Vatican City, Nov 29, 2018 / 05:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis wrote in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato si, that, “by learning to see and appreciate beauty, we learn to reject self-interested pragmatism.”

The Holy Father quoted this line again in a Nov. 29 message to a Vatican conference centered on answering the question of how to preserve the beauty and the sacredness of now-empty and unused Catholic churches.