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Art is sterile without concern for truth and goodness, Pope argues
November 25, 2008
Contemporary culture is severely handicapped by a split between the search for beauty and the quest for truth, Pope Benedict XVI said in a message to the annual meeting of the Pontifical Academies. The papal message-- addressed to Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture-- said that the world of art has fallen into an understanding of beauty "in reductive terms as exterior form, as an appearance to be pursued at all costs." That approach, he said, leads "to ephemeral values and to banal and superficial appearances, even a flight into an artificial paradise that masks inner emptiness."
The answer to this problem, the Pontiff continued, lies in recognition that beauty cannot be divorced from truth and goodness. That recognition, he said, should be especially evident to believers, "who are called by the Lord to 'give reasons' for all the beauty and truth of their faith."
The Pope recalled the Letter to Artists in which his predecessor, John Paul II, asked creative artists to be mindful of "the fruitful dialogue between Holy Scripture and the various forms of art, whence countless masterpieces have emerged."
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