At 12:15pm today (6:15am EST), in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the Community from the Pius Pontifical Latin American College on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of its foundation.
I am happy to meet you and to join you in giving thanks for the 160 years of the existence of the Pius Pontifical Latin American College. I thank your rector, Father Gilberto Freire, S.J., for his words on behalf of the entire priestly community and the lay collaborators that make your community life possible through their daily work.
Perhaps the most notable characteristic of your College is its Latin American character. It is one of the few Roman Colleges whose identity does not refer to a Nation or a charism, but seeks to be the meeting place, in Rome, for all who are from our Latin American land - the Great Homeland as our heroes liked to dream. And so it was that the College was envisioned and so it is loved by its bishops who give priority to this house, offering you, young priests, the opportunity to create a vision, a reflection and an experience of communion that is expressly Latin Americanized.
One of the phenomena that currently concerns the continent is the cultural fragmentation, the polarization of the social fabric and the loss of roots. This is exacerbated when discourses are fomented that divide and propagate different types of confrontations and hatred towards those who are not ours, even importing cultural models that have little or nothing to do with our history and identity and that, far from becoming new syntheses as in the past, end up uprooting our cultures from their richest and most ancient traditions. New generations end up uprooted and fragmented! The Church is no stranger to this situation and is exposed to this temptation; subjected to the same environment, she runs the risk of becoming disoriented by falling prey to one or another polarization or uprooted if you forget your vocation to be a common ground. * The invasion of ideological colonization is also suffered by those who are part of the Church.
Hence the importance of this time in Rome and especially in the College: to create bonds and alliances of friendship and fraternity. And this is necessary not because of a declaration of principles or gestures of goodwill, but so that during these years you can learn to know better and make your own the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anguishes experienced by others; you can name and face specific situations that our people live and face and experience your neighbour's problems as your own.
The Pius person can help a lot to create an open and creative, happy and hopeful priestly community, if he knows how to help others and help himself, if he is able to take root in the lives of others, brothers and sisters of a common history and heritage, part of the same priesthood and Latin American people. A priestly community that discovers that the greatest strength it has, upon which it can build a history is born of the concrete solidarity among you today, and this solidarity will continue tomorrow between your churches and peoples in order to be able to transcend a merely parochial outlook and lead to the establishment of communities that know how to open up to others in order to weave and heal hope (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 228).
Our continent, marked by old and new wounds, needs artisans of relationship and communion, open and trusting in the novelty so that the Kingdom of God can emerge today. And so that you can start to develop it from now on. A priest in his parish, in his diocese, can do a lot - and that's good - but he also runs the risk of burning himself out, isolating himself or looking out only for himself. Feeling part of a priestly community, in which everyone is important - not because it is the sum of people living together, but because of the relationships they create - this feeling of belonging to this community - awakens and encourages processes and dynamics capable of transcending time. **
This sense of belonging and recognition will help to creatively unleash and stimulate renewed missionary energies that promote an evangelical humanism capable of becoming intelligence and a driving force on our continent. On the contrary, without this sense of belonging and working hand in hand, we will disperse, we will weaken and even worse, we will deprive so many of our brothers of the strength, the light and the consolation of friendship with Jesus Christ and of a community of faith that provides a horizon of meaning and life (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 49). And so, little by little, and almost without realizing it, we will end up offering Latin America a God without Church, a Church without Christ, a Christ without a people (Homily at the Mass of Santa Marta, 11 November 2016) or, if we want to put it another way, a God without Christ, a Christ without a Church, a Church without a people ... pure re-elaborated Gnosticism.
Our continent has managed to capture in its tradition and in its memory a reality: love for Christ and the love of Christ can not manifest itself except through passion for life and for the destiny of our peoples and especially solidarity with the poor, the suffering and the needy. ***
This reminds us of the importance, dear brothers, of being evangelizers with soul and of souls, so that our lives may be fruitful and renewed with the passing of time, it is necessary to develop the pleasure of always being close to the life of our people; we should never isolate ourselves from them. The life of the diocesan priest lives - he lacks the redundancy - in this identification and belonging. The mission is found in passion for Jesus, but at the same time, it is passion for his people. It is learning to look where he looks and to let ourselves be moved by the same things that he is moved by: feelings for the life of his brothers, especially of sinners and of all those who are despondent and fatigued like sheep without a shepherd (cf Mt 9:36). Please, never curl up in personal or community sheds that take us away from the knots where the story is written. Captivated by Jesus and by members of his Body, we integrate deeply into society. Share life with everyone, listen to their concerns ... rejoice with those who are happy, mourn with those who mourn and offer every Eucharist for all those faces that have been entrusted to us (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 269-270).
From this point, we find providential power to join this anniversary with the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero, a former student of your institution and a living sign of the fruitfulness and sanctity of the Latin American Church, a man rooted in the Word of God and in the hearts of his people. This reality allows us to make contact with that long chain of witnesses in which we are invited to be rooted and inspired each day, especially during this time when you are away from home. Do not be afraid of holiness, do not be afraid to spend your life for your people.
On the path toward cultural and pastoral combinations we are not orphans; Our Mother accompanies us. She wanted to be like that, mestizo and fertile, and that is how she is with us, our Mother of tenderness and strength who rescues us from the paralysis or confusion of fear because she is simply there, she is our Mother.
Brothers priests: Let us not forget this and, confidently, let us ask her to teach us the way, to free us from the perversion of clericalism, to make us more and more village pastors and let us ask her not to allow us to become clerics of the State.
A final word addressed to the Society of Jesus - the presence of its General and the Jesuits who are here - the society who from the beginning has accompanied the journey of this house. Thanks for your work and for your devotion.
One of the distinguishing marks of the Society's charism is that of seeking to harmonize contradictions without falling into reductionism. This is what Saint Ignatius wanted, to think of the Jesuits as men of contemplation and action, men of discernment and obedience, committed to daily life and free to leave (J.M. Bergoglio, Meditaciones para religiosos, 93-94). The mission that the Church puts in your hands asks for wisdom and dedication so that the time that the students are in the house can be nourished by this gift of the Society, learning to harmonize the contradictions that life presents to them and presenting them without falling into reductionism, winning in the spirit of discernment and freedom. Teach them to embrace problems and conflicts without fear; teach them to handle dissent and confrontation. Teaching them to reveal all kinds of correct but reductionist discourse is a crucial task for those who accompany their brothers in formation. Help them to discover the art and taste of discernment as a way of proceeding and finding, in the midst of difficulties, the ways of the Spirit by tasting and feeling the Deus semper maior internally. Be teachers of great horizons and, at the same time, teach your students to take charge of the small people, to embrace the poor, the sick and to assume the concrete of everyday life. Do not settle for second best, continue to dream divine dreams.
Thank you again for allowing me to celebrate with you the first 160 years of your journey. In greeting you, I also want to greet your communities, your villages, your families. And, please, do not forget to pray and have prayers said for me.
(Original text in Spanish)
____________________
* cf Saint Óscar Romero, IV Pastoral Letter - The Mission of the Church in the midst of the crisis of Peace (6 August 1979), 23.
** It is good to remember that it is better to be two than one ... If one falls, the other raises him up, but woe to the one who falls alone, without another being able to lift him up! (Ecclesiasticus 4:9-10).
*** cf Guzmán Carriquiry, Recapitulando los 50 años del CELAM, en camino hacia la V Conferencia, 31.
Greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
offered to the community from the
Pius Pontifical Latin American College
I am happy to meet you and to join you in giving thanks for the 160 years of the existence of the Pius Pontifical Latin American College. I thank your rector, Father Gilberto Freire, S.J., for his words on behalf of the entire priestly community and the lay collaborators that make your community life possible through their daily work.
Perhaps the most notable characteristic of your College is its Latin American character. It is one of the few Roman Colleges whose identity does not refer to a Nation or a charism, but seeks to be the meeting place, in Rome, for all who are from our Latin American land - the Great Homeland as our heroes liked to dream. And so it was that the College was envisioned and so it is loved by its bishops who give priority to this house, offering you, young priests, the opportunity to create a vision, a reflection and an experience of communion that is expressly Latin Americanized.
One of the phenomena that currently concerns the continent is the cultural fragmentation, the polarization of the social fabric and the loss of roots. This is exacerbated when discourses are fomented that divide and propagate different types of confrontations and hatred towards those who are not ours, even importing cultural models that have little or nothing to do with our history and identity and that, far from becoming new syntheses as in the past, end up uprooting our cultures from their richest and most ancient traditions. New generations end up uprooted and fragmented! The Church is no stranger to this situation and is exposed to this temptation; subjected to the same environment, she runs the risk of becoming disoriented by falling prey to one or another polarization or uprooted if you forget your vocation to be a common ground. * The invasion of ideological colonization is also suffered by those who are part of the Church.
Hence the importance of this time in Rome and especially in the College: to create bonds and alliances of friendship and fraternity. And this is necessary not because of a declaration of principles or gestures of goodwill, but so that during these years you can learn to know better and make your own the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anguishes experienced by others; you can name and face specific situations that our people live and face and experience your neighbour's problems as your own.
The Pius person can help a lot to create an open and creative, happy and hopeful priestly community, if he knows how to help others and help himself, if he is able to take root in the lives of others, brothers and sisters of a common history and heritage, part of the same priesthood and Latin American people. A priestly community that discovers that the greatest strength it has, upon which it can build a history is born of the concrete solidarity among you today, and this solidarity will continue tomorrow between your churches and peoples in order to be able to transcend a merely parochial outlook and lead to the establishment of communities that know how to open up to others in order to weave and heal hope (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 228).
Our continent, marked by old and new wounds, needs artisans of relationship and communion, open and trusting in the novelty so that the Kingdom of God can emerge today. And so that you can start to develop it from now on. A priest in his parish, in his diocese, can do a lot - and that's good - but he also runs the risk of burning himself out, isolating himself or looking out only for himself. Feeling part of a priestly community, in which everyone is important - not because it is the sum of people living together, but because of the relationships they create - this feeling of belonging to this community - awakens and encourages processes and dynamics capable of transcending time. **
This sense of belonging and recognition will help to creatively unleash and stimulate renewed missionary energies that promote an evangelical humanism capable of becoming intelligence and a driving force on our continent. On the contrary, without this sense of belonging and working hand in hand, we will disperse, we will weaken and even worse, we will deprive so many of our brothers of the strength, the light and the consolation of friendship with Jesus Christ and of a community of faith that provides a horizon of meaning and life (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 49). And so, little by little, and almost without realizing it, we will end up offering Latin America a God without Church, a Church without Christ, a Christ without a people (Homily at the Mass of Santa Marta, 11 November 2016) or, if we want to put it another way, a God without Christ, a Christ without a Church, a Church without a people ... pure re-elaborated Gnosticism.
Our continent has managed to capture in its tradition and in its memory a reality: love for Christ and the love of Christ can not manifest itself except through passion for life and for the destiny of our peoples and especially solidarity with the poor, the suffering and the needy. ***
This reminds us of the importance, dear brothers, of being evangelizers with soul and of souls, so that our lives may be fruitful and renewed with the passing of time, it is necessary to develop the pleasure of always being close to the life of our people; we should never isolate ourselves from them. The life of the diocesan priest lives - he lacks the redundancy - in this identification and belonging. The mission is found in passion for Jesus, but at the same time, it is passion for his people. It is learning to look where he looks and to let ourselves be moved by the same things that he is moved by: feelings for the life of his brothers, especially of sinners and of all those who are despondent and fatigued like sheep without a shepherd (cf Mt 9:36). Please, never curl up in personal or community sheds that take us away from the knots where the story is written. Captivated by Jesus and by members of his Body, we integrate deeply into society. Share life with everyone, listen to their concerns ... rejoice with those who are happy, mourn with those who mourn and offer every Eucharist for all those faces that have been entrusted to us (cf Evangelii Gaudium, 269-270).
From this point, we find providential power to join this anniversary with the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero, a former student of your institution and a living sign of the fruitfulness and sanctity of the Latin American Church, a man rooted in the Word of God and in the hearts of his people. This reality allows us to make contact with that long chain of witnesses in which we are invited to be rooted and inspired each day, especially during this time when you are away from home. Do not be afraid of holiness, do not be afraid to spend your life for your people.
On the path toward cultural and pastoral combinations we are not orphans; Our Mother accompanies us. She wanted to be like that, mestizo and fertile, and that is how she is with us, our Mother of tenderness and strength who rescues us from the paralysis or confusion of fear because she is simply there, she is our Mother.
Brothers priests: Let us not forget this and, confidently, let us ask her to teach us the way, to free us from the perversion of clericalism, to make us more and more village pastors and let us ask her not to allow us to become clerics of the State.
A final word addressed to the Society of Jesus - the presence of its General and the Jesuits who are here - the society who from the beginning has accompanied the journey of this house. Thanks for your work and for your devotion.
One of the distinguishing marks of the Society's charism is that of seeking to harmonize contradictions without falling into reductionism. This is what Saint Ignatius wanted, to think of the Jesuits as men of contemplation and action, men of discernment and obedience, committed to daily life and free to leave (J.M. Bergoglio, Meditaciones para religiosos, 93-94). The mission that the Church puts in your hands asks for wisdom and dedication so that the time that the students are in the house can be nourished by this gift of the Society, learning to harmonize the contradictions that life presents to them and presenting them without falling into reductionism, winning in the spirit of discernment and freedom. Teach them to embrace problems and conflicts without fear; teach them to handle dissent and confrontation. Teaching them to reveal all kinds of correct but reductionist discourse is a crucial task for those who accompany their brothers in formation. Help them to discover the art and taste of discernment as a way of proceeding and finding, in the midst of difficulties, the ways of the Spirit by tasting and feeling the Deus semper maior internally. Be teachers of great horizons and, at the same time, teach your students to take charge of the small people, to embrace the poor, the sick and to assume the concrete of everyday life. Do not settle for second best, continue to dream divine dreams.
Thank you again for allowing me to celebrate with you the first 160 years of your journey. In greeting you, I also want to greet your communities, your villages, your families. And, please, do not forget to pray and have prayers said for me.
(Original text in Spanish)
____________________
* cf Saint Óscar Romero, IV Pastoral Letter - The Mission of the Church in the midst of the crisis of Peace (6 August 1979), 23.
** It is good to remember that it is better to be two than one ... If one falls, the other raises him up, but woe to the one who falls alone, without another being able to lift him up! (Ecclesiasticus 4:9-10).
*** cf Guzmán Carriquiry, Recapitulando los 50 años del CELAM, en camino hacia la V Conferencia, 31.
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