VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful."
The Pope told the gathering of hundreds of painters, sculptors, architects, poets and directors, held beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art."
"Beauty ... can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God," Benedict said.
The Vatican said it invited some 500 artists to the event, regardless of religious, political or stylistic allegiances.
"Too often ... the beauty thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful ... it imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy," he said.
"Faith takes nothing away from your genius or art," he said. "On the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them."
By Daniel Flynn
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