Daniel Berrigan Walt Whitman Martin Sheen Nick Virgilio Edwina Gateley Mother Theresa Thich Naht Hahn Mairead Corrigan Mick Maloney Eugene O’Donnell Barbara Dever Harry Reasoner Othmar Carli Sister Peg Hynes Cesar Chavez Eileen Egan Paddy Doherty Michael Flatley Tommy Sands Lester Conner Father Des Wilson
FAMOUS FACES AT SACRED HEART
OTHMAR CARLI
On Friday evening, October 2002, at Auletto’s in Almonesson, we thanked God for the restoration of our Church at Broadway and Ferry in Camden, New Jersey. We celebrated our Creator as the Supreme Artist and we celebrated Othmar Carli and Don Harle, the two artists God created to restore our church. In Othmar’s art, cups are often inserted “to hold the blessings”, he says. At his direction, Don painted twelve cups on the walls of Sacred Heart. They hold many blessings. None better than Othmar Carli and Don Harle. Our cup runneth over.
When we consider the restoration of Sacred Heart, which is still in process, we should put the names together of the two artists who have achieved the miracle of its present beauty, Othmar Carli and Don Harle. Only God could have brought these two men together…an artistic team of unmatchable worth to Sacred Heart. In 1991, Michael Doyle asked John Doyle of Haddonfield for a restoration artist. The person he recommended said: “The man you need is Othmar Carli.” He came in December 1991, sat alone in the church for two hours and took Sacred Heart into his own. Then he spent the week studying the condition of the church. It was love at first sight, when Don Harle visited Sacred Heart in 1980. “I loved the oldness of this place with a past,” he said, “parishioners long dead are still near.”
Othmar Carli and his wife at Sacred heart.