Pope Benedict XVI met with a crowd of 260 artists Saturday in theVatican's Sistine Chapel. This is not the first instance of the Vaticanreaching out to artists, 45 years ago art-loving Pope Paul VI set up a similar initiative, and just 10 years ago Pope John Paul II, himself an accomplished playwright, wrote in a letter that the church "needs art."

Pope Benedict XVI did not address any previous tension that the church has had with contemporary art or artists such as Andres Serrano, Martin Kippenberger, Chris Ofili, but instead chose to focus on encouraging artists to strive toward artistic production centered around beauty with statements including:

"What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, whatcan encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise itseyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - ifnot beauty?"

"The experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, onthe contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality ofour lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making itradiant and beautiful."

He told artists, "You are the custodians of beauty: thanksto your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart ofhumanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to callforth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and ofhuman engagement."

The pope urged non believers to "enter into dialogue withbelievers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they arepilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite beauty," and forartists to be "fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicatebeauty."

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