Catholic Priest Pushes Art for a New Generation

c. 2007 Religion News Service PORTLAND, Ore. _ The voice that has championed original art in Oregon’s Catholic churches is a little softer these days, but the Rev. John Domin has not lost faith in the creative spirit. After 84 years of life _ including 60 as an artist and 57 as a priest _ […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. _ The voice that has championed original art in Oregon’s Catholic churches is a little softer these days, but the Rev. John Domin has not lost faith in the creative spirit.

After 84 years of life _ including 60 as an artist and 57 as a priest _ he speaks rapidly, pulling together scattered details from 40 tumultuous years in the modern Catholic Church. His refrain sounds loud and clear: The church needs the authentic artistic expression of its deepest believers to thrive in the 21st century. He resists the effort to return the church to what he sees as an imagined state of uniformity.


“The church is in turmoil right now,” Domin said recently at the University of Portland, surrounded by a collection of his work in a sunlit gallery. Since the 1960s, the American church has struggled with the loss of Catholic sisters, the nightmare of abusive priests and the machinations of bishops who sheltered them.

“Thousands of sisters have left their orders,” Domin said. “Only 3 or 4 percent of priests are guilty of sexual abuse, but we have all been tarred and feathered. The bishops have lost their credibility.

“But a new creation is coming,” he said. “A metanoia, a change of mind. The Holy Spirit is at work.”

The people who know Domin _ artists, architects, priests, former students _ recognize the prophetic quality of his voice. Before Vatican II, the 1960s council that aimed to reframe and reinvigorate Catholic teaching, Domin saw that original art inspired and nurtured religious expression.

As leader of the Portland Archdiocese Sacred Art Commission for almost 30 years, Domin worked with scores of Catholic churches to renovate their worship space and replace mass-produced, mail-order art with original work. He found painters, printmakers, sculptors, fiber artists and architects to ensure that a church reflected the spirit of the people who worshipped there.

“He was fearless,” said J. David Richen, a Portland architect who has known and worked with Domin for many years. “Long before it was fashionable to change your churches around, he was in the forefront. He took a lot of criticism, faced a lot of resistance.”

Domin’s legacy includes churches in Roseburg and Corvallis, Ore., Richen said. “He led architects to good contemporary artists who did decent work instead of catalog junk. The sad thing now is that we seem to be regressing, slipping back.”


For the past six years, Domin and Richen have worked with a core of Catholics aiming to keep the church on a path toward the creative spirit that Domin has been intent on nurturing since he was an art student at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles.

Domin, who taught art at Portland’s Central Catholic High School from 1950 to 1962, inspired Chuck Lehman, a local calligrapher who remains a friend of the priest.

“He was an extraordinary teacher,” Lehman said. “He was avant garde, intellectual in a good, positive way. He read endlessly and was full of new ideas. His vision is full, exciting, even wild _ and it has not stopped.”

Domin explains the vision behind his current show, which includes his own work and pieces he’s collected by other artists. It follows a Lenten path, recalling the 40 days of preparation before Easter. It opens with a mosaic of John the Baptist, who promised a new creation, and moves past mixed media portrayals of Pontius Pilate, the Roman leader who washed his hands of Jesus before his crucifixion.

Central to the show are collages by Domin that depict St. Francis responding to God’s call to “repair my church” and another dedicated to the French scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The show culminates with a crucifix fashioned of thick aluminum wire and driftwood worn smooth by the tide.

“I call it `Cosmic Christ in a Quantum State,”’ Domin said of his work. “The Holy Spirit is calling us back to creativity. Christ, through his incarnation, is internal to the world, even in the very heart of the tiniest atom.”


(Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)

DSB/PH END HAUGHT

Editors: To obtain photos of the Rev. John Domin and his art, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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