.png)
On August 5, 2023, during his apostolic journey to Portugal for World Youth Day, Pope Francis met with Jesuits at the Colégio de São João de Brito, a school run by the Society of Jesus. He met with just over 130 companions. Eighteen are not yet ordained, and as many have not yet made their final vows.
The pope invited questions (Questions in Italics) - Key Excerpts from Pope Francis' answers :
From those words spontaneous questions flowed:
Hello, Holy Father, my name is Vasco, I study philosophy. I am the youngest in the province, and that is why I was asked to speak first: the last will be first! I would like to ask you a question. Faced with the challenges of our generation, looking at our sexualized, consumerist society, according to your experience as a Jesuit, do you think our formation is structured to face these challenges? And how can we always best take care of our formation as Jesuits at the affective, sexual, bodily levels?
You’re actually asking two questions, aren’t you? In fact, one statement and one question. We live in a worldly society, which worries me a lot. It worries me when worldliness makes its way into consecrated life. Just today a letter I wrote to the priests of Rome about clericalism, which is a form of worldliness, was made public. Look, spiritual worldliness is an often recurring pitfall. You have to learn to distinguish: it is one thing to prepare for dialogue with the world — as you do with dialogue with the worlds of art and culture — it is another thing to compromise yourself with the things of the world, with worldliness.
I was deeply struck by the conclusion of a book by Father de Lubac: he dedicates the final four pages of Meditation on the Church — it’s only four pages, read it — to spiritual worldliness. Have you who do discernment ever questioned yourselves about your own personal spiritual worldliness? Am I worldly, spiritually? That is a question I leave you with. And do you know what de Lubac says? He says that this is the worst evil that can penetrate the Church, worse even than in the era of the libertine popes.
This past year I gave a speech – or, rather, I spoke briefly, and then they asked questions – to all the priests working in the Curia. Most of them are young. And at one point I said to them, “Here is something that hasn’t been mentioned, the use of cell phones and pornography on cell phones. How many of you watch pornography on your cell phones?” After I said that, they told me that one commented, “You can see that he has spent hours in the confessional.”
When I was a novice, they used to talk to us about chastity, holy chastity. They used to ask us not to be looking at pictures that were a little bit racy… I mean, those were other times, times when the problems were not so acute, and when, moreover, they were hidden. Today, thank God, the door is wide open, and there is no reason for problems to remain hidden. If you hide your problems, it is because you choose to do so, but it is not the fault of society, or even your religious community. That’s one of the current virtues the Society has: it does not shelve problems; it talks about them. You talk both with your superiors and among yourselves.
To what you ask. I answer, “Ask yourself a question: what spirit moves me? What is the spirit that habitually moves me, and which one moves me today or moved me that other day?”
My grandmother, who was a wise old woman, told us one day, “In life you have to progress, buy land, bricks, a house…” Clear words, they came from the experience of an immigrant. Dad was an immigrant, too. “But don’t confuse progressing,” Grandma added, “with climbing. In fact, he who climbs goes up, up, up, and instead of having a house, setting up a business, working or getting a position, when he is at the top the only thing he shows is his butt.” This is wisdom.
I remember that in Argentina when I was a student, one of the fathers went to live in a villa miseria, and they looked at him a little sideways, as they did with Father Llanos in Madrid. He was considered a madman. Now that is no longer the case. Today we see that spirituality itself is leading us in that direction, toward an engagement with those on the margins, not only on the margin of religion, but also on the margin of life.
Then, in the time of Father Janssens, there came the centers for research and social action, which at that time opened a beautiful path of reflection, and finally came direct “insertion,” the choice to live with poor people. So I mentioned that priest, one of those who had the courage to become inserted. Today insertion among the poor helps ourselves, evangelizes us. St. Ignatius calls us to make a vow not to weaken the rules concerning poverty in the Society, but rather to make them stricter. In this there is an insight, a spirit of poverty that I think we must all have.
Let me tell you something. I liked to go to the villa miseria when I was archbishop. One day I visited there, John Paul II was very seriously ill. I took the bus to go to one of the villas, and when I arrived, they told me that the pope had died. I celebrated Mass with the people, and then we stopped for a talk. An old lady asked me, “Can you tell me how they elect a pope?” I explained, “And you, can they make you pope?” I said, “They can make anyone pope.” She replied, “I’ll give you a piece of advice: if they make you pope, buy yourself a little dog.” “Why?” I asked her. “Feed the little dog first,” she replied. The old woman was poor, from a villa miseria, but she knew a lot about the facts of the Church….
This is an interesting thing. The poor have a special wisdom, the wisdom of work, and also the wisdom of taking on work and its condition with dignity. When the poor become enraged because they cannot stand their situation – and that is understandable – then resentment and hatred can set in. That, too, is our job. In accompanying them, we must prevent the poor from becoming overwhelmed. We must work with the perspective of helping them walk, to make progress and to recognize their dignity. There are serious problems in poor neighborhoods, which are no more serious than those that sometimes exist in other residential areas, except that these remain hidden.
There are serious problems, but there is also a lot of wisdom in people who live by their work, who have had to emigrate, who suffer, and you can see it in how they endure illness, how they endure death. Ministering to the people is an enrichment, and so those of you who are called to do it, put your hearts into it, because it is a good for the whole Society.
Pope Francis, I would like to ask you a question as a religious brother. I am Francisco. Last year I spent a sabbatical year in the United States. There was one thing that made a great impression on me there, and at times made me suffer. I saw many, even bishops, criticizing your leadership of the Church. And many even accuse the Jesuits, who are usually a kind of critical resource of the pope, of not being so now. They would even like the Jesuits to criticize you explicitly. Do you miss the criticism that the Jesuits used to make of the pope, the Magisterium, the Vatican?
You have seen that in the United States the situation is not easy: there is a very strong reactionary attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally. I would like to remind those people that indietrismo (being backward-looking) is useless and we need to understand that there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals as long as we follow the three criteria that Vincent of Lérins already indicated in the fifth century: doctrine evolves ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate. In other words, doctrine also progresses, expands and consolidates with time and becomes firmer, but is always progressing. Change develops from the roots upward, growing in accord with these three criteria.
Let us get to specifics. Today it is a sin to possess atomic bombs; the death penalty is a sin. You cannot employ it, but it was not so before. As for slavery, some pontiffs before me tolerated it, but things are different today. So you change, you change, but with the criteria just mentioned. I like to use the “upward” image, that is, ut annis consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate. Always on this path, starting from the root with sap that flows up and up, and that is why change is necessary.
Vincent of Lérins makes the comparison between human biological development and the transmission from one age to another of the depositum fidei, which grows and is consolidated with the passage of time. Here, our understanding of the human person changes with time, and our consciousness also deepens. The other sciences and their evolution also help the Church in this growth in understanding. The view of Church doctrine as monolithic is erroneous.
But some people opt out; they go backward; they are what I call “indietristi.” When you go backward, you form something closed, disconnected from the roots of the Church and you lose the sap of revelation. If you don’t change upward, you go backward, and then you take on criteria for change other than those our faith gives for growth and change. And the effects on morality are devastating. The problems that moralists have to examine today are very serious, and to deal with them they have to take the risk of making changes, but in the direction I was saying.
You have been to the United States and you say you have felt a climate of closure. Yes, this climate can be experienced in some situations. And there you can lose the true tradition and turn to ideologies for support. In other words, ideology replaces faith, membership of a sector of the Church replaces membership of the Church.
You younger ones have not experienced these tensions, but what you say about some sectors in the United States reminds me of what we have already experienced with the Epitome, which generated a mentality that was all rigid and contorted. Those American groups you talk about, so closed, are isolating themselves. Instead of living by doctrine, by the true doctrine that always develops and bears fruit, they live by ideologies. When you abandon doctrine in life to replace it with an ideology, you have lost, you have lost as in war.
Holy Father, you are for me the pope of my dreams after the Second Vatican Council. What do you dream of for the Church of the future?
There are many who question Vatican II without naming it. They question the teachings of Vatican II. And if I look to the future, I think we have to follow the Spirit, see what it tells us, with courage. Last week I read the document that takes stock of the state of the Society of Jesus, De statu Societatis. It talks about today, but always with openness. It indicates the possibility of moving forward, the need to continue on that path. So, my dream for the future is to be open to what the Spirit is telling us, open to discernment and not caught up with functionalism.
With prayer the Jesuit goes forward, afraid of nothing, because he knows that the Lord will inspire him in due time as to what he must do. When a Jesuit does not pray, he becomes a desiccated Jesuit. In Portugal one would say he has become a baccalà, a dried and salted codfish.
Thus, a serious examination of conscience must warn against demons ringing the doorbell, asking for “permission,” looking like nonentities and then taking over the house. Jesus concludes that the man’s condition is ultimately worse than before. In other words, take care not to slip gradually. There is a very beautiful Argentine tango called Barranca abajo, “down the ravine.” When a person starts sliding down the ravine, he is lost. He slides down, and from underneath he draws you, he draws you. Hence the importance of the examination of conscience, so that the “educated” demons do not enter in quietly.
When asked about about homosexual persons:
In Rome I know a priest who works with young homosexuals. It is clear that today the issue of homosexuality is very strong, and the sensitivity in this regard changes according to historical circumstances. But what I don’t like at all, in general, is that we look at the so-called “sin of the flesh” with a magnifying glass, just as we have done for so long for the sixth commandment. If you exploited workers, if you lied or cheated, it didn’t matter, and instead sins below the waist were relevant.
So, everyone is invited. This is the point. And the most appropriate pastoral attitude for each person must be applied. We must not be superficial and naive, forcing people into things and behaviors for which they are not yet mature, or are not capable. It takes a lot of sensitivity and creativity to accompany people spiritually and pastorally. But everyone, everyone, everyone is called to live in the Church: never forget that.
I take a cue from your question and want to add something else that concerns transgender people. The Wednesday general audiences are attended by a Charles de Foucauld sister, Sister Geneviève, who is in her eighties and is a chaplain at the Circus in Rome with two other sisters. They live in a mobile home next to the Circus. One day I went to visit them. They have a little chapel, a kitchen, sleeping area, everything well organized. And that nun also works a lot with people who are transgender. One day she said, “Can I bring them to the audience?” “Sure!” I answered her, “why not?” And groups of trans come all the time. The first time they came, they were crying. I was asking them why. One of them told me, “I didn’t think the pope would receive me!” Then, after the first surprise, they made a habit of coming. Some write to me, and I email them back. Everyone is invited! I realized that these people feel rejected, and it is really hard.
Comments