Arts & Culture

Sister Norma Pimentel, a Missionary of Jesus, who is best known for helping more than 100,000 migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border was in Chicago April 15 to share her artwork and reiterate a message of love.

Artificially intelligent chatbots are becoming a normal means for accessing information while omnipresent algorithms largely determine the type of content people encounter online in search results and on social media. And the Catholic Church is taking notice.

“Irene’s Vow” is a movie based on the real-life experiences of Catholic nurse Irene Gut Opdyke. Famed for her rescue of Jews, she received a special blessing from St. John Paul II who also invited her to a personal audience in 1995.

April 15 marks the somber anniversary of the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It is also a moment to celebrate the church’s role in nurturing and preserving the cultural and artistic heritage of the West.

In his religious art, Daniel Mitsui has spent decades doing the work of carefully sorting, modifying, and balancing tradition with innovation. His work is distinctly medieval but brings in elements of Persian, Celtic, and Japanese art.

Hundreds of thousands of people will share in the solar eclipse April 8. “A way to engage with God’s creation, the work of God’s hands,” said Michelle Francl-Donnay.

In “Refugee on the Threshold,” Timothy Leacock tells of the long and harrowing journey of a Somalian man whose life was threatened by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab after he applied for a government job.

Father Mark-Mary Ames of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal uses real-life stories of biological and spiritual fathers to guide readers to reflect on God’s delight in us, care for us and his calling to us.