The Pope responded to questions posed by a young girl, by a 95-year-old woman and by a married couple.
Question posed by Bianca, a young woman
On behalf of all the youth I welcome you to Naples! Holiness, You teach us that an apostle must strive to be a polite person, serene, cheerful and enthusiastic, one who transmits joy where ever he or she is, and this so true for us! However, there is such a great hunger for dreams and hopes in our hearts that at times it is difficult to combine Christian values with the horrors, the difficulties and the corruption that we encounter in our daily lives. Holy Father, in the midst of God's silence, how can we plant seeds of joy and sow hope in order that the earth might bear the fruit of authenticity, truth, justice and true love, the love that is beyond all human limits?
Holy Father
Please excuse me, I have to sit down; I'm really very tired because you Neapolitans have me moving around so much ... God, our God, is a God of words, a God of gestures, a God of silences. The God of words, we know because in the Bible we find God's Word: God speaks to us, he seeks us out. The God of gestures is the God who goes out. Let's consider the parable of the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the sheep, who calls us by name, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who is always waiting for us, who always forgives us, who always understands us with gestures of tenderness. And then, the God of silence. Consider the periods of great silence in the Bible: for example, the silence in Abraham's heart when he went with his son to offer him in sacrifice. Two days, they climbed the mountain, but he didn't dare say anything to his son, even if his son, who was no fool, may have understood. And God was silent. But the greatest of God's silences was the Cross: Jesus experienced the silence of the Father, he called it abandoned: Father, why have you abandoned me? And then there was God's miracle, the word, the great gesture that was the Resurrection. Our God is also a God of silences; there are times when God is silent, and there is no way to explain such silences unless you are looking at the Cross. For example, why do children suffer? Can you explain this? Where can we find a word from God to explain why children suffer? This is one of the great silences of God. And the silence of God doesn't say that we can understand, but we can be drawn closer to God by such silence if we look to the crucified Christ, the dying Christ, the abandoned Christ, from the Mount of Olives all the way to the Cross. These are silences. But God created us to be happy! - Yes, that's true, but often, he is silent. This is the truth. I can't mislead you by saying, Have faith and all will be well, you will be happy, you will have good luck, you will have money ... No, our God is also found in silence. Remember: he is the God of words, the God of gestures and the God of silences, these three things must be united in your life. This is what I have to say. Excuse me. There is no other recipe.
Question posed by Erminia, a 95 year-old woman
Holy Father, my name is Erminia, I am 95 years old. I thank God for the gift of a long life, and I also thank you because you defend life at all times. We need this so much! ... because in our society, this is a gift that seems almost to be frightening, a gift that is often rejected and discarded. With the passage of years, I found myself once again alone following the death of my husband, more fragile and in need of help. I was afraid of having to leave my house, of finishing my days in some institution, in one of those elderly deposits of which you have spoken. Many are the examples of the elderly who are forced to ask themselves if their existence still makes sense. I had the grace to encounter a Christian community that has not lost its soul and where affection and gratitude still live. So it is that in my old age, I have encountered angels, as I refer to them, some of whom are young and others are not so young, who help me, who visit me, who support me in my daily struggles. Friendship with them has given me such strength and courage. Praying together has also been a great help to me: I am weak, but praying for the poor, for the sick, for the needs of the world, for peace, for the good of the Church, and even for the Pope, I find the strength to help and protect others. So it is that many help and many are helped; together we form one human family: young and old together. How can we all live more and more as a Church which is a multi-generational family, not discarding the elderly but making it possible for everyone to be a part of the community?
Holy Father
Please sit down, because when I hear you say that you are 95 years old, I want to say: but if you are 95 years old, then I am Napoleon! Congratulations; you are doing very well! You said one word that is key to our culture: discarded. The elderly are often discarded because present-day society throws out everything that is not useful: we use and we throw away. Children are not useful: why do children exist? It would be better not to have any. But I still have affection, I am fine with a little dog and a cat. Our society is like that: many people don't want children but are content with a small dog or with a cat! Children are discarded, the elderly are discarded, many are left alone. We elderly have ailments, problems, and we are a problem for others, so people cast us aside because of our ailments, because we are no longer useful. There is also an attitude of - please excuse the word - of allowing the elderly to die, and since we love to use euphemisms, we use even a technical word: euthanasia. But not only is there the euthanasia that is administered with a needle, there is also hidden euthanasia, when medicines are not administered, when people are not cared for, when life is so sad that people die, and it's all done.
This path that you have said you found is the best medicine for living a long life: closeness, friendship, tenderness. Sometimes I ask children who have elderly parents: are you close to your elderly parents? And if you have placed them in a retirement home - because it really isn't possible for you to keep your mother and father in your home due to the fact that you are both working - do you go to visit them? In the other diocese, when I would visit retirement homes, I found many elderly of whom I would ask: And your children? They are well. Do they come to visit? People wouldn't respond, so I would say ... When was the last time they came? For Christmas - and we were in the month of August. They were left there with no sense of affection, affection is the most important medicine for the elderly. We all need affection, even more as we age. To all of you, children who have elderly parents, I ask you to make an examination of conscience: what is the fourth commandment? Do you go to visit them? Do you give them tenderness? Do you waste time with your elderly father and mother? I would like to tell you a story that was told to me often in our home in my childhood. There was a grandfather who lived with his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The grandfather grew old and in the end, poor fellow, when he ate, he would take his soup and spill a bit of it. One day, the father decided that the grandfather would no longer be able to eat at the family table because he was embarrassed, he could not invite his friends. He bought a small table and his father would eat in the kitchen, alone. Solitude is the worst enemy for the elderly. One day, the father returned from work and found his four-year-old son playing with wood, nails and a hammer. He said to him: what are you making? A small table, so when you are old, you can use it to eat! You only reap what you sow! I want to remind all children about the fourth commandment. Do you share affection with your parents, do you hug them, do you tell them that you love them? If you spend a lot of money on medicine, do you blame them for it? Make a good examination of conscience. Affection is the best medicine for us elderly. This testimony that you have given, about your friends - how wonderful they are! - should be told again and again, so that other people will be inspired to do the same. Never abandon the elderly. Never.
Question from the Russo family
Holiness, you have recently said that we must communicate the beauty of the family because it is the privileged place of encounter for love that is freely given. This challenge requires commitment, knowledge and going against the tide, re-evaluating the ability to make courageous choices that defend the true sense of the family as a resource for society and as a privileged means of passing on the faith. You encourage us to not allow hope to be stolen but in a city like Naples, home of many Saints but also a place of much suffering and contradiction where the family is under attack, how can we build a pastoral approach to families based on going out and not closed in or defensive ... one that takes into account all its true beauty? How can we combine excessive secularity with spirituality and, inspired by the words of our Archbishop, find room for hope?
Holy Father
The family is in crisis: this is true, there is nothing new there. Young people don't want to get married, they prefer to live together, in peace and without any compromise: then, if they have a child, they will get married out of obligation. These days, it's not fashionable to get married! Many times when I see weddings in churches, I ask: You who are coming here to be married, are you doing this because you truly want to receive this Sacrament from your fiance/fiancee, or are you here because society expects this of you? It happened recently that, after a long period of living together, a couple that I know decided to get married. When? We still don't know because we are looking for a church that will allow us to dress how we want, and we are looking for a restaurant near the church, and we need to make the bomboniere, and ... But tell me, when you have faith, do you get married? The crisis of the family is a social reality. Then there are ideological colonizations in families, ways and plans that we do things in Europe that come from overseas. Then the mistake in the human mind that is the theory of gender, that creates so much confusion. The family is under attack. How can we face secularization that is active? How can we live with ideological colonization? How can we make sense of a culture that doesn't consider the family, where people prefer not to get married? I don't have the perfect response. The Church is aware of all of this and the Lord has inspired us to call the Synod on the family, to consider these many problems. For example, the problem of preparing couples for marriage in the Church. How do we prepare couples who come to us and want to be married? At one time, they had three meetings ... Is this enough for us to verify faith? It's not easy. Preparation for marriage is not a question of a course, like a language course: get married in eight easy lessons. Preparation for marriage is something else completely. The process has to begin in the home, with friends, when you are young, from the time of the engagement. Engagement has lost its sense of respect as something sacred. Today, normally, engagement and living together are perceived as almost the same thing. Not always, because there are some beautiful examples .... How can we prepare for an engagement that matures? ... because when a period of engagement is good, the couple arrives at a point where they need to be married, when they have matured. It's like fruit: if you don't pick it when it's ripe, it's no good. There is such a crisis; I ask you to pray hard. I don't have any answers for this, but the witness of love and the witness of how to resolve problems is very important.
In marriage, there can also be fights ... sometimes dishes fly. I always give one piece of practical advice: fight as long as you want, but don't finish the day without making peace. In order to do this, it's not necessary to put yourself on your knees; it's enough that you hug one another, because when we fight, there is always a bitterness within, and if we can make peace right away, all is good. Cold bitterness from yesterday is always more difficult to tolerate, so make peace on the same day. This is my advice. Also, it's important to ask your husband or wife if something makes them happy or not: you are two, there is no place for I in marriage; it always has to be we. There is also truth in what they say about marriage: joy in two, three times joy; pain and suffering in two, half pain, half suffering. This is how married life should be lived, and this can be done with prayer, lots of prayer and with example, so that love is not wasted. There are always difficult trials in life, we can't live with the illusion of finding another person who will say: Ah, if only I had known this one before or that one before, I would have married this one or that one. But you didn't know him or her before, he or she arrived late. Close the door right away! Be attentive to these kinds of things and go on with your witness and return to the beginning: the family is in crisis and it's not easy to find answers, it's a matter of witness and prayer.
At the conclusion of the gathering
I want to thank you very much for your welcome and for your witness. And I ask you to pray for me. I ask you to pray for youth: today is the first day of Spring, the day of hope, the day of the young. Maybe if every Spring, we set out on the road of youth, it would flourish again. To all the young people, I repeat: don't lose the hope of always going on ahead. To the elderly: carry out the wisdom of life; the elderly are like well-aged wine. Good wine has something that is good both for the young and for the elderly. Young and old together: the young have strength, the elderly have memory and wisdom. A people who does not take care of their young, who leaves them without work, unemployed and not caring for the elderly, has no future. If we want our people to have a future, we have to take care of the young, helping them to find work, helping them to find the path away from this crisis, providing them with the value of education; and we have to take care of the elderly who are those who carry the wisdom of life. Now, let us pray to Our Lady and to Saint Joseph, asking them to protect the youth, the elderly and our families: Hail Mary ...
Now I am leaving Naples and returning to Rome! I wish you all the best and ‘ca Maronna v’accumpagne!
At the conclusion of the meeting at Lungomare Caracciolo, the Pope travelled by car to the Naples Maritime Station, and from there, shortly after 6:00pm, his helicopter departed and returned to the Vatican.
Dialogue of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
with youth and families
Question posed by Bianca, a young woman
On behalf of all the youth I welcome you to Naples! Holiness, You teach us that an apostle must strive to be a polite person, serene, cheerful and enthusiastic, one who transmits joy where ever he or she is, and this so true for us! However, there is such a great hunger for dreams and hopes in our hearts that at times it is difficult to combine Christian values with the horrors, the difficulties and the corruption that we encounter in our daily lives. Holy Father, in the midst of God's silence, how can we plant seeds of joy and sow hope in order that the earth might bear the fruit of authenticity, truth, justice and true love, the love that is beyond all human limits?
Holy Father
Please excuse me, I have to sit down; I'm really very tired because you Neapolitans have me moving around so much ... God, our God, is a God of words, a God of gestures, a God of silences. The God of words, we know because in the Bible we find God's Word: God speaks to us, he seeks us out. The God of gestures is the God who goes out. Let's consider the parable of the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the sheep, who calls us by name, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who is always waiting for us, who always forgives us, who always understands us with gestures of tenderness. And then, the God of silence. Consider the periods of great silence in the Bible: for example, the silence in Abraham's heart when he went with his son to offer him in sacrifice. Two days, they climbed the mountain, but he didn't dare say anything to his son, even if his son, who was no fool, may have understood. And God was silent. But the greatest of God's silences was the Cross: Jesus experienced the silence of the Father, he called it abandoned: Father, why have you abandoned me? And then there was God's miracle, the word, the great gesture that was the Resurrection. Our God is also a God of silences; there are times when God is silent, and there is no way to explain such silences unless you are looking at the Cross. For example, why do children suffer? Can you explain this? Where can we find a word from God to explain why children suffer? This is one of the great silences of God. And the silence of God doesn't say that we can understand, but we can be drawn closer to God by such silence if we look to the crucified Christ, the dying Christ, the abandoned Christ, from the Mount of Olives all the way to the Cross. These are silences. But God created us to be happy! - Yes, that's true, but often, he is silent. This is the truth. I can't mislead you by saying, Have faith and all will be well, you will be happy, you will have good luck, you will have money ... No, our God is also found in silence. Remember: he is the God of words, the God of gestures and the God of silences, these three things must be united in your life. This is what I have to say. Excuse me. There is no other recipe.
Question posed by Erminia, a 95 year-old woman
Holy Father, my name is Erminia, I am 95 years old. I thank God for the gift of a long life, and I also thank you because you defend life at all times. We need this so much! ... because in our society, this is a gift that seems almost to be frightening, a gift that is often rejected and discarded. With the passage of years, I found myself once again alone following the death of my husband, more fragile and in need of help. I was afraid of having to leave my house, of finishing my days in some institution, in one of those elderly deposits of which you have spoken. Many are the examples of the elderly who are forced to ask themselves if their existence still makes sense. I had the grace to encounter a Christian community that has not lost its soul and where affection and gratitude still live. So it is that in my old age, I have encountered angels, as I refer to them, some of whom are young and others are not so young, who help me, who visit me, who support me in my daily struggles. Friendship with them has given me such strength and courage. Praying together has also been a great help to me: I am weak, but praying for the poor, for the sick, for the needs of the world, for peace, for the good of the Church, and even for the Pope, I find the strength to help and protect others. So it is that many help and many are helped; together we form one human family: young and old together. How can we all live more and more as a Church which is a multi-generational family, not discarding the elderly but making it possible for everyone to be a part of the community?
Holy Father
Please sit down, because when I hear you say that you are 95 years old, I want to say: but if you are 95 years old, then I am Napoleon! Congratulations; you are doing very well! You said one word that is key to our culture: discarded. The elderly are often discarded because present-day society throws out everything that is not useful: we use and we throw away. Children are not useful: why do children exist? It would be better not to have any. But I still have affection, I am fine with a little dog and a cat. Our society is like that: many people don't want children but are content with a small dog or with a cat! Children are discarded, the elderly are discarded, many are left alone. We elderly have ailments, problems, and we are a problem for others, so people cast us aside because of our ailments, because we are no longer useful. There is also an attitude of - please excuse the word - of allowing the elderly to die, and since we love to use euphemisms, we use even a technical word: euthanasia. But not only is there the euthanasia that is administered with a needle, there is also hidden euthanasia, when medicines are not administered, when people are not cared for, when life is so sad that people die, and it's all done.
This path that you have said you found is the best medicine for living a long life: closeness, friendship, tenderness. Sometimes I ask children who have elderly parents: are you close to your elderly parents? And if you have placed them in a retirement home - because it really isn't possible for you to keep your mother and father in your home due to the fact that you are both working - do you go to visit them? In the other diocese, when I would visit retirement homes, I found many elderly of whom I would ask: And your children? They are well. Do they come to visit? People wouldn't respond, so I would say ... When was the last time they came? For Christmas - and we were in the month of August. They were left there with no sense of affection, affection is the most important medicine for the elderly. We all need affection, even more as we age. To all of you, children who have elderly parents, I ask you to make an examination of conscience: what is the fourth commandment? Do you go to visit them? Do you give them tenderness? Do you waste time with your elderly father and mother? I would like to tell you a story that was told to me often in our home in my childhood. There was a grandfather who lived with his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The grandfather grew old and in the end, poor fellow, when he ate, he would take his soup and spill a bit of it. One day, the father decided that the grandfather would no longer be able to eat at the family table because he was embarrassed, he could not invite his friends. He bought a small table and his father would eat in the kitchen, alone. Solitude is the worst enemy for the elderly. One day, the father returned from work and found his four-year-old son playing with wood, nails and a hammer. He said to him: what are you making? A small table, so when you are old, you can use it to eat! You only reap what you sow! I want to remind all children about the fourth commandment. Do you share affection with your parents, do you hug them, do you tell them that you love them? If you spend a lot of money on medicine, do you blame them for it? Make a good examination of conscience. Affection is the best medicine for us elderly. This testimony that you have given, about your friends - how wonderful they are! - should be told again and again, so that other people will be inspired to do the same. Never abandon the elderly. Never.
Question from the Russo family
Holiness, you have recently said that we must communicate the beauty of the family because it is the privileged place of encounter for love that is freely given. This challenge requires commitment, knowledge and going against the tide, re-evaluating the ability to make courageous choices that defend the true sense of the family as a resource for society and as a privileged means of passing on the faith. You encourage us to not allow hope to be stolen but in a city like Naples, home of many Saints but also a place of much suffering and contradiction where the family is under attack, how can we build a pastoral approach to families based on going out and not closed in or defensive ... one that takes into account all its true beauty? How can we combine excessive secularity with spirituality and, inspired by the words of our Archbishop, find room for hope?
Holy Father
The family is in crisis: this is true, there is nothing new there. Young people don't want to get married, they prefer to live together, in peace and without any compromise: then, if they have a child, they will get married out of obligation. These days, it's not fashionable to get married! Many times when I see weddings in churches, I ask: You who are coming here to be married, are you doing this because you truly want to receive this Sacrament from your fiance/fiancee, or are you here because society expects this of you? It happened recently that, after a long period of living together, a couple that I know decided to get married. When? We still don't know because we are looking for a church that will allow us to dress how we want, and we are looking for a restaurant near the church, and we need to make the bomboniere, and ... But tell me, when you have faith, do you get married? The crisis of the family is a social reality. Then there are ideological colonizations in families, ways and plans that we do things in Europe that come from overseas. Then the mistake in the human mind that is the theory of gender, that creates so much confusion. The family is under attack. How can we face secularization that is active? How can we live with ideological colonization? How can we make sense of a culture that doesn't consider the family, where people prefer not to get married? I don't have the perfect response. The Church is aware of all of this and the Lord has inspired us to call the Synod on the family, to consider these many problems. For example, the problem of preparing couples for marriage in the Church. How do we prepare couples who come to us and want to be married? At one time, they had three meetings ... Is this enough for us to verify faith? It's not easy. Preparation for marriage is not a question of a course, like a language course: get married in eight easy lessons. Preparation for marriage is something else completely. The process has to begin in the home, with friends, when you are young, from the time of the engagement. Engagement has lost its sense of respect as something sacred. Today, normally, engagement and living together are perceived as almost the same thing. Not always, because there are some beautiful examples .... How can we prepare for an engagement that matures? ... because when a period of engagement is good, the couple arrives at a point where they need to be married, when they have matured. It's like fruit: if you don't pick it when it's ripe, it's no good. There is such a crisis; I ask you to pray hard. I don't have any answers for this, but the witness of love and the witness of how to resolve problems is very important.
In marriage, there can also be fights ... sometimes dishes fly. I always give one piece of practical advice: fight as long as you want, but don't finish the day without making peace. In order to do this, it's not necessary to put yourself on your knees; it's enough that you hug one another, because when we fight, there is always a bitterness within, and if we can make peace right away, all is good. Cold bitterness from yesterday is always more difficult to tolerate, so make peace on the same day. This is my advice. Also, it's important to ask your husband or wife if something makes them happy or not: you are two, there is no place for I in marriage; it always has to be we. There is also truth in what they say about marriage: joy in two, three times joy; pain and suffering in two, half pain, half suffering. This is how married life should be lived, and this can be done with prayer, lots of prayer and with example, so that love is not wasted. There are always difficult trials in life, we can't live with the illusion of finding another person who will say: Ah, if only I had known this one before or that one before, I would have married this one or that one. But you didn't know him or her before, he or she arrived late. Close the door right away! Be attentive to these kinds of things and go on with your witness and return to the beginning: the family is in crisis and it's not easy to find answers, it's a matter of witness and prayer.
At the conclusion of the gathering
I want to thank you very much for your welcome and for your witness. And I ask you to pray for me. I ask you to pray for youth: today is the first day of Spring, the day of hope, the day of the young. Maybe if every Spring, we set out on the road of youth, it would flourish again. To all the young people, I repeat: don't lose the hope of always going on ahead. To the elderly: carry out the wisdom of life; the elderly are like well-aged wine. Good wine has something that is good both for the young and for the elderly. Young and old together: the young have strength, the elderly have memory and wisdom. A people who does not take care of their young, who leaves them without work, unemployed and not caring for the elderly, has no future. If we want our people to have a future, we have to take care of the young, helping them to find work, helping them to find the path away from this crisis, providing them with the value of education; and we have to take care of the elderly who are those who carry the wisdom of life. Now, let us pray to Our Lady and to Saint Joseph, asking them to protect the youth, the elderly and our families: Hail Mary ...
Now I am leaving Naples and returning to Rome! I wish you all the best and ‘ca Maronna v’accumpagne!
At the conclusion of the meeting at Lungomare Caracciolo, the Pope travelled by car to the Naples Maritime Station, and from there, shortly after 6:00pm, his helicopter departed and returned to the Vatican.
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