Pope Francis says Learn "cultivate beauty as something unique and sacred for every creature, conceived, loved and celebrated by God"
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Meeting with a delegation of the “Custodians of Beauty” project sponsored by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), Pope Francis urges them to restore true beauty and harmony to the world, prioritizing those who live on the margins of society. The “Custodi del Bello” Project, is a joint venture of non-profit and for-profit companies and public entities spearheaded by the Italian Bishops, aimed at promoting a new model of social integration that focuses on work and beauty, as a driving force for economic development. Welcoming the delegation in the Clementine Hall, on Monday morning, Pope Francis thanked the network for its work, noting that the name of the project is not just a slogan but a choice of life aimed at two great purposes: care and beauty.
FULL TEXT ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE PROJECT “CUSTODI DEL BELLO”
Clementine Hall on Monday, September 30, 2024
___________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I am happy to meet you. I greet Monsignor Giuseppe Baturi, Secretary General of the CEI, and Monsignor Carlo Redaelli, President of Caritas Italiana. I thank you all for being here and for what you do for our cities.
Being “Custodi del Bello” is a great responsibility, as well as an important message for the ecclesial community and for all of society. I would therefore like to reflect with you on the name of your project, which is not just a slogan, but indicates a way of being, a style, a choice of life oriented towards two great purposes: safeguarding and beauty.
To guard means to protect, to conserve, to watch over, to defend. It is a multifaceted action, which requires attention and care, because it starts from the awareness of the value of who or what is entrusted to us. For this reason it does not allow distractions and laziness. Those who guard keep their eyes wide open, are not afraid to spend time, to get involved, to take on responsibilities. And all this, in a context that often invites us not to "get our hands dirty", to delegate, is prophetic, because it calls for personal and community commitment. Everyone, with their own abilities and skills, with intelligence and heart, can do something to guard things, others, the common home, in a perspective of integral care of creation.
Saint Paul tells us that "the creation groans and suffers" (Rom 8:22); his cry joins that of many poor people of the earth, who urgently ask for serious and effective decisions aimed at promoting the good of all, in a perspective that therefore cannot be only environmental, but must become ecological in a broader, integral sense.
Today, there are many people on the margins, discarded, forgotten in an increasingly efficient and ruthless society: the poor, migrants, the elderly and disabled who are alone, the chronically ill. Yet, each one is precious in the eyes of the Lord (see Is 43:1-4). For this reason, I recommend that in your work of requalifying many places left to neglect and degradation, you always keep as your primary objective the protection of the people who live there and who frequent them. Only in this way will you restore creation to its beauty.
And this is precisely the other value: together with protection, beauty. Today we talk about it a lot, to the point of making it an obsession. Often, however, it is considered in a distorted way, confusing it with ephemeral and mass-produced aesthetic models, more tied to hedonistic, commercial and advertising criteria than to the integral development of people. An approach of this kind is harmful, because it does not help the best in each person to flourish, but leads to the degradation of man and nature. Indeed, if “we have not learned to stop and admire and appreciate beauty, it is not surprising that everything is transformed into an object to be used and abused without scruple” (Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, 215).
Instead, it is a matter of learning to cultivate beauty as something unique and sacred for every creature, conceived, loved and celebrated by God from the beginning of the world (cf. Gen 1:4) as an inseparable unity of grace and goodness, of aesthetic and moral perfection.
This is your mission; and I encourage you, as cooperators in the great plan of the Creator, not to tire of transforming ugliness into beauty, degradation into opportunity, disorder into harmony.
May Saint Joseph of Nazareth, the humble and silent guardian of the “most beautiful of the sons of men” (cf. Ps 44:3), of the incarnate Word in whom all things were created and exist (cf. Col 1:16-17), accompany you and be a model for you in your commitment. With his discreet and industrious faithfulness, Saint Joseph helped bring beauty back into the world.
Thank you for all the good you do! I bless you and pray for you. And I ask you, please, to pray for me.
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE PROJECT “CUSTODI DEL BELLO”
Clementine Hall on Monday, September 30, 2024
___________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
I am happy to meet you. I greet Monsignor Giuseppe Baturi, Secretary General of the CEI, and Monsignor Carlo Redaelli, President of Caritas Italiana. I thank you all for being here and for what you do for our cities.
Being “Custodi del Bello” is a great responsibility, as well as an important message for the ecclesial community and for all of society. I would therefore like to reflect with you on the name of your project, which is not just a slogan, but indicates a way of being, a style, a choice of life oriented towards two great purposes: safeguarding and beauty.
To guard means to protect, to conserve, to watch over, to defend. It is a multifaceted action, which requires attention and care, because it starts from the awareness of the value of who or what is entrusted to us. For this reason it does not allow distractions and laziness. Those who guard keep their eyes wide open, are not afraid to spend time, to get involved, to take on responsibilities. And all this, in a context that often invites us not to "get our hands dirty", to delegate, is prophetic, because it calls for personal and community commitment. Everyone, with their own abilities and skills, with intelligence and heart, can do something to guard things, others, the common home, in a perspective of integral care of creation.
Saint Paul tells us that "the creation groans and suffers" (Rom 8:22); his cry joins that of many poor people of the earth, who urgently ask for serious and effective decisions aimed at promoting the good of all, in a perspective that therefore cannot be only environmental, but must become ecological in a broader, integral sense.
Today, there are many people on the margins, discarded, forgotten in an increasingly efficient and ruthless society: the poor, migrants, the elderly and disabled who are alone, the chronically ill. Yet, each one is precious in the eyes of the Lord (see Is 43:1-4). For this reason, I recommend that in your work of requalifying many places left to neglect and degradation, you always keep as your primary objective the protection of the people who live there and who frequent them. Only in this way will you restore creation to its beauty.
And this is precisely the other value: together with protection, beauty. Today we talk about it a lot, to the point of making it an obsession. Often, however, it is considered in a distorted way, confusing it with ephemeral and mass-produced aesthetic models, more tied to hedonistic, commercial and advertising criteria than to the integral development of people. An approach of this kind is harmful, because it does not help the best in each person to flourish, but leads to the degradation of man and nature. Indeed, if “we have not learned to stop and admire and appreciate beauty, it is not surprising that everything is transformed into an object to be used and abused without scruple” (Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, 215).
Instead, it is a matter of learning to cultivate beauty as something unique and sacred for every creature, conceived, loved and celebrated by God from the beginning of the world (cf. Gen 1:4) as an inseparable unity of grace and goodness, of aesthetic and moral perfection.
This is your mission; and I encourage you, as cooperators in the great plan of the Creator, not to tire of transforming ugliness into beauty, degradation into opportunity, disorder into harmony.
May Saint Joseph of Nazareth, the humble and silent guardian of the “most beautiful of the sons of men” (cf. Ps 44:3), of the incarnate Word in whom all things were created and exist (cf. Col 1:16-17), accompany you and be a model for you in your commitment. With his discreet and industrious faithfulness, Saint Joseph helped bring beauty back into the world.
Thank you for all the good you do! I bless you and pray for you. And I ask you, please, to pray for me.
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