Articles by Mark Nowakowski
The Church Needs Art; Art Needs the Church: Lessons from the Land of Lolek
Apr 15, 2009 / 00:00 amLiving and working for a time in Krakow -- the city that John Paul the Second loved -- I have been struck with numerous lessons regarding music, the arts, aesthetics, and the American Catholic Church. Poland gave the Church one of her greatest Popes, a man fiercely attuned to the merits, failings, and needs of the world and its Church. It comes as no surprise to me that aesthetics figured centrally in his thoughts. "Does the Church need art?" he asked. Indeed "does art need the Church?"
Where education is concerned, we are truly a Church that can serve all people at all times
Feb 3, 2009 / 00:00 amIt is a fascinating realization that our ancient Catholic Mass, when applied within the totality of our faith, just happens to correspond to what science has taught us about human learning patterns.All of our modern research on education informs us that people all learn in different ways. There are visual learners. There are those that learn from doing and repetition. There are those that learn by hearing, while others learn by repeating. Others require a combination of methods to learn most effectively. It just happens that our Mass is capable of addressing all of these methods simultaneously.A fundamentalist Church with blank white walls, uninspired architecture, and scarce visual portrayals is guilty of denying a crucial aspect of formation to the person who learns visually. A Church with badly-performed music -- or no music at all -- is denying the faithful who just happen to have an aural sweet-tooth. The Church fearful of repetitive prayers denies full formation to those who just happen to learn well through repetition.