With the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission

At noon today, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace’s Hall of Popes, the Holy Father Francis received in audience the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission with its President, His Excellency, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, at the conclusion of their Plenary Assembly which bore the theme Inspiration and truth in the Bible.

Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis

to the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission

Your Eminence,
Venerable Brother,
Dear members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission,

I am pleased to welcome you here at the conclusion of your annual Plenary Assembly. I thank your President, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller for his greeting and for the summary of the topic that has been the subject of careful consideration in the course of your work. You have gathered once again to study a very important topic: the inspiration and truth of the Bible. This is an issue that affects not only the individual believer, but the whole Church, for the life and mission of the Church is founded on the Word of God, which is the soul of theology and, the inspiration of all Christian life .

As we know, the Holy Scriptures are the written testimony of God's Word, the canonical memorial which bears witness to the event of Revelation. The Word of God, therefore, precedes and exceeds the Bible. This is why our faith is not based only on a book, but on a history of salvation and especially a Person, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made ​​flesh. Precisely because the Word of God embraces and extends beyond the Scripture, in order to understand it properly, we have the constant presence of the Holy Spirit who "guides into all truth" ( Jn 16:13). It should be placed in the context of the great Tradition, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Magisterium which recognizes the canonical writings as the word addressed by God to his people and which has never ceased to meditate on and discover the inexhaustible riches it offers.  The Second Vatican Council reiterated with great clarity in the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum: Everything about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God (DV, 12).

As the Dogmatic Constitution reminds us, there is an inseparable unity between Scripture and Tradition, because both come from the same source: Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are bound closely together and communicate with each other. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring have, in a certain way, a unity and tend toward the same end. In fact, the Bible is the Word of God as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; And Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, their successors, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, by their preaching faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad. In this way, the Church draws her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence  (DV, 9).

It therefore follows that the exegete must be careful to perceive the Word of God in the biblical texts by placing them within the faith of the Church. The interpretation of the Holy Scriptures can not be only an individual scientific effort, but must always be compared with, inserted in and authenticated by the living Tradition of the Church. This rule is decisive to explain the correct relationship between exegesis and the Magisterium of the Church. The texts inspired by God were entrusted to the community of believers, the Church of Christ, to nourish the faith and to guide the life of charity. Compliance with this profound nature of Scripture itself affects the validity and effectiveness of biblical hermeneutics. This results in the lack of any subjective interpretation or simply limited to an analysis incapable of embracing the global sense that over the centuries has been the tradition of the entire People of God, who cannot err in maters of belief (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium , 12).

Dear brothers, I would like to conclude my talk by expressing my thanks to all of you and encouraging you in your important work. May the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God and the divine Teacher who opened the minds and hearts of his disciples to understand the Scriptures (cf. Lk 24:45), guide and sustain you always in your work. May the Virgin Mary, model of docility and obedience to the Word of God, teach you to accept fully the inexhaustible richness of Sacred Scripture not only through intellectual pursuits, but also in prayer and in every aspect of your life, especially during this Year of Faith, so that your work will help the light of Sacred Scripture to shine in the hearts of the faithful. Wishing you successful continuation in your work, I invoke upon you the light of the Holy Spirit and I impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.