In the past few weeks, the Pope has been lavished with teachings, speeches and addresses to various groups on the occasion of anniversaries or pilgrimages to Rome. We have selected here three themes: education, mercy (on the occasion of Mercy Sunday) and the family (on the occasion of the Year of Mercy). Amoris Laetitia FamilyThe World Meeting of Families, which will conclude on June 26, 2022, with the Tenth World Meeting of Families in Rome).
Education: quality, Christian vision, integrality
Francis has recently dedicated two speeches to education. The first, addressed to the Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Project (APRIL 20, 2022). Already in its programmatic exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013), the pope warned that in an information society that saturates us indiscriminately with data, all at the same level, and ends up leading us to a tremendous superficiality when it comes to moral questions, [...] an education that teaches us to think critically and that offers a path to maturity in values becomes necessary. (n. 64).
Taking up this argument, starting from the contemporary socio-cultural context, he now points out the objective of a Catholic educational project:
"As educators, you are called to nourish the desire for truth, goodness and beauty that dwells in everyone's heart, so that all may learn to love life and open themselves to the fullness of life.".
This, he adds, involves looking for forms of research that combine good methods for to serve the whole person in a process of integral human development.. In other words, to form head, hands and heart together: to preserve and strengthen the link between learning, doing and feeling in the noblest sense of the word.. And in this way, Catholic educators can offer at the same time an excellent academic record y a coherent vision of life inspired by the teachings of Christ.
Maturity, Christian identity, social commitment
Secondly, Francis expresses the continuity of this concern with what the Second Vatican Council points out: that the educational work of the Church is directed not only to "...the poor, but also to those who need to be educated".but it tends above all to ensure that the baptized, progressively initiated into the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become more and more aware of the gift of faith they have received." (Decl. Gravissimum educationis, 2).
On the basis of a Christian vision of life (knowing oneself, educators and students, beloved children of God in the one human family), says the Pope, "Catholic education commits us, among other things, to build a better world by teaching mutual coexistence, fraternal solidarity and peace.". We must develop tools to promote these values in educational institutions and students.
Thirdly, in addition to addressing the current educational situation and stressing the basis of the Christian vision, the Pope observes that "Catholic education is also evangelization: witnessing to the joy of the Gospel and its capacity to renew our communities and to give hope and strength to face today's challenges with wisdom.".
The second speech is the one delivered by the Holy Father to the rectors of the universities of Lazio (16-V-2022). Also part of the current situation: "The years of the pandemic, the expansion in Europe of the 'third world war' that started in pieces and now it seems that it will no longer be in pieces, the global environmental issue, the growth of inequalities, challenge us in an unprecedented and accelerated way.".
The educational challenge, Francisco explains, has therefore a strong cultural, intellectual and moral implication, because it must face this situation, which involves the "risk of generating a climate of discouragement, bewilderment, loss of confidence, even worse: addictive.". It is a crisis that, on the other hand, can make us grow, as long as we overcome it.
Francis evokes the Global education pactThe document on human fraternity will be launched worldwide, together with the signing, in February 2019, of the document on human fraternity, which states: "We are concerned about an integral formation that is summarized in the knowledge of oneself, of one's brother, of creation and of the Transcendent.". This horizon, the Pope indicated to the university rectors, can only be approached by "with a critical sense, freedom, healthy confrontation and dialogue."beyond barriers and confines. It is something that belongs, moreover, to the ideal of the university, which is a community, but also a convergence of knowledge around truth and dialogue.
Proof of this, he notes, is the movement of many doctoral students in economics, interested in "to build new and effective responses, overcoming old encrustations linked to a sterile culture of competition for power"..
All this requires listening (to students and colleagues, also to reality), as well as imagination and investment, in order to form students also in respect for themselves, for others, for the created world and for the Creator.
In short: an education that must be linked to life, to people and to society; without ideological prejudices, without fears, escapes or conformism.
Mercy: joy, forgiveness and consolation
Second topic: mercy. In the "mass of the divine mercy".In his address, celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica on the second Sunday of Easter (24 April 2022), Francis took his cue from the greeting of Christ who brings peace (cf. Jn 20:19,21,26). In this peace, the Pope pointed out three dimensions: "...".gives joythen forgivenessand finally comfort in fatigue". There is no doubt that we need a lot of that in our world.
Jesus does not reproach his disciples for past failures and sins, but encourages them. He brings them "a joy that lifts without humiliating". And as the Father has sent him, he sends them to forgive (cf. vv. 21 and 23) in the sacrament of reconciliation.
This challenges us all: "Let us ask ourselves: do I, here where I live, in my family, at work, in my community, do I promote communion, am I an architect of reconciliation? Do I commit myself to calm conflicts, to bring forgiveness where there is hatred, peace where there is rancor? Or do I fall into the world of gossip that always kills?"
We see," the Pope invited, "also in the way Jesus treats the Apostle Thomas, that the Lord does not come in a triumphant and overwhelming way, with bombastic miracles, but consoles us with his mercy, presenting us with his wounds. For this reason "in our ministry as confessors we must make people see that before their sins are the wounds of the Lord, which are more powerful than sin.".
Jesus, will repeat the successor of Peter in the Regina Caeli, "does not seek perfect Christians"but that we return to Him, again and again, knowing that we need His grace, especially after our doubts, weaknesses and crises, because He always wants to give us "another chance"He wants us to behave in the same way with others.
On the following Monday (25-IV-2022), he had a meeting with the priests "Missionaries of Mercy".. It was the third after two others in 2016 and 2018. This time he glossed the biblical figure of Ruth, whose faithfulness and generosity God richly rewarded. As God, who remains silent in the book of Ruth, so must priests act: "Let us never forget that God does not act in people's daily lives through flashy acts, but in a silent, discreet, simple way, so much so that he manifests himself through people who become sacraments of his presence. And you are a sacrament of God's presence. I beg you to keep far from you all forms of judgment and always put the desire to understand the person who is in front of you.".
And Francis ended by evoking some figures of merciful priests, who confessed many people, and who, like the Lord, never tired of forgiving.
Family: remedy against individualism
Within the framework of this year's Amoris laetitia familyThe Pope addressed the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (Speech29-IV-2022), gathered to discuss the reality of the family. In the context of the current crisis, prolonged and multiple, which puts so many families to the test, Francis wishes to rediscover "the value of the family as the source and origin of the social order, as the vital cell of a fraternal society, capable of caring for the common home"..
First, he points out that, despite the many changes they have undergone in history and among different peoples, "marriage and the family are not purely human institutions.". They are also a remedy to the dominant individualism.
The social genome of the family
The good promoted by the family is not merely associative, an aggregation of people for the purpose of utility, but rather a relational bond of perfection. That's right, because family members mature by opening up to each other and to others. That could be called their "social genome". At the same time, "the family is a place of welcome"The school is also a free school, especially where there are frail or handicapped members.
In order to unfold its nature, the family needs "that social, economic and cultural policies be promoted in all countries. "family friends".
The Pope concluded by noting some conditions for rediscovering the beauty of the family. First, take out of the eyes "the cataracts of ideologies".. Second, rediscover "the correspondence between natural and sacramental marriage". (which is not, in the latter case, an addition juxtaposed to the family institution). Third condition: the awareness of "the grace of the sacrament of Matrimony - which is the 'social' sacrament par excellence - heals and elevates the whole of human society and is a leaven of fraternity." (cf. Amoris laetitia, n. 74).
The one great objective: the evangelizing family
Finally, also regarding the family, it is worth mentioning the Pope's address to the International Congress on Moral Theology (13-V-2022). It begins by pondering the spiritual richness of the family, as emphasized in the Amoris laetitia. He then goes on to consider that the challenges of our time demand that moral theology, on the one hand, speaks "an understandable language" for the interlocutors, and not only for the experts; and furthermore, that, with a view to the pastoral conversion and missionary transformation of the Church, it be attentive to "the wounds of humanity".. He adds that all this can be helped by interdisciplinarity, between theology, human sciences and philosophy.
"The one big goal."the Pope points out, "is to answer this question: how do Christian families today, in the joy and effort of conjugal, filial and fraternal love, bear witness to the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?".
The congress is inscribed, not only in fact but also as a fundamental perspective, in the framework of the synodality.
Synodality," explained Peter's successor, "is not merely a tactical question, but a necessity for deepening the truth of Revelation, which is not something abstract, but linked to the experience of people, cultures and religions. "The truth of Revelation is addressed to history - it is historical! - to its addressees, who are called to realize it in the 'flesh' of their testimony.". Also families: "What a wealth of good there is in the lives of so many families, all over the world!"
And what has this to do with moral theology, one might ask? Well, marriage and the Christian family are "places" y "times" (kairos) of God's action, from which theological reflection can draw in order to deepen and better present faith and morals.
Precisely for this reason - the Pope points out - it is more necessary than ever the practice of the discernmentopening up space "to the conscience of the faithful, who often respond as best they can to the Gospel in the midst of their limitations and are able to carry out their personal discernment in situations where all the schemes are broken". (Amoris laetitia, 37.).
Moral theology, in fact, faces no small challenge in the service of the great objective that families proclaim and witness to the Gospel message.
This is what Francis says to the moralists: "All of you are asked today to rethink the categories of moral theology, in their reciprocal link: the relationship between grace and freedom, between conscience, goodness, virtues, norm and Aristotelian phronesis, Thomistic prudentia and spiritual discernment, relationship between nature and culture, between the plurality of languages and the uniqueness of agape.".
The Bishop of Rome invites moralists to take into account the enriching differences of cultures and, above all, the concrete experiences of believers. He encourages them to draw inspiration from Christian roots, as theologians must always do, not in order to go backwards but to move forward on the path of obedience to Jesus Christ, without closing themselves up in an impoverishing or decadent casuistry.
He concludes by insisting on the true purpose, that one great objective: the evangelizing role of the family, joyfully: "May the joy of love, which finds an exemplary witness in the family, become an effective sign of the joy of God who is mercy and of the joy of those who receive this mercy as a gift! Joy!".
