THE PERENNIAL IMPORTANCE OF ST. AUGUSTINE

Vatican City,  (VIS) - Yesterday evening at the Apostolic Palace in Castelgandolfo, the German diocese of Wurzburg offered a concert in honour of the Holy Father. The performance - entitled "Augustinus, a mosaic of sound" - was intended as part of an international symposium on St. Augustine which is currently taking place at the "Augustiniaum" in Rome. The piece was composed by Winfried Bohm and Wilfried Hiller, and performed by the choir of the cathedral of Wurzburg.

"The modernity of this Great Father of the Latin Church is unchanged, as is evident in the music we have just heard", said the Holy Father referring to St. Augustine in his remarks at the end of the concert. "Augustine is present and 'timeless'. Man's struggle, his search for the most intimate part of himself, for truth, for God, remains valid for all times. It does not concern only a master of rhetoric and grammar who lived in the disturbed times of late antiquity, but all human beings of all times".

"May your symposium on the relationship between cultures in Augustine's 'City of God' be a fruitful contribution to deepening your reflections on the bishop of Hippo, and to reconsigning his validity for the questions and challenges we are facing today".