From Catholic News Service

Pope says art shows church's faith in God's beauty

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The masterpieces and thousands of artifacts on display at the Vatican Museums "are not simply impressive monuments of a distant past," but represent the church's unwavering faith in the beauty of God, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of the museums' benefactors.

He said that for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who flock to the museums and the Sistine Chapel every year, the artistic treasures housed there "stand as a perennial witness to the church's unchanging faith in the triune God," who, according to St. Augustine, is "beauty ever ancient, ever new."

The pope made his comments during a June 1 audience with members of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums.

The group was visiting Rome to mark the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Vatican Museums. The arts group, which helps fund the museums' conservation and restoration projects, has regional chapters in Washington and 15 U.S. states, as well as in Canada and Europe.

The pope thanked the group not only for its help in protecting and promoting the cultural and artistic heritage of the museums, but for the members' commitment to evangelization through art.

"In every age Christians have sought to give expression to faith's vision of the beauty and order of God's creation, the nobility of our vocation as men and women made in his image and likeness, and the promise of a cosmos redeemed and transfigured by the grace of Christ," he said.

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