Pope Leo’s address to meeting of Museum Directors (Bizot Group)
Clementine Hall – Saturday, 10 October 2026
(The Bizot Group periodically brings together directors of the world’s largest museums.
It provides a place to exchange ideas, museum news, as well as a forum to discuss ideas)
Theme of this meeting: “Materiality”
Pope Leo’s address
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to have this opportunity to meet with you, the members of the Bizot Group who represent some of the world’s most prestigious museums.
Through your work and passion, you understand that museums are places of memory, beauty, and history.
They foster encounters between generations and promote culture and human creativity.
Throughout the centuries, the Church has cultivated a special affinity with the arts, appreciating them in all their forms.
Indeed, art is the means by which people enhance and transfigure matter—that is, the creation in which they dwell, made in the image and likeness of God—through their ingenuity.
Therefore, the theme of your meeting, “Materiality,” is of particular interest for exploring the relationship between an object and the interpretation of a work of art, as well as for reflecting on matter’s distinctive quality as the place in which God chose to reveal himself.
This morning, I would like to share with you a few brief reflections.
First, matter is available to us,
Indeed it is a gift entrusted to our care.
Through skill, an artist transforms what is at hand into a gift for others.
In this way, cultural endeavor reveals the beauty of creation.
Jesus himself worked with his hands, in daily contact with the matter created by God,
to which he gave form by his craftsmanship”.
Furthermore, matter can be shaped according to the artist’s ideas to express an intuition: giving form or sound to emotions, dreams and words.
Art is a creative process through which human beings imitation God’s work by shaping matter and imbuing it with a transcendent meaning.
In this way, works of art become a sign of that beauty that awakens the heart and mind, directing people towards what is above.
Lastly, matter is memory.
The works preserved in museums bear witness to a history that speaks to everyone, from one generation to the next.
These objects offer the wisdom of the past to the present.
As a pilgrim through time, the Church has understood art in precisely this way: not as mere aestheticism, but as a means of proclaiming the Gospel through beauty.
I congratulate you all on your efforts to direct and administer the museums to which you devote yourselves, safeguarding a heritage that belongs to all of humanity. I offer my best wishes for your group’s initiatives and invoke the Lord’s abundant blessings upon you, your loved ones, and all your associates.