A New Aesthetic

"Only a new aesthetic will save the Church. The harmonic laws of beauty tell us that what gives us life , what deeply supports beauty is love , love from one to the other, relationship.” Kiko Arguello

The Redemptoris Mater seminary of Avignon is a fruit of the reality of the Neocathechumenal Way, of which the initiator , Kiko Arguello, is an internationally renowned artist. Since the 60s he has been a member of a research team of sacred art, but he will use all his talent in serving his brothers, living their faith in a small community where the other is Christ.  Convinced that beauty, thanks to the emotion it creates, that makes us yearn for God, will save the world, Kiko Arguello is leading, these last fifty years, with a team of artists, a real aesthetic renewal in the Church.

Many constructions have already been built in the entire world, following the artistic conception of Kiko Arguello. The Redemptoris Mater seminary of Avignon belongs now to those works that have the aim of putting each man in relationship with God through beauty.  Mattia Del Prete, who has been assisting Kiko Arguello for many years, is the designer architect who has carried out this seminary.

Throughout History, the Church has always seized the link between beauty and evangelization, and has always been the greatest protector of beauty. Everything reflects the beauty of Christ, and the beauty of the community and of brotherly love. The evangelization of the Slavic peoples was done mainly through the beauty of the liturgy, the icons, and the hymns. But it’s been a few years, also inside the Church, a functional vision seems to prevail, where the places in which the community lives and gets together are simple meeting rooms. That is why, now more than ever, it is necessary and urgent that the structures of the Church must be renewed.