Vatican City, 25 June 2015 (VIS) - “The
mission you will one day be called to carry out will take you all
over the world. In Europe, which needs to be reawakened; in Africa,
which thirsts for reconciliation; in Latin America, which hungers for
nourishment and inwardness; in North America, intent on rediscovering
the roots of an identity that does not define itself in terms of
exclusion; in Asia and Oceania, challenged by the capacity for
transformation in diaspora and by dialogue with the immensity of
ancestral cultures”. With these words, Pope Francis received in
audience the students who are about to complete their studies in the
Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Holy See institution charged
with the formation of the diplomats who will work in the nunciatures
and the Secretary of State.
In his address, the Holy Father
highlighted various aspects of the path ahead of them, starting with
their mission. “You are preparing to represent the Holy See in the
Community of Nations and in the local Churches you are destined for.
The Holy See is the see of the bishop of Rome, of the Church that
presides in charity, that is based not on vain pride but rather on
the daily courage of the condescension or abasement of her Master.
The true authority of the Church of Rome is Christ's charity. This is
the sole force that renders her universal and credible for man and
for the world: this is the heart of her truth, that does not erect
walls of division and exclusion, but instead forms bridges to build
up communion and to recall the unity of humanity; this is her secret
strength, that feeds her tenacious hope, invincible despite momentary
defeats. It is not possible to represent someone without reflecting
their features, without evoking their face. Jesus said, 'Whoever has
seen me has seen the Father'. You are not called to be the high
functionaries of a State ... welcome in worldly salons, but rather
the guardians of a truth that supports those who offer it, and not
the opposite. It is important that you do not let yourselves be
depleted by continual transfers; instead, it is necessary to
cultivate deep roots, to protect the memory of why you embarked on
this path, and not to be hollowed out by cynicism nor to lose sight
of the face of He Who is at the origin of your journey”.
Likewise, he reiterated that the
Academy specifically aims to prepare future diplomats to consider the
realities they will encounter and to love them, even with their
limitations. “You prepare, indeed, to become 'bridges', pacifying
and facing with prayer and in spiritual battle the tendency to regard
oneself as above others, the assumed superiority of view that impedes
access to the substance of reality, the claim of already knowing
enough. To do this it is necessary not to transpose into the field in
which you work your own patterns of understanding, your own cultural
parameters, your own ecclesial background”.
“The service to which you have been
called requires you to protect the freedom of the Holy See, which so
as not to betray her mission before God and for the true good of
mankind cannot be imprisoned by the logic of cartels, taken hostage
by the accounting division of factions, accept the division among
consuls, submit to political powers and to be colonised by the
current dominant streams of thought or the illusory hegemony of the
mainstream. You are called to seek, in the Churches and in the
populations among whom you live, and whom you serve, the good that
must be encouraged. To best fulfil this mission it is necessary to
set aside the attitude of the judge and to don the robes of the
pedagogue, of one who is able to release the potential for good that
God does not fail to sow in the Churches”.
“I exhort you not to expect to find
the terrain ready, but rather to have the courage to plough it with
your hands, without tractors or other more effective means which we
will never have at our disposal – to prepare it for sowing,
awaiting the harvest with God's patience; a harvest of which you may
not be the beneficiary. Do not fish in aquaria or farms, but instead
have the courage to leave behind the safe margins of what is already
known and to cast your nets and rods in less obvious seas”.
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