At 12:30pm today (6:30am EST), in the Consistory Hall at the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father, Pope Francis received in audience the participants taking part in the XVIII Study Convention sponsored by the Italian Association of Church History Professors (AIPSC), which took place in Rome - at the University of Maria Santissima Assunta (LUMSA) - from 10 to 11 January. The theme of this Convention is Activity - Research - Dissemination: the history of the Church in the post-Conciliar era.
Dear brothers and sisters!
I welcome you and thank you for your visit; you are very welcome. I thank the President for his introduction, in particular for having reminded us all of the ancient saying historia magistra vitae, a very significant maxim linked to your important and generous teaching.
A friend of your founding fathers and of your Association, the Jesuit priest Giacomo Martina, an esteemed historian of the Church, a long-time teacher at the Gregorian and a teacher of many of you, tells me that he used to remind his students that history is certainly a teacher of life, but one who also has very few students!
Instead you who are students, in a broad sense, and there are many of you - like you, Father, who said -: you have them in seminaries, in pontifical universities, in conferences, in study meetings, and also in the magazine, of which you paid me tribute. So you are giving valuable help to the study of Church history and its magisterium: thank you for this service and for this passionate testimony.
In fact, history, studied with passion, can and must teach much today; our time is so disrupted and thirsty for truth, peace and justice. It would be enough that, through it, we would learn to reflect with wisdom and courage on the dramatic and evil effects of war, of the many wars that have troubled the human journey on this earth. And we still do not learn!
Italy - and in particular the Italian Church - is so rich in testimonies of the past! This wealth should not be a treasure to be jealously guarded, but this history must help us to walk in the present towards the future. In fact, the history of the Church, of the Italian Church, represents an essential reference point for all those who want to understand, deepen and even enjoy the past, without turning it into a museum or - worse - into a cemetery of nostalgia, but to make it alive and well presented in our eyes.
But - as you teach me - at the centre of history there is a Word that is not born written, it does not come from man's research, but it is given to us by God and is witnessed first of all with life and within life. A Word that acts in history and transforms it from within. This Word is Jesus Christ, who marked and redeemed the history of man so deeply as to mark first and foremost His passage of time and later, us who follow Him.
And the full reception of his saving and merciful action should make the historical believer a scholar who is even more respectful of the facts and of the truth, delicate and attentive in research, a coherent witness in teaching. It should keep him away from everything that is mundane about the presumption of knowledge, such as the greed of career or academic recognition, or the conviction of being able to judge facts and people by himself. In fact, the ability to glimpse the presence of Christ and the path of the Church in history make us humble, and they take us away from the temptation to take refuge in the past in order to avoid the present. And this was the experience of many, many scholars, who began, I would not say as atheists, but as little agnostics, and have eventually found Christ. Because history could not be understood without this strength.
Here then, dear brothers and sisters, is my wish for you: that your work may facilitate teaching and your testimony help to make others contemplate Christ, the cornerstone, who works in the history and in the memory of humanity and of all cultures. And that He constantly allows you to taste his saving presence in the facts, in the documents and in the events, big or small. Above all, I would say, the facts of the humble, the least; even they are actors in history. And this will really be the main road that will allow you to place perhaps a few students next to him, but really good, generous and prepared students.
Before I finish, I want to recall a memory for Father Giacomo Martina, whom I mentioned, and to tell you about the experience I had with him. I was introduced by an Argentine Jesuit, not Italian, Father Ugo Vanni: they were friends. Then I went to see Father Martina, and he always advised me in concrete ways: Read this. Read that other thing ... And so I was thrilled to read the story, and I also had the patience to read the whole story of the Popes of von Pastor, thanks to these tips. Thirty-seven volumes! And he loved me.
Thank you again for this encounter and with all my heart I bless you and your work. Please, don't forget to pray for me.
(Original text in Italian)
Speech of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
addressed to Church History Professors
Dear brothers and sisters!
I welcome you and thank you for your visit; you are very welcome. I thank the President for his introduction, in particular for having reminded us all of the ancient saying historia magistra vitae, a very significant maxim linked to your important and generous teaching.
A friend of your founding fathers and of your Association, the Jesuit priest Giacomo Martina, an esteemed historian of the Church, a long-time teacher at the Gregorian and a teacher of many of you, tells me that he used to remind his students that history is certainly a teacher of life, but one who also has very few students!
Instead you who are students, in a broad sense, and there are many of you - like you, Father, who said -: you have them in seminaries, in pontifical universities, in conferences, in study meetings, and also in the magazine, of which you paid me tribute. So you are giving valuable help to the study of Church history and its magisterium: thank you for this service and for this passionate testimony.
In fact, history, studied with passion, can and must teach much today; our time is so disrupted and thirsty for truth, peace and justice. It would be enough that, through it, we would learn to reflect with wisdom and courage on the dramatic and evil effects of war, of the many wars that have troubled the human journey on this earth. And we still do not learn!
Italy - and in particular the Italian Church - is so rich in testimonies of the past! This wealth should not be a treasure to be jealously guarded, but this history must help us to walk in the present towards the future. In fact, the history of the Church, of the Italian Church, represents an essential reference point for all those who want to understand, deepen and even enjoy the past, without turning it into a museum or - worse - into a cemetery of nostalgia, but to make it alive and well presented in our eyes.
But - as you teach me - at the centre of history there is a Word that is not born written, it does not come from man's research, but it is given to us by God and is witnessed first of all with life and within life. A Word that acts in history and transforms it from within. This Word is Jesus Christ, who marked and redeemed the history of man so deeply as to mark first and foremost His passage of time and later, us who follow Him.
And the full reception of his saving and merciful action should make the historical believer a scholar who is even more respectful of the facts and of the truth, delicate and attentive in research, a coherent witness in teaching. It should keep him away from everything that is mundane about the presumption of knowledge, such as the greed of career or academic recognition, or the conviction of being able to judge facts and people by himself. In fact, the ability to glimpse the presence of Christ and the path of the Church in history make us humble, and they take us away from the temptation to take refuge in the past in order to avoid the present. And this was the experience of many, many scholars, who began, I would not say as atheists, but as little agnostics, and have eventually found Christ. Because history could not be understood without this strength.
Here then, dear brothers and sisters, is my wish for you: that your work may facilitate teaching and your testimony help to make others contemplate Christ, the cornerstone, who works in the history and in the memory of humanity and of all cultures. And that He constantly allows you to taste his saving presence in the facts, in the documents and in the events, big or small. Above all, I would say, the facts of the humble, the least; even they are actors in history. And this will really be the main road that will allow you to place perhaps a few students next to him, but really good, generous and prepared students.
Before I finish, I want to recall a memory for Father Giacomo Martina, whom I mentioned, and to tell you about the experience I had with him. I was introduced by an Argentine Jesuit, not Italian, Father Ugo Vanni: they were friends. Then I went to see Father Martina, and he always advised me in concrete ways: Read this. Read that other thing ... And so I was thrilled to read the story, and I also had the patience to read the whole story of the Popes of von Pastor, thanks to these tips. Thirty-seven volumes! And he loved me.
Thank you again for this encounter and with all my heart I bless you and your work. Please, don't forget to pray for me.
(Original text in Italian)
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