Heavenly Christmas angels will take your breath away. The National Gallery in London, UK stages major art exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan from now through February 5, 2012. It is the most complete display of da Vinci’s rare surviving paintings ever held. Bringing together a wide selection of international loans, it is truly an unprecedented exhibition. The ex... More

Coming from an art history background and having worked in museums (the Frick and the Carnegie Museum) I always enjoy new art discoveries. It demonstrates the power of art, reaching beyond the centuries to speak to us here and now. Such is the case with a famous Giotto fresco. Art restorers recently discovered–after cleaning the painting, no doubt–the profile of what appears to be a ... More

So here’s the thing. If you’re looking for something to follow that’s strange, weird, and fascinating, forget reality TV or any other fiction. Just look into the largely unregulated world of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). It’s all especially ironic in light of the attention given to the fact that Steve Jobs was adopted, not ordered like an iProduct. Read more here. ...R... More

It’s a brave new world. We’re so far down the slippery slope, we don’t remember when we started sliding. Seriously. Now, the right to choose means that women can not only choose the sex and even some of the genetic traits of their infant, but it also means that they can dispose of their “products” at will. Sounds like ancient Rome to me, only this time it’s the women with the power, n... More

UPDATE – the artist has stepped forward to help remove the mosaic without damaging it. Here it is: The backstory: The surfing Madonna appeared just before Easter weekend and has been stirring a soulful debate in this Southern California beach town ever since. The striking mosaic of the Virgin of Guadalupe riding a wave was affixed to a wall under a train bridge by artists disguised as c... More

Wednesday night in Oxford, England, Leonie Caldecott watched her play, The Quality of Mercy, debut on stage (all while working the sound!), as part of England’s sharing in Pope John Paul II’s beatification celebration. Yes, they found some oxygen there for something other than the royal nuptials! Caldecott’s play finds young Brits in Rome in 2005, as Pope John Paul II is nearing the end of h... More

A magnificent column over at Patheos crossed my Twitter feed the other day courtesy of Elizabeth Scalia (@TheAnchoress). Magnificent, because just reading the column made my heart swell with the remembrance of beautiful places and sounds. Katrina R. Fernandez wrote of the power and indispensability of beauty for the soul, the heart, the mind. “Beauty makes the soul soar,” she notes, co... More

I have been remiss in mentioning the ambitious undertaking of my friend, architect James McCrery in Wyoming, which was recently profiled by Anthony Flott in the National Catholic Register: Father Daniel Mary of Jesus Crucified is fond of saying that his Carmelite community doesn’t have a vocations shortage. Rather, it has a housing shortage. That may begin to change when Father Daniel Mary’s... More