VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI on Friday lauded
what he said was the “spiritual” nature of the nude figures that appear
in Michelangelo’s masterpiece, “The Last Judgment.”
“As modern people … the (human) body appears to us
as inert matter, as something heavy and opposed to knowledge and freedom
inherent to the spirit,” Benedict said.
“But the bodies painted by Michelangelo are filled
with light, life and splendor. He wanted to show that our bodies contain
a mystery: within them the spirit is manifest,” the pontiff added.
The 84-year-old Benedict made the remarks in an
address to members of the Vatican’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute
for Studies on Marriage and Family, which, as the name suggests, was
named after his predecessor John Paul.
“The Last Judgment,” a sprawling fresco that covers
the altar wall of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, depicts among other
scenes, the biblical story of Adam and Eve, who are portrayed naked.
Benedict cited the story to reiterate Catholic
teaching that sex should only take place within marriage between a man
and a woman with the purpose of having children.
“The union in one flesh becomes a union for the whole of life, until a man and a woman become one spirit,” Benedict said.
Sin, on the other hand, makes the body an instrument
of “oppression of others, of the desire to possess and exploit,”
Benedict said.
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