Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Today, the first day of autumn, a clear, cloudless sky welcomed the 25,000 people gathered in St Peter's Square for Pope Leo XIV’s general audience.
Arriving this morning, the pontiff greeted those present as he moved through the crowd in the Popemobile, before taking his usual place on the parvis to deliver his catechesis.
On this occasion, he continued his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), focusing on the chapter titled Man's activity throughout the world.
Appeal for the Day of Migrants and Refugees
In his final greetings, Leo mentioned the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which falls next Sunday, 27 September, an annual observance established in 1914 by Pope Benedict XV to raise awareness about the tragic fate faced by many migrants and refugees. His thoughts focused on “minors compelled to leave their homeland.”
“Children and teenagers are the most vulnerable, and they often endure unspeakable suffering: violence, torture, exploitation, traumatic conditions, and it is not uncommon for them to lose their lives along migration routes.”
Hence, “let us all feel a sense of involvement in the lives of these young people, who must always be protected and supported.”
Catechesis on Gaudium et Spes
He went on to ask, a “fundamental” question accompanying the third chapter of the first part of the pastoral constitution, namely “[W]hat is the value of human activity in the world, and therefore of technical, social and scientific progress?”
Leo noted that less than four years after the end of the Second Vatican Council, “on the night of 20–21 July 1969, man set foot on the Moon for the first time.”
For him man is an “agent of progress,” created in the image and likeness of God. “With freedom and intelligence, he increases his knowledge, thereby advancing society as a whole”.
Indeed, human beings are capable of acquiring “many benefits” through their own efforts, the document states.
However, “some thinkers have portrayed scientific and technical progress as something that weakens man’s relationship with God, to the point of making it seem superfluous.”
This “interpretation has brought about a change in the way contemporary man views the world,” Leo said, adding that, “Such a prejudice is particularly prevalent in that part of Western culture which has lost its reference to Christian Revelation”. This means the potential loss of “affirming the transcendent value of the human person.”
Human activity corresponds to God's intentions
The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes clearly provides an answer to this possibility.
Believers “can justly consider that by their labour they are unfolding the Creator’s work, consulting the advantages of their brother men, and are contributing by their personal industry to the realization in history of the divine plan” (no. 34)
The pope explained that, “God has placed in the hands of men and women a creation that is still in statu viae – that is, on a journey, in the process of growth – so that they may bring it to fulfilment through their wise activity.”
This is a clear reference to the incarnation.
“Humanity – and with it work, progress and the autonomy of created realities – is not absorbed or nullified by the encounter with God, but rather taken up in its entirety, continuing to be, in Christ, free and active,” he added.
“[T]o encounter God, the human being must not abandon his earthly occupations, but can live his vocation fully, carrying out his daily work well and sanctifying it.”
Leo ended noting that technical and scientific progress “must be inspired and guided by charity” for “Only in this way can it always be placed in the service of human dignity and promote the living conditions of all, especially the most disadvantaged.”
