Bishop's Dinner Address: Ardean W. Watts

photo courtesy of Ardean Watts

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Ardean Watts

Bishop Wester, Msgr. Fitzgerald, Father Mayo, Mayor Corroon, and Distinguished Guests:

I knew a new era had begun when I attended the opening concert of the Madeleine Festival (of the Arts and Humanities) in 1993. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed Rachmaninoff’s "Vespers," the text taken from the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is also notable that the Tabernacle Choir will again perform to open the 2009 Madeleine Festival in March next year. It appears that music unites even when theology divides. The harmonious blending of such disparate religious institutions may be interpreted as a natural concomitant to an even larger world-wide blending of cultures. Globalization had hardly reached public discourse 15 years ago when the Madeleine Festival began.

Today globalization is a fact of economic, cultural, and political life on every continent of this planet. This fact has forced us to re-think the most basic aspects of everyday life. A rise in the price of rice or wheat in the USA has life and death consequences for refugees in Darfur, Burma, and Central America. "Buy American" in today’s world seems irrelevant since Japanese cars are produced in the United States and Brazil, and the stock markets of the world shift with every nuance of Wall Street, Beijing, and London. The search for human roots has also forced us to think globally; leading us to the Rift Valley of East Africa, where we find all humans regardless of race are of a single family. In the relatively short history of the human race it is likely we have all, at some time been slaves and perhaps masters, as well. Virtually all Europeans were Roman Catholic for generations, and most of the religious institutions that surround us today are variations on a theme. Perhaps globalization will awaken us from our dreams of exclusiveness and force us to see the big picture. The Catholic community in Salt Lake City has responded magnificently by thinking globally and acting locally. The focus of the remainder of my remarks is to offer an outsider’s comments to what has been a stunning level of outreach by the Cathedral and her staff.

Before there were public concert halls and museums as we know them, and before universities and conservatories assumed the roll of mother of the arts, art was nourished by an aristocratic or commercial elite, as ornament to the good life enjoyed by the privileged few. But that era was preceded by a long history, over 1,000 years, when the Roman Catholic Church generated the energy which blossomed into the art legacy of the Western World.

My art, musical performance, is no exception, Any serious study of western music may begin with a nod to the ancient Greeks, but only becomes serious with the study of the music of the early Catholic Church. From that day to this, there is a straight line which defines the compositional principles on which all western music depends and without which it would not exist in any form approximating what we enjoy today. Without the Church’s musical legacy we would be missing the riches of Gregorian Chant, Palestrina, and Verdi. The early masters’ names may be lost in the anonymity of the monasteries in which they labored but the physical evidence of their genius has survived more than a millennium withe little likelihood that it will diminish in the next millennium. This glorious story is replicated in a multitude of mediums. Cathedrals – St. Peter’s, Chartre, Colognes, and others innumerable still grace our planet on every continent, at once defining the science of their times and giving form to the aspirations and hopes of mankind, both when they were built and now. It is beyond comprehension in 2008 to imagine a world without the artistic legacy of the Church. A substantial portion of anyone’s list of Great Books of the Western World would be missing: the Holy Bible; Augustine; Dante; and in the visual arts Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, DaVinci, El Greco – the list of Church related treasures cannot be recited in an hour or a year nor contained in all our encyclopedias.

Although I come from a different religious tradition than most of you, I, too, am a direct beneficiary of your cultural tradition. I rejoice with you tonight and have done for decades past, that the great souls who have guided the Catholic community in Salt Lake City have chosen to establish the Cathedral of the Madeleine as a mother of beauty, wisdom, and truth for all of your neighbors in Utah regardless of religious affiliation. Thanks to the likes of Bishop (William) Weigand, Msgr. (M. Francis) Mannion, Bishop (now Archbishop George) Neiderauer, Father (Joseph) Mayo, and now Bishop (John C.) Wester to name only a few of recent memory whom I have known personally, we gather within its walls regularly to lift our eyes to the lofty heights, to be inspired by the dazzling light shining through the stained-glass window, to derive inspiration from the magnificent art and breath-taking colors of her decor; to hear and witness the music which testifies to the glory of the Creator and Creation; to be challenged in heart and mind to understand the mysterious and deep artistic miracles created by some of the most sensitive of our kind. I probably visit the Cathedral more often than I do my ward. I say, Gloria, Hallelujah, and Amen to what I have witnessed there and I am only one of thousands of non-Catholics who could bear this witness.

You who have gathered here tonight are the caretakers of this great enterprise. Through your generosity, your cathedral, and your faith will continue to play the roles you have inherited, with your neighbors around you. Never mind the art that turns you off , that doesn’t reflect your teachings and sensibilities. Continue to show what your stand for, shape how you want your faith to be known in this community. There are man who claim to have heard the voice of God. Remember, Jesus’ simple statement of authenticity, "You will be able to tell them by their fruits."