Vatican City, 22 June 2015 (VIS) –
The first day of the Pope's apostolic trip to Turin concluded with
his encounter with the young in Piazza Vittorio. Francis answered to
questions from three of them regarding the meaning of love, trust in
life and the importance of sharing ideals, setting aside the
discourse he had prepared. The following is a summary of the Holy
Father's answers:
“Love, life, friends: … these three
words are important for life, and they share a common root: the
desire to live. … Love moves on two axes: first of all, love is
found in actions more than in words: love is concrete. … God began
to talk about love when he was involved with His people … when He
made a covenant with His people, He saved His people, He made
gestures of love, acts of love. And the second dimension, the second
axis on which love turns, is that love always communicates itself,
that is, love listens and responds, love is found in dialogue and
communion. Love is neither deaf nor mute, it communicates itself. …
Love is very respectful to others, it does not use them, and
therefore love is chaste. … It considers the life of the other
person to be sacred: I respect you, I do not want to use you. …
Forgive me if I say something you did not expect, but I ask you: make
the effort to live love chastely. And a consequence derives from
this: … love sacrifices itself for others. Love is service. When
Jesus, after the washing of the feet, explains this gesture to the
apostles, He teaches them that we are made to serve one another”.
“Very often we breathe an air of
distrust in life. There are situations that make us think, 'But is it
worth living like this?'. I think of the wars in this world. At times
I have said that we are living a third world war, but in pieces.
There is war in Europe, there is war in Africa, there is war in the
Middle East, there is war in other countries ... But can I trust in a
life like this? Can I trust world leaders? When I go to vote for a
candidate, can I trust that he or she will not take my country to
war? If you trust only in men, you have lost! Think of the people,
leaders, entrepreneurs, who say they are Christians and then produce
weapons! They say one thing and do another. Hypocrisy … But we see
what happened during the last century: in 1914, or rather in 1915
precisely. There was the great tragedy in Armenia. Many people died.
I do not know how many, but certainly more than a million. Where were
the great powers of the time? They looked away. Why? Because they
were interested in war: their war! And those who died, they were
second class people, human beings. Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, the
tragedy of the Shoah. The great powers had photographed the railway
lines that carried the trains to the concentration camps, such as
Auschwitz, to kill Jews, and also Christians, Roma, homosexuals, to
kill them there. But tell me, why did they not bomb them? Interests!
And soon after, almost at the same time, there were the lagers in
Russia: Stalin … how many Christians suffered and were killed. The
great powers divided Europe like a cake. Many years had to pass
before reaching a certain 'freedom'. There is the hypocrisy of
speaking about peace and producing arms, and even selling weapons to
this one, who is at war with that one, and to that one who is at war
with this!”
“I understand what you say about
distrust in life: today, too, we are living a culture of waste. All
that is not of economic use is discarded. … And so, with this
culture of waste, is it possible to trust in life? … A young person
who cannot study, who does not have a job, who suffers the shame of
not feeling worthy because he does not have a job, does not earn
life. … How often do young people commit suicide? … Or how often
do they go to fight with terrorists, at least to do something, for an
ideal? … And this is why Jesus told us not to place our security in
wealth, in worldly powers. How can I live a life that does n destroy,
that is not a life of destruction, a life that does not discard
people? How can a live a life that does not disappoint me?”.
“We must go ahead with our plans to
build, and this life does not disappoint. If you are involved in a
plan for construction, to help … that sense of distrust in life
goes away. Be active, and go against the grain. For you, young
people, who experience this economic and also cultural, hedonistic,
consumerist situation with its soap bubble values, with these values
it is not possible to go ahead. Do constructive things, even if they
are small, that bring us together again, that unite us together, with
our ideals: this is the best antidote to this distrust of life,
against this culture that offers you only pleasure. … The secret is
clearly understanding where you live. In this land … at the end of
the nineteenth century there were the worst possible conditions for
the growth of the young: Freemasonry prevailed, even the Church could
do nothing; there was anti-clericalism, there was Satanism. … It
was one of the worst times and one of the worst places in the history
of Italy. But in that period, many saints were born. Why? Because
they realised that they had to swim against the tide of that culture,
that way of life. Live in reality, and if that reality is glass and
not diamond, I find an alternative reality and make it my own, a
reality that is of service to others”.
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