Vatican City, 26 June 2015 (VIS) -
“Education is the indispensable means for enabling girls to grow
into active and responsible women, proud and happy in the faith in
Christ they live in their everyday life. In this way they will
participate in the construction of a world imbued with the Gospel”,
said Pope Francis to delegates from the International Catholic
Conference of Guiding (ICCG), whom he received in audience this
morning, gathered in Rome on the fiftieth anniversary of the
institution's foundation to analyse the theme: “Living as guides
the joy of the Gospel”.
The ICCG unites national associations
of Catholic guides and national interconfessional guiding
organisations. Its aim is to help member associations to transform
guiding into a genuine tool for education in faith and to make its
pedagogical richness, formative activities and experience in
interconfessional collaboration more widely known.
The Holy Father emphasised the
excellence of the theme chosen for the meeting and the programme it
has given rise to: “proclaiming to others, through the witness of
our own life, that encountering Jesus frees us and heals us … opens
us to other and drives us to announce him, especially to the poorest
and most distant, the lonely and abandoned”.
He invited the delegates to be faithful
to the principles of their movement and to establish a sincere
dialogue with guides of different cultures and religions, with
respect for the beliefs of each one, and serenely affirming their
Catholic faith and identity. Pope Francis then went on to speak about
his recent Encyclical “Laudato si'”, in which he states that
education in ecology is essential to transform habits and ways of
thinking so as to overcome the troubling challenges that face
humanity in relation to the environment. “I think that the guiding
movement, which in its educational method accords an important role
to contact with nature, is particularly well-disposed to this”, he
said. “I hope that guides will continue to be alert to the presence
and the goodness of the Creator in the beauty of the world that
surrounds them. This contemplative attitude will lead them to live in
harmony with themselves, with others and with God. It is a new way of
life, more coherent with the Gospel, that they will be able to
transmit to others around them”.
Finally, the Pope reiterated the need
to ensure that the importance of women is recognised, so that they
take their rightful place both in the Church and in society. “Here
too, the role of educational associations such as yours, that address
young girls, is absolutely essential for the future, and your
teaching must be clear on these issues. We are in a world where we
see the spread of ideologies contrary to nature and God's design for
the family and marriage. It is therefore a question not only of
educating girls in the beauty and greatness of their vocation as
women, in a just relationship recognising the difference between man
and woman, but also to take on important responsibilities in the
Church and in society. In some countries where women are still in a
position of inferiority, or even exploited and mistreated, you
certainly have a significant role to play in promotion and education.
I ask you not to forget, in your pedagogic approach, the necessary
and explicit openness to the possibility of a life consecrated to the
Lord, an area in which the guiding movement has historically been
fruitful”.
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