Page 18: Bearing Witness to the Beauty of Truth

Mark 5: Sustained by Gospel Witness

Bearing Witness to the Beauty of Truth

Article Eight of Part Three of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is an elaboration of the Eighth Commandment, “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” [32] In elaborating on the full breadth of meaning connoted by the term “witness,” Section VI of Article Eight explores “Truth, Beauty, and Sacred Art.” Here the Church acknowledges not only that “Truth in words . . . is necessary to man, who is endowed with intellect,” but that “Truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression” [33] – namely, Art.

“Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort,” the catechism goes on to say, “art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing.” [34]  “Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God – the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ .” [35] In other words, the role of Sacred Art is to bear witness to the beauty of God’s creation, and to inspire in others a reverence for His work and a commitment to His Truth.

Explaining the fifth essential mark of a Catholic school – Sustained by Gospel Witness – Archbishop Miller speaks primarily of the administrator’s responsibility to sustain Gospel witness in his school by maintaining a faculty of committed Catholics. The faculty’s example, it is true, has perhaps a more profound influence on the youth than the intellectual instruction they give. Yet there is still another way that administrators and teachers can bear witness to the Gospel, besides both their words and deeds. That way is the placement of Sacred Art in conspicuous locations on school grounds, so that students may be inspired by the visual beauty of God’s creation as well as the intellectual.

Unfortunately, coincident with both the rise of minimalism in contemporary architecture and a decline in the numbers of consecrated religious, Catholic schools have become increasingly barren of visible reminders of God’s good news and the presence of Christ in our midst. Timothy Schmaltz, a prominent Christian sculptor, recognizes the danger that such a trend presents to Catholic culture in general, and to the education of children in particular.

[32] Exodus 20:16.
[33] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2500. 
[34] Ibid, 2501.
[35] Ibid, 2502.