Pope's open arm 'welcomes us' into his belief

Sydney
19 January

Pope's open arm 'welcomes us' into his belief

Pope's Christmas gift - new Vatican appointment

Agency awards top marks for ACU standards

Poetic papal meditation

Will privacy laws hit hospital visits, prayer requests?

Sisters say 'goodbye' to St Mary's

Rosary makers stake claim to title

Thérèse - An Australian Story

Editorial: No cause for war

Letters: Pope of peace

Conversation: Tim Fischer, farmer-soldier-MP - Faith as an anchor for the boy from Boree Creek

Social justice and Catholic thinking

Treatment of refugees shocks new Jesuit leader

Year of Pope John Paul II

Pope's open arm 'welcomes us' into his belief

Pope John Paul II prays during midnight Mass

The Legacy of the Popes, an exhibition of Vatican art which will tour the US over the next 12 months.

The 137cm x 132cm painting, now showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, depicts the Pope in St Peter's Basilica.

Shanks based the painting on photographs and videotapes and on observing the Pope at several public events.

"I'm trying to show the powerful spirituality and the complete philosophical agreement this man has with his spirituality and faith," he said.

"The most important thing I've tried to get here is that conviction, that spirituality.

"The Holy Spirit window is representative; you can see the Holy Spirit literally coming from it through him, and out of his hand, blessing us.

"His open arm in the other direction is welcoming us into himself; into his belief in the Church and into the basilica."

The painting portrays the Pope as Shanks saw him about eight years ago.

"I think it has more good thought in it than anything I have ever painted," he said. "It is certainly one of the most complicated paintings I have ever done. I try to capture the essence of what it is I'm painting."

Dominican Fr Allen Duston, co-ordinator of Patrons and Friends of the Vatican Museums, which conducts promotions and fund raising for the museums, says Shanks, a well-known professional portrait artist, "wanted to paint a portrait of the Pope and he was willing to give the painting to the Patrons of Philadelphia".

The Pope gave his homily in Italian at the midnight Christmas Mass in St Peter's. Click here for the translation, which is part of the Vatican's commemorative Christmas website.