This is the closing panel of our international symposium "Can beauty save the world?" held at McGill University, Oct 24-25, 2025, and focuses on ritual and spirit in the age of disenchantment.

We open with a song from singer-songwriter Tiffany Thompson.

Ayodeji Ogunnaike (McGill), Julian Carrón (Sacro Cuore, Milan), Matt Miller (Dzeici Theater), and Mauro Magatti (Sacro Cuore, Milan) called for the recovery of spirit as essential to beauty’s saving power. Deji drew on Yoruba philosophy, where character is beauty and truth may be transformative rather than pleasant. Fr. Carron asked whether beauty can help us open our whole selves to reality instead. Matt reflected on how beauty matters for change of state vs. change of being. Mauro argued that beauty saves only if we rehabilitate spirit as a structural dimension of human thought— resonant, decentering, transcendent, and mysterious.

The panel was moderated by novelist and theologian Tara Isabella Burton, who also offers closing remarks.

The event was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

Learn more at www.canbeautysavetheworld.com and www.beautyatwork.net

#beautyatwork #beauty #music #ritual #spirit #theology #yoruba #transformation