Pope Francis Tells Theologians use "humble" - "words to help everyone approach compassion" - "that teach us to approach the threshold of the Divine Mystery."

 In a video Pope Francis message to the Pontifical Theological Faculty 'St. John the Evangelist' in Sicily,  encourages theologians "to make the charity of Christ shine." "Promote a theology that, from the height of the Cross and on its knees before others, uses humble, sober, and radical words to help everyone approach compassion, and words, that teach us to approach the threshold of the Divine Mystery." Pope Francis' video message was sent to Palermo on Wednesday afternoon, for the opening of the institution's new Academic Year, the Holy Father reflected 
FULL TEXT of the VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE PONTIFICAL THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF SICILY "ST. JOHN THE EVANGELISTA"
ON THE 43RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

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I am pleased to speak at the opening of your new Academic Year 2024/2025. The full speech will be given to you later. I ideally follow in the footsteps of St. John Paul II, who visited the Faculty of Sicily on November 21, 1982, on the occasion of his pastoral visit to Belice and Palermo.

Your Faculty, born with a strong ecclesiological vocation, is called from within history and listening to the instinct of faith that the people of God possess, to become a protagonist in addressing those challenges that the Mediterranean poses to theology: ecumenical dialogue with the East; interreligious dialogue with Islam and Judaism; the defense of the human dignity of the Mare Nostrum, often made monstrum by the logics of death; the cultural and social strength of popular religiosity – “popular piety”, as Saint Paul VI said –; the resource of literature for the redemption of the cultural dignity of the people; and, above all, the challenges of liberation that come from the cry of the victims of the mafia.
It is about learning the craft of theology as a weaving of evangelical networks of salvation, right along the Sicilian shores of the Mediterranean; it is a patient work that tries to narrate the love of the Master, capable of arousing the wonder of encounter and friendship. The wonder, which is precisely the nerve that arouses faith. Imagine then that moment in which the Master stopped, along the Sea of ​​Galilee, to contemplate those fishermen mending their nets (Mt 4:18-22): what prompted him to call them around him, to gird himself with their humanity, to send them out as fishers of men? And why do the nets, in the mind of Jesus, in his way of thinking, become a sign and instrument of salvation? This is the task of theology from the Mediterranean: to weave networks of salvation, evangelical networks faithful to the way of thinking and loving of Jesus, built with the threads of grace and intertwined with the mercy of God, with which the Church can continue to be, even in the Mediterranean, a sign and instrument of salvation of the human race (cf. Lumen gentium, 2). And this is the way in which theology can love, can become charity.
This is a true analogy of the cross: «From the height of the cross the theologian is challenged to look at human reality with the eyes of the one who has humbled himself to the point of becoming the smallest among men, renouncing his divine prerogatives and assuming the condition of a servant. [1] I like to think therefore of a leap of proximity, which completes the leap of faith, so as not to be a balconero of history, but a weaver of nets who knows how to knot around himself the humanity of Christ and his Gospel.
Brothers, sisters, nets are woven and rearranged sitting on the ground, often kneeling. Let us not forget that this is the best position to love the Lord: on our knees. It means taking on the style of the washing of the feet and that of the Good Samaritan who bends before the wounds of the unfortunate man in the hands of robbers. We can imagine the hands of theologians like this: hands that narrate the embrace of God, hands that offer tenderness – do not forget this word, tenderness, which is God's style –, hands that lift up those who have fallen and guide them to hope. And let us not forget that only once is it permissible to look down on a person: only to help them get up.
Thus, theology requires and includes testimony to the point of sacrificing one's life, of giving oneself through martyrdom. This land knows great witnesses and martyrs, from Father Pino Puglisi to Judge Rosario Livatino, without forgetting the magistrates Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, and many other servants of the State. They are "true chairs" of justice, who invite theology to contribute, with the words of the Gospel, to the cultural redemption of a territory still dramatically marked by the scourge of the mafia. Let us not forget this. Doing theology in the Mediterranean, therefore, means remembering that the proclamation of the Gospel passes through the commitment to the promotion of justice, the overcoming of inequalities and the defense of innocent victims, so that the Gospel of life always shines and evil is rejected in all its forms.
There is a need for a theology with-promise, which immerses itself in history and makes the charity of Christ shine in it. In this sense, I would like the Faculty to start processes of theological and social research on forgiveness, at the crossroads of legality, resistance and holiness. Creatively begin a true theological and social laboratory of forgiveness, for a true revolution of justice!
And this, I like to say, is the vocation of your Island. However, it is also a place where different cultures, histories, and faces meet in harmony, which commit theology to cultivate dialogue with the sister Churches of the East that also overlook the Mediterranean. The route of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, however difficult, is the one to be proposed and supported through experiences of encounter, experiences also of comparison and collaboration in the common listening of the Holy Spirit. It is the legacy of many martyrs of dialogue in the Mediterranean. You are therefore entrusted with the mission of establishing yourselves as a laboratory of a theology of ecumenical dialogue and a theology of religions that leads to a theology of interreligious dialogue. Always the word dialogue, dialogue, openness.
In this context, finally, the comparison between theology and literature appears fruitful, a note that has also characterized the research of your Theological Faculty in recent years, especially for the choice to recognize that instinct of faith that belongs to the experience of the people. Literature often narrates it and allows a reading of the Sicilian and Mediterranean reality, helping all of you to rediscover your identity in the name of dialogue and making you capable of taking off your sandals "before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5)" (Evangelii gaudium, 169). On the other hand, how could the multifaceted Sicilian thought be understood without literature, without Pirandello, Verga, Sciascia, and without the existential themes on which they wrote memorable pages?
Dear brothers and sisters, the Mediterranean needs a living theology, which cultivates its contextual dimension to the full, becoming an appeal for all. Cultivate this theology co-promised with history, just as God in the flesh of the Son has compromised himself with our tears and our hopes. Promote a theology that, from the height of the cross and on its knees before others, uses humble, sober and radical words, to help everyone to look to compassion; and words that teach us to create networks of salvation and love, to generate a new history, rooted in the history of the people.
I embrace you and ask you, please, to pray for me. Thank you.
[1] M. Naro, The Protagonist is the Embrace. The Little Theology of Francis.