Superficial beauty is fleeting, fails to inspire, pope says

Beauty that is only skin deep cannot last, cannot lead people to seek what is really true and good and cannot respond to the human longing for something that inspires genuine awe, Pope Benedict XVI said.

In a message to the joint session of the pontifical academies Nov. 25, Pope Benedict said the lives of individual Christians as well as the work of Christian artists, writers and poets should help people see that authentic truth, beauty and goodness are always intertwined.

The joint session of the pontifical academies, organized this year by the academy of fine arts and letters, focused on the relationship between “esthetics and ethics.” Read Article

By Cindy Wooden