Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Speaking in this morning’s general audience before some 32,000 people in St Peter's Square, Pope Leo XIV said that, “our heart is made to look upwards”. In his address, he also noted that “profit at all costs” and the “manipulation of information” exert “undue pressure” towards conformity with “a lifestyle centred on the consumption of material goods”. In his catechesis, he said that the Church's mission shares "fragility and beauty” with the contemporary world.
Leo continued his series of reflections on Gaudium et Spes (1965), the Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council.
The Church’s purpose is not political in nature
“[T]he Church journeys through history in the midst of peoples and cultures,” he said. This represents “a sign of the incarnation of God, in order to manifest His plan to make us all His children in one great human family.” From this conviction, the Church’s “first mission” is to help all humanity remain attentive to “the profound questions of life”.
These crucial issues concern “our origin and our destiny,” as well as the “meaning of love and suffering.” For the Council Fathers, “the Church’s mission is fulfilled also in contributing to the construction of the earthly city. However, her methods and aims are not primarily of a political order; rather, they consist in bearing witness to faith and charity, together with commitment for justice, peace, and fraternity.”
Believers cannot accept the oppression of the weak
“By worshipping Christ, the Righteous One who died for the unrighteous, the believer cannot accept the oppression of the weak and the poor, nor the unjust structures that perpetuate conditions of dependence and injustice,” Leo said.
In fact, “The social doctrine of the Church guides the actions of Christians, who collaborate with all people of good will in promoting the common good”. Indeed, “every baptized person” has to commit to effectively carry out “the evangelizing mission,” in order to “cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that their faith may be alive and expressed in consistent behavior.”
The Council Fathers noted that the “discrepancy between professed faith and daily life ‘deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age’.” What is more, Gaudium et spes mentions “the mission of the lay faithful who, by virtue of their Baptism, are called to enliven the world with the Christian spirit and the vision of the Gospel.”
Such action takes place in important settings like “the family and the workplace” because “the Church is always attentive to what is taking place and developing in society”.
“It is the task of the whole People of God, especially pastors and theologians, to discern what in the cultures of our time is worthy of consideration, always taking the Word of God and the Tradition of the Church as the supreme criteria for discernment,” Leo said.
“This requires a balanced mind, free from cultural trends, capable of viewing the world in a positive light whilst remaining steadfast in preserving and presenting the Gospel message in its entirety.”
Meeting for the 10th anniversary of Amoris Laetitia
At 4:00 pm today, the pope will meet with the heads of the Eastern Churches and the presidents of Bishops' Conferences to mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (2016).
“It will be a time of synodal discernment for identifying the steps to be taken in order to proclaim the Gospel today among families and the younger generations,” Leo said on Sunday in the Angelus. “I entrust this task to your prayers and, above all, the families who, with God’s help, are a sign of hope and an inestimable treasure for the Church and for society.”
