In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome! Your Eminence, Your Excellencies, Dear brothers and sisters,

The first words I would like to say to you are "thank you." Thank you for the collaboration you have offered the Holy See in recent years, particularly for the installation of the Venice Biennale Pavilion and for the contemporary art projects promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education. Thank you for the trust with which you have agreed to walk alongside the Church, also along new paths.

I think, for example, of the Pavilion set up in the women's prison on the island of Giudecca, which Pope Francis visited. Anyone who has been there knows that it was not a matter of bringing art into prison, but of allowing the prisoners to teach something about art and to us. For the "human person is 'worthy' simply by virtue of existing and of being destined for eternity" (Meeting at the Accueil Notre-Dame, Lourdes, 27 September 2026) and is always greater than his or her fragility and mistakes.

I was also struck by the motto, inspired by Saint Hildegard of Bingen, of this year's Venetian Pavilion: "The Ear is the Eye of the Soul." Indeed, like an antenna, art is receptive to the great questions of the human heart — sometimes like a cry, more often like a whisper — and makes them audible, visible and shareable.

Saint Augustine left us an immortal testimony to the restlessness of the human heart in search of truth. Art, when it is authentic, is also animated by this restlessness. For this reason, the Church has never considered art to be merely decorative. Instead, for the Church, art nurtures the fundamental posture of listening, through which we can learn about humanity's aspirations and wounds, our thirst for beauty, justice and peace, and our search for meaning.

We live in the age of search engines that offer us thousands of instantaneous answers. Yet, no matter how powerful they may be, they merely return what already exists and tend to give us what we already want. In the age of technology and consumerism, the great danger is not only censorship but also homogenization, and not merely imposed silence but the noise that makes it impossible to listen. Art is a different kind of "search engine." It does not proceed by indexing but by inquiry. Indeed, its inquiry is a focused attention that is not satisfied with the mere sum of facts, for it never ceases to dig deeper, seeking the thread that unites them. Your art, when it resists homogenization, when it draws our gaze, when it compels us to pause before that which cannot be consumed, is a form of cultural and spiritual regeneration.

Pope Saint Paul VI spoke words that remain a landmark for the Church's relationship with artists: "We need you," he said. "Our ministry needs your collaboration. For, as you know, our ministry is to preach and to make the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of the ineffable, of God, accessible and understandable — indeed, inspiring. And in this task, which translates the invisible world into accessible, intelligible forms, you are masters" (Homily at the Mass with artists, 7 May 1964).

For my part, I also say to you today: the Church needs you. This is especially true in this age of artificial intelligence, in which we urgently need to distinguish human art from what is produced by machines. There is an ontological difference — even before an aesthetic one — between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of the human, whereas "authentic culture and art preserve this spark" (Enc. Magnifica humanitas, 122).

For all these reasons, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions; an alliance for safeguarding what is human. As I had the opportunity to say during my recent visit to UNESCO, "Promoting education, science and culture is impossible without at the same time improving the lives of men and women who are engaged in these activities" (Address at UNESCO, Paris, 25 September 2026).

Dear artists, dear curators, know that the Church looks upon you with esteem, gratitude and hope; that she needs you, and that she wishes to walk alongside you, so that together we may safeguard the grandeur of humanity entrusted to us. May God bless all of you and your work! Thank you.