Arts News

IQUITOS, Peru - As floodwaters rose with heavy rains in this Amazonian city, Graciela Tejada and her neighbours found greasy slaughterhouse offal, human feces and used hypodermic needles floating practically to their doorsteps.

Bringing the human back into hospital design

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TORONTO - People go to hospital in the hope of feeling better. But if patients are welcomed into a forbidding, institutional room with a strange bed, fluorescent lights and cold, hard floor, what then?

In paintings, Syrian artist shows the pain war has caused his country

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WASHINGTON - The sad realities of Syria's civil war permeate the paintings of Essa Neima, a 34-year-old Syrian national.

At a recent exhibit, his oil on acrylic works ranged from depictions of damaged church and mosque mosaics, to a broken icon of Mary and a refugee woman forced into servitude by the need to survive.

Play brings to life impact of residential schools

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TORONTO - Highly acclaimed First Nations playwright Drew Hayden Taylor is bringing a poignant play to Toronto about a dark part of Canadian history.

To Sr. Pacatte, it's all about the story

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TORONTO - Sr. Rose Pacatte is first and foremost a storyteller. In her 47 years as a Daughter of St. Paul, she has great stories about answering her call to consecrated life, the joy she shares with her fellow sisters and the opportunities her congregation has given her.

Dance is where expression, spirituality meet

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TORONTO - Franck Waille still has the posture of a dancer. When he stands, his back is straight, his shoulders are squared and his feet are pointed out — a more relaxed version of ballet’s first position.

Healing body, mind and spirit through art

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SASKATOON - Many factors contribute to a positive healing experience at a hospital, including medical expertise and respectful and compassionate care by physicians, health care personnel, staff and volunteers. But for patients at St. Paul’s Hospital, where core values include holistic care, the process of healing the body, mind and spirit is enhanced through art.

3-D art depicts Christ’s light

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Jed Malitz appends V2 to the name of his art gallery in New Orleans’ Warehouse District. The V2 stands for “Version 2” — both in art and in life.

Not just pretty pictures: Church art is catechetical storybook of faith

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VATICAN CITY - Having so much world-famous art housed in Rome's churches and chapels has risked turning the city's sacred spaces into sightseer circuses. A hushed prayerful atmosphere for the faithful is often broken by clicking cameras and tourists exchanging guidebook details.

Frank Underwood just dissed God. Would a real president do that?

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All presidents beseech God to bless the United States of America. Many pray for divine aid for themselves or their policies. Some can only wonder at the inscrutable ways of the Almighty.

Then there’s Frank Underwood, who spits in God’s face.

Cyberslums where online abusers prowl need pastoral care, say speakers

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VATICAN CITY - A new kind of ghetto needs the church's presence and people's solidarity: the "digital slum" where cyberbullying and online pornography and abuse run rampant, said speakers at a Vatican news conference.