Pontifical Council to Focus on Beauty

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Pontifical Council for Culture will hold a plenary assembly March 27-29, dedicated to "beauty as a way of evangelization and dialogue."

According to a communiqué of this Vatican dicastery, the theme of the meeting was decided at the end of the previous plenary assembly, held in 2004.

"Together with the traditional proofs of the existence of God," the statement said, "… in recent times 'beauty' has been affirmed as a way to reach God, Supreme Beauty, and to transmit something of God’s life to men, both through the fascination of nature as well as artistic creation."

The members and consultors of the pontifical council will focus on three beauties: "the beauty of nature, the beauty of art [and] the beauty of Christian holiness," the statement said.

The council said it will also analyze "the threats of a new secularism and of religious indifference; the illusion of beauty in sects and new religious movements; the contemplation of creation and the new debates on evolution and the safeguarding of nature; the use of the Christian artistic heritage for a new evangelization; the beauty of the liturgy and, finally, holiness."

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