What is the state of the relationship between religion and art? Has religious art fallen out of favor? Must religious art be relegated to houses of worship? What can artists contribute to the understanding of world religions?

Maureen Mullarkey is a painter and writer who focuses on art and culture. She has been published in The Nation, Crisis, Commonweal, Hudson Review, Arts, The New Criterion, First Things, The Weekly Standard, and The Magazine Antiques, and she has served as a columnist for The New York Sun. She was quoted in a New York Times article about Pope Francis’ climate change […]

The Rev. Nageeb Michael is a Dominican priest and a scholar at the Digital Center for Eastern Manuscripts. He digitizes historic Assyrian Christian manuscripts, according to a New York Times article, and he fled the city in which he previously worked, Qaraqosh, when the Islamic State gained control of the area. He is a source on art and religion.

Alma Lopez is a Los Angeles-based artist whose works frequently feature female Catholic saints as Chicana women with a gender twist. Her “Our Lady,” a rendition of the Virgin of Guadalupe as seminude Chicana boxer, prompted worldwide controversy when it was displayed in New Mexico in 2001. Her most recent show is “Queer Santas: Holy […]