"Tue beauty linked to truth" Pope tells Pontifical Academies
(Nov.26,2008):- "The search for beauty without truth and goodness can drive young
people to fly toward artificial paradises that simply hide interior emptiness," said
Pope Benedict XVI. The Pontiff affirmed this in a message sent to the president
of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, and directed
to the members of the pontifical academies who are participating in a conference on
"The Universality of Beauty: a Comparison Between Aesthetics and Ethics." There
is currently a dramatic separation between the search for beauty as an appearance
to be sought at all costs, and the search]for truth and the goodness of actions,"the
Pope wrote. He cautioned that this separation, transforms beauty into mere aestheticism,
and above all for youth, into a path that leads to the ephemeral, or even a flight
toward artificial paradises. Beauty, he continued, has always been considered a
path to arrive to God. The Pope told the academics and artists that their precise
task and mission is to stir up awe and desire for an authentic reflection of
divine beauty. Man of today, he continued, still has "a desire and nostalgia for an
authentic beauty, not superficial and ephemeral." Pope Benedict asked artists to promote
in contemporary cultures a new Christian humanism, which knows how to walk with clarity
and decision the path of authentic beauty."