FRANCIS: CHURCH IS TO SERVE, TO LOVE, AND TO BELIEVE IN HUMANITY

Vatican City, 22 June 2013 (VIS) – Shortly after noon today in the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father received 5,000 pilgrims from the Diocese of Bresica, Italy, accompanied by their bishop, Luciano Monari. They had travelled to Rome as part of the Year of Faith to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the election of their fellow Brescian, Paul VI, to the pontificate. The Pope focused on three fundamental aspects in Paul VI's witness and teachings: love for Christ, love for Church, and love for humanity.

“Paul VI,” said the Pope, “knew how to witness, in difficult years, to the faith in Jesus Christ. … The total love for Christ emerges throughout Montini's life, even in his choice of name as Pope, which he explained with these words: He is the Apostle 'who loved Christ so supremely, that he wished and tried in the highest degree to bring Christ's Gospel to all nations and offered his life out of love of Christ.' [His was] a profound love for Christ, not to possess, but to proclaim him,” the pontiff continued. “These passionate words are great words. Let me tell you something: this address in Manila, and also the one in Nazareth, have been a spiritual strength for me. They have done me good in my life. I go back to this address, again and again, because it it does me good to hear these words of Paul VI today. And do we have the same love for Christ? Is He the centre of our lives? Do our everyday actions witness to him?”

Francis then spoke of his second point, Paul VI's love for the Church. It was “a passionate love, the love of a lifetime, joyful and painful, expressed from his first encyclical, 'Ecclesiam suam'. … He loved the Church and offered himself for her without reservation. … This is the heart of a true Shepherd, a true Christian, a man capable of loving!” Pope Francis then stressed that, for him, “Evangelii Nuntiandi” is the “greatest pastoral document written to date.” “Paul VI had a very clear vision that the Church is a Mother who bears Christ and who leads to Christ.” The Holy Father then addressed the faithful again, asking them: “Are we truly a Church united to Christ, going out and proclaiming to all, even and especially those whom I call the 'existential periphery', or are we wrapped up in ourselves, in our groups, in our little cliques? Do we love the great Church, the Mother Church, the Church that sends us on mission and makes us go out of ourselves?”

The pontiff then turned to his third point, love for humanity. This is also tied to Christ. It is the passion for God that compels us to meet persons, to respect them, recognize them, and serve them.” Francis recalled Paul VI's words at the last session of Vatican Council II: “The religion of the God who became Man has met the religion of man who made himself God. What happened? A combat, a fight, an anathema? This could have happened, but it didn't. The old story of the Samaritan was the paradigm for the Council's spirituality. … All this doctrinal wealth was focused in a single direction: to serve humanity … in its every condition, in its every sickness, in its every need. The Church has almost declared herself humanity's handmaid.”

Pope Francis then added, “this also gives us light today, in this world where humanity is denied, where it's preferred to travel the path of gnosticism—either the 'no flesh' of a God who didn't take flesh, or the 'no God' of Promethean man who can go forward [alone]. At this time we can say the same things as Paul VI: the Church is the handmaid of humanity, the Church believes in Christ who came in the flesh and therefore serves humanity, loves humanity, believes in humanity. This is the inspiration of the great Paul VI.”

“Dear friends,” the Pope concluded, “gathering in the name of the Venerable Servant of God Paul VI does us good! His witness nourishes the flame of love for Christ in us.”