The Way of Beauty

The road of conversion is the way of humility, of love, of the heart

Redeemer Pacific College has invited Roger Scruton to make a rare trip from England to Vancouver to give a lecture on Beauty at 7 p.m. at Regent College on Sunday, May 5.

Recently, Pope Francis spoke of beauty at Mass on April 19:

Because it is the heart that best understands beauty, Pope Francis drew a contrast in his homily between Mary and those Pharisaical people who pride themselves on their own ideas and schemes.

Such people may even tell themselves that their pet projects are serving God. But their ideas are in fact monstrous, because they are formed "only with their heads. They do not know that the Word of God goes to the heart, do not know of conversion. They are the great ideologues." ...

Roger Scruton, because of his analysis of the sacred purpose of beauty in human culture, is arguably our greatest philosopher writing today. Echoing Pope Francis, Scruton rebukes those intellectuals who, with their heads full of schemes, create a heartless culture.

Our hearts long to dwell with beauty. "Always however there is the nagging presence of the intellectual, who urges us to stand outside community in an attitude of critical negation. Just look at the intellectual products of our time, and ask yourself what their fundamental message is for ordinary humanity," wrote Scruton last year. "The art that is applauded by our art schools and official galleries is uniformly an art of transgression, of defiance, in which the seedy, the random or the violent are put forward as the repositories of true aesthetic value. This transgressive posture is one in which beauty is regarded neither as a value nor even as a possibility."

For the full story see The B.C. Catholic website.