Don Juan Rego, a formator of Sedes Sapientiae was recently interviewed by a art journal, Il Giornale Dell’Arte. Don Juan is currently the Director of the Institute of Liturgy at the University of the Holy Cross, where he teaches Fundamental Liturgical Theology, Liturgical Aesthetics and Anthropology and Liturgy. He is also a member of the Council of the National Liturgical Office (Italy), and a visiting professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He holds a masters in the History of Arts from the University of Madrid and specialises in Liturgical Aesthetics.
In the interview, he opinions that, a Catholic church cannot be a bare ‘liturgical hall’. “Architects and artists must listen to the community. The power of art is to reach the invisible through the visible”, says Don Juan. The interview touches various themes like Iconography and art patronage, the dialogue between the artist and the theologian and the return of figurative art. Also, he comments on the obsessive flow of images arriving from the web and the use of smartphones and social media and addresses the problem in the compulsive consumption. The remedy he proposes is to re-educate the contemplative gaze.