lockdown, she had befriended other artists of faith in the city. After months of isolation, she hosted an intimate event for some of these friends at her apartment: a movie and discussion night about Flannery O’Connor. Being with other Catholic creatives passionate about their faith and unwavering in their care for her felt like a “necessary quenching of thirst.”
Along with her friend and co-founder Claire Kretzschmar, Ms. Scarfone began looking for ways to create a community centered around both faith and the arts. They held their first Mass for Artists in August 2020. After the event, Ms. Scarfone told me, “I turned [to Claire] and said, ‘This needs to happen more.’”
Since then, Ms. Scarfone and Ms. Kretzschmar, along with a few other key partners, have built an extensive ministry that includes more Masses, art shows and exhibitions, musical performances, book talks, original theatrical performances, film screenings, an annual benefit and a series of artist retreats. In addition to giving artists a platform to present their work, these events allow a space for artists to explore questions of “how to pursue excellence while pursuing spiritual fulfillment.”
Encouraging artists to think deeply about their calling is not only important for those individuals themselves. Ms. Scarfone emphasized that Arthouse2B seeks to “restore the hearts of artists to restore the larger culture.” She believes that by grounding, nourishing and encouraging artists through faith, they will be capable of making works of beauty that also inspire reflection in anyone who encounters them—artist or not, Catholic or not.
The Need for Support
Ms. Scarfone told me that she has established Arthouse2B as a legal nonprofit organization and hopes to acquire an office and creative space at some point. In the meantime, they have “relied on the generosity of parishes and priests who are very much on board with the mission,” bouncing between churches and communities in New York City.
The importance of support from parishes, priests and Catholic communities is something that I heard from artists across the country.
The day after my pilgrimage to Walker Percy’s grave, I made another pilgrimage, to Baton Rouge, La., where a couple named Andrew and Ashley Coleman live with their two young children. Mr. Coleman is a professional woodworker, specializing in “liturgical furnishings.” We spoke in the shed behind his house, which has been converted into an extensive professional workshop.
He showed me one of his projects, a cabinet-like case for a monstrance. It was dedicated to Our Lady of Knock, intended for an Irish-American parish. He demonstrated the tools he used to carve complicated patterns from the Book of Kells into the panels.
Mr. Coleman told me that his path to professional woodworking was an unexpected one. After entering and then leaving the seminary as a young man, he floundered until a man he knew from daily Mass offered him a sales job at a septic services company.
He had been developing his woodworking skills as a hobby during that time. Knowing that, the man from Mass also asked Andrew if he would help with a personal project. He wanted Andrew to make him some furniture and Catholic artwork for a prayer room he was building in his house.
Mr. Coleman completed the project, and shortly after, a local priest asked him to make altar rail extensions. With Ashley’s support, Andrew started taking on commissioned projects regularly while maintaining his sales job.
But then he was contacted by a priest from Russellville, Ala., who wanted him to furnish a new church being built there. The priest asked him to make altar chairs, an ambo, a high altar—to make “all but the pews” for the new church, as Mr. Coleman put it. To take on this project and do it well, Mr. Coleman would need to quit his job and focus on woodworking full time. Together, Ashley and Andrew agreed to try to make it work.
Those patrons had trusted a young man who worked out of his shed to make pieces of art that people worship on and with. Sometimes the gravity of that opportunity amazes Mr. Coleman. “It’s humbling,” he told me, “to kneel on a kneeler that I made.” He told me that sometimes he looks at his own work and thinks, “Did I do that with these hands?”
After creating pieces for churches himself, he said, it feels different “to see that stained-glass window, see that pew, and see the names attached as the artists or benefactors.” Now, he said, “I know how much money, time and work they must have taken.”
Mr. Coleman emphasized that the Catholic artistic tradition has always required partnership between those who are generous with their talent and those generous with their material means. He relies on priests and individuals to commission unique, hand-crafted pieces from him in order to keep his business alive and feed his family. Investment in art is a virtuous pursuit for Catholics, he argues, and not a new one.
He pointed to the historical example of Lorenzo de’ Medici, a 15th-century Italian statesman whose patronage was responsible for a tremendous amount of Renaissance artwork in Florence.
“[Lorenzo de’ Medici] found artists and told them, ‘I’ll give you a place to work, resources, tools,’…and that’s why people still go to Florence today,” Mr. Coleman told me. “Not just because the talent was there, but also because the support was there.”
Another Louisiana-based artist, James Rosenbloom, also spoke to me about the importance of clergy who see how investing in art can nourish a Catholic community.
Mr. Rosenbloom is a professional musician who serves as the music minister at St. Philip Neri Parish in Metairie, La. He told me that musical performance, when grounded in spiritual depth, can form a profound relationship between the person performing and the person listening—one that mimics the example of Christ.
The musicians make themselves vulnerable by giving of themselves, offering up their abilities and their creations, he explained. This follows the giving example of Jesus, who made himself “the most vulnerable someone could be,” as Mr. Rosenbloom put it, to give us himself so completely.
In return, the audience member “receives” the music, allowing it to transform them—the way we all aspire to receive Christ’s sacrifice in the sacraments and the Mass.
Giving and receiving music with an open heart can create spiritual encounter and emotional transcendence for a parish community, which is why Mr. Rosenbloom urges parishes to invest the time and effort to enhance their music ministries. Over the last few years, he has been supported by a local pastor with a “like-minded mentality of how music should be implemented in the liturgy” and prioritized in the community.
“Musicians can be difficult,” Mr. Rosenbloom told me, laughing, especially when they are striving to offer Massgoers an experience as profound as what he describes. “What I needed,” he told me, “was a deep collaboration—an honest and nurturing relationship with a pastor” willing to invest in music ministry. Mr. Rosenbloom told me his pastor’s trust and support is paying off, noting the flocks of young people who he believes are coming to church “in search of beauty.”
Models of Possibility
Louisiana is not the only place where clergy are stepping up to support artistic renewal in their parish communities. In Chicago, I visited St. Gregory’s Hall, a self-described “home for Catholic culture” based at St. Gregory the Great Church on Chicago’s North Side. I was given a tour of the church by Joe Malham, a local artist who played an instrumental role in fostering cultural richness at that church while serving as the parish’s artist-in-residence for 20 years, from 2001 to 2021.
Mr. Malham’s life was changed by Father Bart Winters, described by Mr. Malham as “my Obi-Wan Kenobi.” When Father Winters became pastor of St. Gregory the Great Church in the early 2000s, he had a “new vision” for the parish based on “evangelization through the arts.”
Father Winters was not thinking about his efforts as something original or unique, Mr. Malham explained. Rather, he spoke about “reconnecting [the parish] with one of the oldest traditions in the Catholic Church, supporting artists in pursuing their vocation.”
Mr. Malham had studied art in Rome, through Loyola University Chicago’s Rome Center, where he learned to write icons. After Mr. Malham returned to Chicago, Father Winters recruited him first to help restore faded existing art at St. Gregory the Great. Then he asked Mr. Malham to serve as the church’s artist-in-residence.
This opportunity offered Mr. Malham a space to work and complete commissions for St. Gregory and other Catholic parishes and groups—a studio room in the previously underutilized rectory next to the church. In exchange for use of this space, Mr. Malham restored the church’s historic artwork and completed original works for the parish.
Mr. Malham took me to an upstairs chapel with windows that peered into the nave of the church. On the back wall was a beautiful mural of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Another wall was divided into panels depicting the five joyful mysteries of the rosary in vibrant color. On the ceiling was a sea of blue, decorated with shiny white stars.
The space is known as the Chapel of Our Lady of Consolation. It was commissioned by a parish family whose daughter had died shortly after she was born and is dedicated to families who have experienced similar losses. Mr. Malham collaborated with another local artist, Meltem Aktas, to decorate the space so that it might be used by families in the parish who had experienced loss, but also by any parish family and generations to come.
Opportunities to create spaces like this are what made the artist-in-residence program truly special for Mr. Malham. They allowed him to serve the church and his local community by giving them beautiful places to worship. “The community was as big a blessing as the studio space or commissions,” he told me.
Around 2020, St. Gregory the Great Church merged with two other local churches, St. Ita and St. Thomas of Canterbury, to form Mary Mother of God Parish. As the parish underwent a transition, it was important to parishioners like Mark Franzen that the artistic renewal started by Father Winters, who has since been assigned to another area ministry, would continue to grow.
“[I asked myself,] ‘How do we take that legacy and use it as a tool for faith formation and evangelization?’” Mr. Franzen told me. What emerged from that question was a formalized structure for supporting art at the parish: St. Gregory’s Hall, with Mr. Franzen as director. Mr. Malham stepped down from his artist-in-residence position in 2021, and St. Gregory’s Hall continued the artist-in-residence program, appointing a painter, Sarah Crow, as Mr. Malham’s successor. Ms. Crow has continued to use rectory studio space for artistic programming, including guided art lessons that allow parishioners and the broader community to explore their own creativity.
St. Gregory’s Hall has also expanded beyond the visual arts. It now has a composer-in-residence, who is responsible for a robust sacred music ministry, and several scholars-in-residence who lead community conversations about literature, culture and theology.
Mr. Franzen believes that this celebration of Catholic culture is something that could be happening in parishes around the country. “Most parishes probably have a room, if not a building, that could be put to use,” he said. “Many places have a physical capacity.” The need, he told me, is for “mission-driven individuals” to be “more imaginative in what could be done.”
One important step for such individuals, he explained, is to stop seeing the arts as add-ons that are separate from the heart of Catholic life and worship. “The idea of a Catholic culture that we’re promoting is not just something that we consume in our leisure time,” Mr. Franzen told me. “Beauty is how we come to our faith, how we come to God.”
In another Chicago neighborhood, I encountered another model of Catholics utilizing existing space to nurture the arts. Margaret Ryland met me outside a charming brick building adorned with a large, glowing red sign, reminiscent of an Art Deco marquee. It read: Athenaeum. In the charming but residential Lakeview neighborhood, it was more than a little eye-catching.
Ms. Ryland serves as the general manager of the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, a space for performance and celebration of the arts. The building where the center is based has a long and rich history. It was opened in 1911 by the Redemptorists to serve as a community enrichment center for the parishioners of St. Alphonsus Church, the direct neighbor of the center. Over the years, however, the building became difficult for the parish to maintain. In order to cover costs and sustain the parish, the center was rented to secular nonprofits with little connection to the church.
This changed in 2016, when a couple named Katie Joy and Lawrence Daufenbach began to think about how to bring faith back to the historic space. Ms. Daufenbach was a parishioner at St. Alphonsus and witnessed the distance between the Athenaeum and the Catholic community it was connected to. She began reflecting on the space with Mr. Daufenbach, who had recently experienced a reversion to the faith. He told me he remembers asking himself, “How, Lord, do you want me to be involved in the arts and in beauty?”
In 2021, the Daufenbachs left their jobs to devote themselves to running the Athenaeum. With hard work and substantial financial support from independent donors, the couple has infused the Athenaeum with new life. They still rent out the performance space to non-Catholic performers to help cover expenses, but the heart of their work is what they call their Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture Presents programming. Notable examples of this include “Dante 360,” described by the Athenaeum as “an immersive, multi-dimensional experience” that adapts Dante’s “Divine Comedy” into theatrical performance, with corresponding visual art and music components. Another notable program was “Bernadette: The Musical,” which told the story of St. Bernadette of Lourdes.
The Daufenbachs are committed to maintaining a cultural space that is firmly rooted in beauty and spiritual richness and aligned with the Catholic Church. But they keep their doors open to all. They say they want to invite people on every type of faith journey to experience the Athenaeum and let their “souls be touched.”
They have seen why this openness is important. Mr. Daufenbach told me a story about a man who came to see “Dante 360.” Sitting in the back of the theater, the man could not stop crying during and after the performance. “This is the closest I’ve come to the pews in 40 years,” the man said.
Ms. Ryland is not an artist herself, but she believes her work as general manager at the Athenaeum is deeply meaningful. She has seen the Athenaeum grow through communal dedication and shared belief in its capacity to enrich the Catholic and non-Catholic communities of Chicago. “There are things we can’t do as individuals that we can do in community with others,” she said, in praise of how the leadership team behind the Athenaeum have worked together.
It is a special thing, she told me, “to work in a place where beauty matters.”
A Vocation Worth Supporting
Arthouse2B, the St. Louis IX Art Society, the Athenaeum and St. Gregory’s Hall have all emerged in the last decade. The leaders of these groups would say they do not exist in spite of difficult circumstances for artists but because of them. For many of these artists, following their vocation requires balancing spiritual work with paid opportunities that are less fulfilling. For others, it requires humble dependence on those who are willing and able to patronize the creation of original Catholic art.
It can be difficult to ask for this type of support and patronage. Original artwork takes time and money. As Mr. Coleman emphasized to me, it has never been easier to buy affordable, mass-produced artwork and furniture from online vendors. And tools like generative artificial intelligence now make it possible to create images for parish spaces and church events without paying an artist to create something unique and specific.
But in a world that too often devalues patience, creativity, vulnerability and imperfection, art serves as a reminder that these attributes are still at the heart of what it means to be human, and to be children of God. As Ms. Scarfone put it, “Art reminds us how to be.” These groups provide everyone, artists and non-artists alike, “a space to belong, and to give that belonging back.”
Witnessing these groups and organizations seems to prove her right. People are sitting on the floor of a church basement on a Friday night to watch a priest play a ukulele. They are spending their weekend at the grave of a Catholic author on the grounds of a Benedictine monastery. They are attending art lessons in a church rectory and spending their money to watch a musical about St. Bernadette. As these artists would explain, continuing to keep art alive is not merely a nice idea, but a necessary task.
“Art is not a luxury,” Mr. Malham had told me at St. Gregory the Great. “It is a need. Artists are the sustaining life of the church.”
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