At The Vatican: Pope addresses artists on "a quest for beauty"

Back on November 4th, New Creation published a post regarding an upcoming meeting of the Pope with a multitude of artists across a variety of mediums. That meeting happened today, November 21st, at the Vatican.

Read The New York Times coverage of the event, which just went live on their site.

Excerpt Below // Full Article Here

VATICAN CITY — Sitting before Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday called on an audience of contemporary artists to embark on “a quest for beauty.”

Aiming to revive the age-old ties between the Catholic Church and artists — and perhaps to put a more positive face on a contentious papacy — the Vatican pulled out all the stops for more than 250 artists, architects, musicians, directors, writers and composers from around the world, but largely from Italy.

Benedict made “a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal” to the artists, calling on them to be “fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty.” He urged them, “Do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history.”

In an interview, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the director of the Pontifical Council for Culture who organized the event, said the aim was “to re-establish a dialogue” between the church and artists “that’s necessary and fertile for both.”

Keep Reading