Unless we agree with the reductionist principles of the so-called “ideological ecologism”, so loaded with a certain dramatic immobilism, we will understand the importance and necessity of human endeavor, which is the basis of culture in its fullest sense.

That human endeavor, creative and creative, finds in admiration and observation the necessary elements from which it arises and at the same time reaches its peak.  

To give an example: I think that no one will have the slightest doubt that the Pieta in the Vatican Basilica is infinitely superior to that block of marble sculpture that Michelangelo went to choose personally in the cellars of the Apuan Alps, in the surroundings of Carrara. 

From that block of 2 meters by 2 and a half meters, he brilliantly knew how to remove all the excess material and from it, he made the Pietà “emerge”. 

The Pietà was not really “inside the block”, but rather it was in the heart, in the intelligence, in the genius, in the soul of Michelangelo, all that was the guide of his hands. As he himself said: “I only remove what is left over”.

We have suffered and continue to suffer from self-harming attitudes that harm us all and compromise the future. Suffice it to think of the depreciations or the destruction of the heritage of 1936.

These Conferences are very important because they allow us to follow the path together, to open doors, to accompany each other, to enrich ourselves with the experiences of those who have already taken steps, to learn from mistakes, even those made with good will.

The world of tourism moves 1.3 billion people every year, 300 million of whom travel for religious reasons of various origins. This is telling us about enormous and complex realities, not easy to imagine and manage, but the only thing we cannot afford is to be absent, indifferent and disjointed.

Our country is the largest holiday and leisure destination with about 85 million people who choose us every year for those sacred days of rest, attracted by the sun, the good weather, the openness of the Spanish people, our culture, art, history, our faith and cultural heritage that today unites us and shows the richness of that faith, believed and lived in a unique and singular way, typical of Spain.

Those more than 84 and a half million tourists who arrive every year, leave in Spain the equivalent of the health and education budgets together, they also allow us to maintain the welfare state and give work to millions of Spaniards, and to other people who come here to seek a better life, but they also allow us to heal, educate, open possibilities, plan the future, while we offer them a material and immaterial wealth, typical of our people and our culture.

If the inhabitants of a city feel invaded and at the mercy of decisions planned in distant desks, and that the massive and indiscriminate arrival of tourists or pilgrims seriously disturbs the serenity and peace of their daily lives, it is not strange that the so-called “tourism-phobia” is generated or, as unfortunately is also happening in Santiago, a certain “pilgrim-phobia”. 

When they experience that they have been mere unwitting spectators of a process that generates social stress, that reduces them to produce and sell objects and services for mass demand, far from promoting a harmonious and integrating social development, it produces the opposite feeling to the cordial welcome, which is the central element in any valid and sustainable tourism project: the harmonious and fruitful encounter between peoples and people.

That is why it is important that all the actors or builders of society, with an overcoming spirit, putting aside differences and in the name of the Common Good, are capable of sitting down to elaborate this strategic tourist-cultural-social plan, with its own brand, which guarantees its operative viability and its durability, taking into account primarily the neighbors and not only the “profit”.

By builders of the society I understand that, starting from 2 great “motors” as the Church and the structures of the State, it is necessary that they are able to summon the living forces: Institutions, intermediate associations, groups of opinion, educators, tourist and cultural managers, prepared people of good will, etc. centered on a project of high voltage for the local culture and for the same population, that must be elaborated and managed from the own reality of the place. This can be a Sanctuary, ruins with archaeological value, a convent, a museum, or the total set of the own cultural goods.

For example: A magnificent cathedral, where I can put an admission ticket, which beyond providing several utilities (such as restoration, support, providing technology and security, producing illustrative material, etc) and where the organizational machinery works like clockwork, it seems to have everything tied up and well tied up .... But when the question of evangelization enters the scene, a new chapter opens with many questions, since having a cultural property and organizing its management in a business way does not mean that this opens and articulates an evangelizing process, which is a necessary step... and if it is not taken, it simply “reduces” to a beautiful museum placed in a cultural environment, everything that was created and designed for worship, the adoration of God and evangelization. 

 It makes one laugh when they “musealize” cathedrals and then pompously call people to participate in “cultural visits”. I ask myself: Are we afraid to speak of the Christian signs and symbols present in the sacred space that explain, celebrate and make the faith present?

It is almost an offense to the “orthopraxis”, what was created for the worship and adoration of God is presented as an almost neutral cultural visit.

To assume this, it is inescapable to prepare people in an integral way, but I allow myself to include something more, that at least they belong in an active way to the faith that the monument celebrates. It is not enough that they be good and professionally competent guides, but that they also be true catechists, otherwise it would be better that they explain the Roman Colosseum or the monument to Garibaldi.

I hope not to be misinterpreted, or taken out of context or given an intentionality that I do not have, by what I will say: It would seem to me tremendously limiting that a Catholic guide, however prepared he may be, explain to me a synagogue or a mosque, its symbology, its mystery, “its mysticism”, its transmission of values and asceticism proper to its faith, the spirit of its prayer and hope; if this is not included, in the best of cases, it will hardly exceed the mere cultural or archaeological visit, as it also seems to me equally limiting and reduced to the merely technical, that the Transparent of the cathedral of Toledo be explained to me by someone who does not believe in the Eucharist.  

If I limit myself to explain the marbles, bronzes, authors, architects and artists, I would only have entered the materiality of the work or the building, I would not have gone beyond the threshold, I would only have mentioned the material support, destined to celebrate a Mystery, the important thing is the mystery believed and celebrated and which are the reason why those marbles, bronzes, stones and images are there, and for which those artists worked with their ingenuity, who did not do it motivated only by the mere aesthetic pleasure, but inspired by higher and better realities.

 It is necessary to transcend, to enter (to see and touch with the senses) the soul of that work or that cathedral. 

 To provoke and awaken the aesthetic emotion, which is capable of transfiguring people and cultures, is the positive stupor of amazement, which opens the doors of the soul and places us before a road to travel: the “via pulchritudinis”.

The Platonic tradition suggests that beauty, truth and good are interchangeable, almost analogous words.

In the same way that the word “beautiful” in English means beautiful, but has the same root as “good”, in Greek the word kalhós (where good and beautiful intersect) has this double connotation. When Jesus affirms “I am the Good Shepherd” he is affirming that he is the “Good and beautiful Shepherd” in whom resides all the Beauty and Goodness of God. The same Hebrew word used in Genesis, when it says “and he saw that it was good”, is “tov”, which can also be translated as “beautiful”, “and he saw that it was good and he saw that it was beautiful.”

Aesthetics and ethics will always be linked, but also beauty will have a close relationship with wisdom, following Plato: “beauty is the splendor of truth”, that fullness of truth, the whole truth, to which the Holy Spirit sent from the Father will guide us.

I have chosen a painting that goes unnoticed to the general public and apparently non-religious, since it is placed among the great works of the master and that get all the attention.

• The work was made in 1495, is tempera or tempera on wood and measures 0.61 x 0.91 cm, is a relatively small painting.

• It is the last archaeological work of Botticelli, who was called Alessandro Botticelli di Mariano Filipei.

• We see a great intensity of colors and natural light.

• It is an allegorical scene, set against a classical architectural background, with allusions to mythology and the A.T. All this shows the author's interest in antiquity, which gives greater drama to the work.

• It is called “The Calumny of Apelles”, and is inspired by the work of Luciano de Somósata entitled “About Calumny”, mentioned by Leon Battista Alberti.

• In the central niche is King David, in the purest Donatello style, made 50 years earlier.

• Other important characters for the Christian faith are also present, such as St. Paul and St. George.

• King David, Paul of Tarsus and the Roman officer St. George, and other figures, at some point in their lives were “touched” by slander.

• Some mythological scenes appear: Apollo and Daphne, Herakles and Lycas, all of them, in one way or another, also slandered.

• There are 10 figures, and it is read from right to left.

• The scene opens to the exterior, where appears a blue sky and a greenish sea, which marks the horizon line.

• The work “the slander” “is embellished”, by hypocrisy and wickedness, that comb it, they adorn it by placing in its hair a white ribbon, of apparent purity. They are “embellishing” her, a slander that not well lined up like a salad, has little course.

• The clothes of the young woman who represents the slander are similar to those used in the Marian iconography, because the one who becomes the bearer of the slander must appear pure and scandalized by what she transmits, but they will be only fictional clothes.

• He carries in one hand a torch that has fire, but does not illuminate, like the calumny that has strength and energy, but does not bring light.

• With his right hand he drags along the ground, holding by the hair, a naked young man with barely covered his shame and placing his hope on high, begs for mercy, for the truth to be revealed.

• On the left, an old woman in heavy and dark clothes represents compunction, that is, the repentance of the slanderer, who turns his gaze back in search of the truth.

• This pure and unclothed woman represents the truth, she is naked, she is only covered with her hair and one of her hands, she raises her right hand and her gaze, since only heaven can restore innocence and reestablish the truth to the slanderer.

• It is noteworthy that all the characters in the painting are barefoot, indicating the cross risk of suffering from slander, from which no one is exempt. 

• Everything happens in a scene, bright and open, since slander most of the time spreads in the sunlight, it does not need to shelter in the darkness of the darkness.

• The theme is taken from a historical fact and that is the accusation of envy that the painter Antófilos makes against his colleague the painter Apeles. He accuses him of being the leader of a revolt against Ptolemy IV, because of this he is imprisoned and only obtains his freedom when the true leader of the revolt surrenders and Apelles' innocence is revealed.

• King Ptolemy rehabilitated him, and to do justice and eradicate the slander, condemns Anthophilos, Apelles' accuser, to spend the rest of his life as his slave.

Why did I choose an apparently non-religious painting in a museum and not a sacred image in a cathedral?

Precisely because of the development of the theme we have been dealing with, because the interpretation plays a determining role between the work and the person who admires it, in time and the message, even the abstract ones contain a message. And it is never a message without content, it is never neutral, and returning to the beginning of this fraternal reflection, Beauty is today, as yesterday, one of the privileged highways that lead us to God, to his search, to walk to meet him.

The titanic work of saving, caring for and preserving the cultural goods we have received would be truncated and impoverished if we limit ourselves to being “those who conserve and ensure for future generations” an artistic treasure of incalculable value and beauty, for if we do not succeed in having this treasure read in the key of faith, opening the “Porta fidei” that makes us meet Jesus, we will have done something very valuable in itself, but which will be of only half use.

The great Antoni Gaudi said that “the temple must inspire the feeling of divinity” and a beautiful work...also.

Without fear, we could say that a church can be reduced to the mere function of a museum and that at the same time a museum can become the “tent of encounter”, “when the visitor is helped and disturbed” so that he can open himself to the divine dimension or at least shake off his apathy.

When someone is disturbed, moved, moved and uplifted by beauty, they are having a spiritual experience from which they will never come out the same.

I understand all this as a place of more direct or broader proclamation, but proclamation of the Gospel.

If we do not unite culture, the tourism project and evangelization, if we do not put them to work together, we will hardly be able to make much progress.

Evangelization requires truly trained people who can put the marvelous cultural heritage, of which we are the depositaries, at the active service of the new evangelization, which finds an ideal public in tourism.

Author: Gustavo Riveiro D'Angelo

Dtor. of the Department of Tourism Pastoral. Spanish Episcopal Conference

Conference presented at the XL Jornadas Nacionales de Patrimonio Cultural de la Iglesia. 

Spanish Episcopal Conference. Diocesan Museum of Barbastro, June 27, 2022.