As dusk settled over the Pontifical Gardens of Castel Gandolfo on July 29, Pope Leo XIV listened as Andrea Bocelli led 164 young voices in a hymn, prompting the pope to offer a reflection on how beauty can lead us to God.
“The beauty of music invites us to encounter the one who is beauty itself,” Pope Leo remarked after the international children’s choir performed with the tenor in the Vatican’s Borgo Laudato Si’ gardens.
“It is significant that Sacred Scripture and the Liturgy of the Church speak of ‘choirs of angels and saints’ when describing the joy of heaven,” he added, “not because they are literally singing all the time, but because united in love they behold God together and find in him the fullness of happiness.”
The pope sat before the choir as Bocelli led children and teenagers from the Holy Land, Uganda and Italy in singing “Amazing Grace” as the final song of the evening. The Italian tenor also sang the Latin hymn “Panis Angelicus” for the pope.
The children’s choir was made up of participants in the Andrea Bocelli Foundation’s “Voices Of” program, which pairs choral singing with educational workshops for children in communities affected by poverty, conflict or limited access to schooling.
“My dear young friends, as you were singing, did you notice how music drew all of us into an experience of something new, something that was greater than any one of us alone could create? This is the experience of beauty,” Pope Leo told the choir.
When one seeks beauty, the pope added, “we discover not simply something, but Someone. We encounter God our Creator.”
The young singers, ranging in age from 8 to 19, traveled from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the Ugandan village of Nabikabala, and the Italian cities of Naples and Camerino to take part in the performance, the culminating moment in a 10-day program in Italy sponsored by the charitable foundation. Choir members from Haiti were unable to travel because of ongoing instability in the country, organizers said.
“Continue to cultivate the gifts that God has given you, and allow them to lead you towards him,” Pope Leo told the young singers. “He is everything we are looking for in life, the one who alone can quell our restless hearts.”
“Remember that you have been made for great things, and that this world is not enough to quench your thirst for meaning and happiness,” he said.
The night of musical performances and prayer, held in the Borgo Laudato Si’ gardens near the papal summer residence where Pope Leo spent much of July, was part of the jubilee year celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi.
Sister Alessandra Smerilli, whom Pope Leo recently named the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, read aloud St. Francis’s 1225 poem “The Canticle of the Sun” praising God’s creation, while other members of the Roman Curia read excerpts from writings of past popes and passages of Scripture between songs under the garden’s Roman pines.
In attendance at the concert were about 500 employees of the Dicasteries of the Holy See, the Governorate of Vatican City State and offices of the Roman Curia. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also was present and briefly spoke with the pope after the concert.
At the conclusion of the performance, children from the choir presented Pope Leo XIV with gifts from their home countries. Cardinals and members of the Curia were then invited to a dinner reception in the gardens as the sun set.
Cardinal Fabio Baggio, director general of the Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education, said the event reflected the mission of Borgo Laudato Si’ as “a place where faith becomes an encounter and peace is built by caring for individuals, communities, and creation.”
“Let us entrust this ‘Canticle of Peace’ to the Lord, so that the song that rises from this place today may reach hearts, cross borders and become a seed of hope for the world,” the cardinal said.
