The Pope on art and culture

Reposting from Iconia:

Today, the Pope told hundreds of students at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica that “all culture of modern man must be permeated by the Gospel,” reports Catholic World News.

Here’s the rest:

For young people spending a few formative years in Rome, the Pope said, the city offers “eloquent Christian testimony” in the works of art, architecture, and institutions built up over the centuries. The pontifical universities have their own rich history, he added, noting that in those schools “entire generations of priests and pastoral workers were formed, including many great saints and illustrious men of the Church.”

Encourging the students to diligence in both their studies and their spiritual lives, Pope Benedict told them that they should recognize their academic work as preparation for their priestly mission. The Gospel must be proclaimed in new ways to a new culture, he said, and the ability to state ancient truths in new ways is “more pressing than ever in our post-modern age, in which the need is felt for a new evangelization, and which needs masters of faith and appropriately trained heralds and witnesses of the Gospel.”

It’d be interesting to hear what responsibilities, if any, the Pope feels evangelization has to art.