At 12:15pm today, in the Sala Clementina at the Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience a group of participants present for the Meeting of the Pontifical Mission Societies, who are marking the centenary of their existence.
Your Eminence,
Venerated brothers in the Episcopacy and in the priesthood,
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome all of you, National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies and collaborators with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. I thank Cardinal Fernando Filoni for the words he has addressed to me, and all of you for your precious service in carrying out the mission of the Church which is that of announcing the gospel to every creature (Mk 16:15).
This year, our meeting takes place during the centenary of the foundation of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PUM). This work was inspired by Blessed Paul Manna, a missionary priest of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions. Supported by Saint Guido Maria Conforti, it was approved by Pope Benedict XV on 31 October 1916; and forty years later, the venerable Pope XII described it as Pontifical. Through the intuition of Blessed Paul Manna and the meditations of the Holy See, the Holy Spirit led the Church to develop an ever growing knowledge of the true nature of missionary work, which was brought to its fruition in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
Blessed Paolo Manna understood very well that formation and education in the mystery of the Church and in her intrinsic missionary vocation is a purpose that concerns the entire People of God, in a variety of life situations and ministries. Concerning the tasks facing the Missionary Union, some of them are of a cultural nature and others are spiritual in nature, still others are practical and of an organizational nature. The Missionary Union has the duty of enlightening, inflaming and acting in an effort to organize priests and laity in order to prepare them for the missions. These are the comments expressed by the Founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union in 1936 during the historic speech he gave during the second International Congress. However, forming the missionary Bishops and priests did not mean reducing the Pontifical Missionary Union to simply a clerical reality, but supporting the hierarchy in its service to the missionary spirit of the Church, which is proper to all of her people: faithful and pastors, spouses and consecrated virgins, the universal Church and particular Dioceses. By implementing this service with their own charity, Pastors keep the Church always and everywhere in a state of mission, which is always ultimately the work of God, a work in which all believers participate by the grace of their Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist.
Dear National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies, mission makes the Church and keeps it faithful to the will of the saving love of God. For this reason, while it is important for you to be concerned with gathering and distributing economic help that is diligently administered in favour of many churches and Christians in need, a service for which I am grateful, I urge you to not limit yourselves only to this aspect. We need a mystical approach. We need to grow in evangelical passion. I am afraid - I must admit - that your work will remain very organizational, organizationally perfect, but without any passion. This can be done also by an NGO, but you are not an NGO! Without passion, your Union is useless; without a mystical dimension, it is useless. And if we must sacrifice something, let us sacrifice organization, let us go on with the mysticism of the Saints. Today, your missionary Union needs the mysticism of the Saints and the Martyrs, and this is the generous work of permanent formation in mission that you should offer: not only an intellectual course, but adding a wave of missionary passion, a martyr's witness. Churches which have recently been founded, that you assist with their missionary formation, can pass on to the already established Churches, which are sometimes burdened by their own histories and a little tired, the zeal of young faith, the witness of Christian hope, supported by the admirable courage of the martyrs. I encourage you to serve with great love the Churches in which, thanks to the martyrs, we witness how the gospel makes us participants in God's life, and they do this with attraction, not by proselytizing.
During this Holy Year of Mercy, may the missionary zeal that consumed Blessed Paul Manna, and from which sprang the Pontifical Missionary Union, continue even today to promote zeal, passion, renewal, rethinking and reform of the service that this Work is called to offer to the entire Church. Your Union should not be the same next year as it is this year: it should change in this direction, it should convert itself and adopt missionary passion. While I thank the Lord for your one hundred years, I hope that passion for God and for the mission of the Church will call the Pontifical Missionary Union to also reconsider itself in the docility of the Holy Spirit, toward an adequate reform for the good of the permanent missionary formation of all the Churches. With gratitude, I entrust your service to the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Missions, to Saints Peter and Paul, to Saint Guido Maria Conforti and to Blessed Paolo Manna. With all my heart, I bless you and ask you please to pray for me, that I do not slide into blissful tranquility, and that I too may have missionary zeal to go on.
I invite you to pray the Angelus with me.
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
to members of the Pontifical Mission Societies
Your Eminence,
Venerated brothers in the Episcopacy and in the priesthood,
Dear brothers and sisters,
I welcome all of you, National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies and collaborators with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. I thank Cardinal Fernando Filoni for the words he has addressed to me, and all of you for your precious service in carrying out the mission of the Church which is that of announcing the gospel to every creature (Mk 16:15).
This year, our meeting takes place during the centenary of the foundation of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PUM). This work was inspired by Blessed Paul Manna, a missionary priest of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions. Supported by Saint Guido Maria Conforti, it was approved by Pope Benedict XV on 31 October 1916; and forty years later, the venerable Pope XII described it as Pontifical. Through the intuition of Blessed Paul Manna and the meditations of the Holy See, the Holy Spirit led the Church to develop an ever growing knowledge of the true nature of missionary work, which was brought to its fruition in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
Blessed Paolo Manna understood very well that formation and education in the mystery of the Church and in her intrinsic missionary vocation is a purpose that concerns the entire People of God, in a variety of life situations and ministries. Concerning the tasks facing the Missionary Union, some of them are of a cultural nature and others are spiritual in nature, still others are practical and of an organizational nature. The Missionary Union has the duty of enlightening, inflaming and acting in an effort to organize priests and laity in order to prepare them for the missions. These are the comments expressed by the Founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union in 1936 during the historic speech he gave during the second International Congress. However, forming the missionary Bishops and priests did not mean reducing the Pontifical Missionary Union to simply a clerical reality, but supporting the hierarchy in its service to the missionary spirit of the Church, which is proper to all of her people: faithful and pastors, spouses and consecrated virgins, the universal Church and particular Dioceses. By implementing this service with their own charity, Pastors keep the Church always and everywhere in a state of mission, which is always ultimately the work of God, a work in which all believers participate by the grace of their Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist.
Dear National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies, mission makes the Church and keeps it faithful to the will of the saving love of God. For this reason, while it is important for you to be concerned with gathering and distributing economic help that is diligently administered in favour of many churches and Christians in need, a service for which I am grateful, I urge you to not limit yourselves only to this aspect. We need a mystical approach. We need to grow in evangelical passion. I am afraid - I must admit - that your work will remain very organizational, organizationally perfect, but without any passion. This can be done also by an NGO, but you are not an NGO! Without passion, your Union is useless; without a mystical dimension, it is useless. And if we must sacrifice something, let us sacrifice organization, let us go on with the mysticism of the Saints. Today, your missionary Union needs the mysticism of the Saints and the Martyrs, and this is the generous work of permanent formation in mission that you should offer: not only an intellectual course, but adding a wave of missionary passion, a martyr's witness. Churches which have recently been founded, that you assist with their missionary formation, can pass on to the already established Churches, which are sometimes burdened by their own histories and a little tired, the zeal of young faith, the witness of Christian hope, supported by the admirable courage of the martyrs. I encourage you to serve with great love the Churches in which, thanks to the martyrs, we witness how the gospel makes us participants in God's life, and they do this with attraction, not by proselytizing.
During this Holy Year of Mercy, may the missionary zeal that consumed Blessed Paul Manna, and from which sprang the Pontifical Missionary Union, continue even today to promote zeal, passion, renewal, rethinking and reform of the service that this Work is called to offer to the entire Church. Your Union should not be the same next year as it is this year: it should change in this direction, it should convert itself and adopt missionary passion. While I thank the Lord for your one hundred years, I hope that passion for God and for the mission of the Church will call the Pontifical Missionary Union to also reconsider itself in the docility of the Holy Spirit, toward an adequate reform for the good of the permanent missionary formation of all the Churches. With gratitude, I entrust your service to the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Missions, to Saints Peter and Paul, to Saint Guido Maria Conforti and to Blessed Paolo Manna. With all my heart, I bless you and ask you please to pray for me, that I do not slide into blissful tranquility, and that I too may have missionary zeal to go on.
I invite you to pray the Angelus with me.
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