Benedict XVI said that the beauty of Catholic culture and the lives of the saints are the most powerful forces for evangelization in the modern age. Well here’s an interesting article by Kimberly Winston of the Religion News Service that seems to support the assertion. It is prompted by the fact that there has been a lot of interest in Joan of Arc in the past year, even in secular culture.
Kimberly writes:
While Joan has never entirely dropped out of the public imagination — the first poem about her appeared in 1429 — she is experiencing a revival. The past year saw a major production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan” in London, a new musical based on her life in New York and a film about her childhood that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. A new, critically-acclaimed novel, “The Book of Joan,” takes her story into a sci-fi future.
What interests me is that G.B. Shaw was a socialist atheist, and the musical, Into the Fire, is by the British/American musician and founder of the Talking Heads, David Byrne (for those of a certain age who might remember them and him). Neither Byrne nor Shaw, to my knowledge, ever had an interest in promoting the Catholic Faith! Yet there is something about this figure who was burnt at the stake in the 15th century at the age of 19 that has captured the imagination.
Read the rest of the article here.
The images are a 15th century miniature and a 21st century tattoo!
The Journal for Catholic Culture & Arts 