Working for peace requires acting justly. As I have already mention, I chose my name thinking first of all Leo XIII, the pope of he first great social encyclical, Rerum Novarum. In this time of epochal change, the Holy See cannot fail to make its voice heard in the face of many imbalances and injustice that lead, not least, to unworthy working conditions and increasingly fragmented and conflict-ridden societies. Every afford should be made to overcome the global inequalities- between opulent and destitution-that are carving deep divides between continents , countries and even within individual society.

It is responsibility of the government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil society. The can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, “a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society” (Leo XIII)

In addition, no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, specially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed citizen and immigrants alike.

The third word is the truth, the church can never be exempted form speaking the truth about humanity and work, restoring whenever necessary to blunt language that may initial create misunderstanding. Yet truth can never be separated from charity, which always has at it root a concern for the life and well-being of every man and woman.

To Members Of The International Inter-Parliamentary Union

Saturday, 21 June 2025

Addressing ambssadors to holy See

Politics the highest form of charity

Madam President of the Council of Ministers, and Mr President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Italy,

Madam President and Mr Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Distinguished Representatives of Academic Institutions and Religious Leaders,

I am pleased that we can meet in the context of the Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, during the present Jubilee of Governments. I offer a

Politics has rightly been defined as “the highest form of charity,” quoting Pope Pius XI (Address to the Italian Catholic University Federation, 18 December 1927). Indeed, if we consider the service that political life renders to society and to the common good, it can truly be seen as an act of Christian love, which is never simply a theory, but always a concrete sign and witness of God’s constant concern for the good of our human family (cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, 176-192).

In this regard, I would like to share with you this morning three considerations that I deem important in the current cultural context.

The first concerns your responsibility to promote and protect, independent of any special interest, the good of the community, the common good, particularly by defending the vulnerable and the marginalized. This would mean, for example, working to overcome the unacceptable disproportion between the immense wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and the world’s poor (cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum, 15 May 1891, 1). Those who live in extreme conditions cry out to make their voices heard, and often find no ears willing to hear their plea. This imbalance generates situations of persistent injustice, which readily lead to violence and, sooner or later, to the tragedy of war. Sound politics, on the other hand, by promoting the equitable distribution of resources, can offer an effective service to harmony and peace both domestically and internationally.

My second reflection has to do with religious freedom and interreligious dialogue. This area has taken on greater significance in the present time, and political life can achieve much by encouraging the conditions for there to be authentic religious freedom and that a respectful and constructive encounter between different religious communities may develop. Belief in God, with the positive values that derive from it, is an immense source of goodness and truth for the lives of individuals and communities. Saint Augustine spoke of the need to pass from amor sui — egotistic, myopic and destructive self-love — to amor Dei — a free and generous love, grounded in God and leading to the gift of self. That passage, he taught, is essential for the building of the civitas Dei, a society whose fundamental law is charity (cf. De Civitate Dei, XIV, 28).

In order to have a shared point of reference in political activity, and not exclude a priori any consideration of the transcendent in decision-making processes, it would be helpful to seek an element that unites everyone. To this end, an essential reference point is the natural law, written not by human hands, but acknowledged as valid in all times and places, and finding its most plausible and convincing argument in nature itself. In the words of Cicero, already an authoritative exponent of this law in antiquity, I quote from De Re Publica: “Natural law is right reason, in accordance with nature, universal, constant and eternal, which with its commands, invites us to do what is right and with its prohibitions deters us from evil... No change may be made to this law, nor may any part of it be removed, nor can it be abolished altogether; neither by the Senate nor by the people, can we free ourselves from it, nor is it necessary to seek its commentator or interpreter. And there shall be no law in Rome, none in Athens, none now, none later; but one eternal and unchanging law shall govern all peoples at all times” (III, 22).

Natural law, which is universally valid apart from and above other more debatable beliefs, constitutes the compass by which to take our bearings in legislating and acting, particularly on the delicate and pressing ethical issues that, today more than in the past, regard personal life and privacy.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved and proclaimed by the United Nations on 10 December 1948, is now part of humanity’s cultural heritage. That text, which is always relevant, can contribute greatly to placing the human person, in his or her inviolable integrity, at the foundation of the quest for truth, thus restoring dignity to those who do not feel respected in their inmost being and in the dictates of their conscience.

This brings us to a third consideration. The degree of civilization attained in our world and the goals you are charged to achieve are now facing a major challenge in the form of artificial intelligence. This is a development that will certainly be of great help to society, provided that its employment does not undermine the identity and dignity of the human person and his or her fundamental freedoms. In particular, it must not be forgotten that artificial intelligence functions as a tool for the good of human beings, not to diminish them, not to replace them. What is emerging is in fact a significant challenge, one that calls for great attention and foresight in order to project, also in the context of new scenarios, healthy, fair and sound lifestyles, especially for the good of younger generations.

Our personal life has greater value than any algorithm, and social relationships require spaces for development that far transcend the limited patterns that any soulless machine can pre-package. Let us not forget that, while able to store millions of data points and answer many questions in a matter of seconds, artificial intelligence remains equipped with a “static memory” that is in no way comparable to that of human beings. Our memory, on the other hand, is creative, dynamic, generative, capable of uniting past, present and future in a lively and fruitful search for meaning, with all the ethical and existential implications that this entails (cf. Francis, Address to the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence, 14 June 2024).

Politics cannot ignore a challenge of this magnitude. On the contrary, it is called to respond to many citizens who rightly look with both confidence and concern at the issues raised by this new digital culture.

During the Jubilee of the Year 2000, Saint John Paul II indicated Saint Thomas More as a witness for political leaders to revere and an intercessor under whose protection to place their work. Sir Thomas More was a man faithful to his civic responsibilities, a perfect servant of the state precisely because of his faith, which led him to view politics not as a profession but as a mission for the spread of truth and goodness. He “placed his public activity at the service of the person, especially the weak and poor; he handled social disputes with an exquisite sense of justice; he protected the family and defended it with strenuous commitment; and he promoted the integral education of youth” (Apostolic Letter E Sancti Thomae Mori, 31 October 2000, 4). The courage he showed by his readiness to sacrifice his life rather than betray the truth makes him, also for us today, a martyr for freedom and for the primacy of conscience. May his example be a source of inspiration and guidance for each of you!

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for your visit. I offer my prayerful good wishes for your work and upon you and your loved ones, I invoke God’s abundant blessings.

Thank you to all of you. God’s blessings upon you and your work. Thank you.

Families Of Today And Tomorrow: Ecclesiological And Pastoral Challenges”, Organized By The Dicastery For Laity, Family And Life (2-3 June 2025)

Released Monday, 2 June 2025

Becoming ‘fishers’ of families

Dear brothers and sisters,

I am pleased that following the celebration of the Jubilee for Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly a group of experts has gathered at the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life to reflect on the theme, “Evangelizing with the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges”.

This theme clearly expresses the Church’s maternal concern for Christian families throughout the world as living members of the Mystical Body of Christ and the primary nucleus of the Church, to whom the Lord entrusts the transmission of faith and the Gospel, especially to the new generations.

The profound thirst for the infinite present in the heart of every human being means that parents have the duty to make their children aware of the fatherhood of God. In the words of Saint Augustine: “As we have the source of life in you, O Lord, in your light we shall see light” (Confessions, XIII, 16).

Ours is a time marked by a growing search for spirituality, particularly evident in young people, who are longing for authentic relationships and guides in life. Hence, it is important that the Christian community be farsighted in discerning the challenges of today’s world and in nurturing the desire for faith present in the heart of every man and woman.

This effort requires that special attention be paid to those families who, for various reasons, are spiritually most distant from us: those who do not feel involved, claim they are uninterested or feel excluded from the usual activities, yet would still like to be part of a community in which they can grow and journey together with others. How many people today simply do not hear the invitation to encounter God?

Sadly, in the face of this need, an increasingly widespread “privatization” of faith often prevents these brothers and sisters from knowing the richness and gifts of the Church, a place of grace, fraternity, and love.

As a result, despite their healthy and holy desires, while they sincerely seek ways to climb the exciting upward paths to life and abundant joy, many end up relying on false footholds that are unable to support the weight of their deepest needs and cause them to slip back down, away from God, shipwrecked on a sea of worldly concerns.

Among them are fathers and mothers, children, young people and adolescents, who find themselves at times alienated by illusory lifestyles that leave no room for faith, and whose spread is facilitated by the wrong use of potentially good means — such as social media — that prove harmful when used to convey misleading messages.

What drives the Church in her pastoral and missionary outreach is precisely the desire to go out as a “fisher” of humanity, in order to save it from the waters of evil and death through an encounter with Christ.

Perhaps many young people today who choose cohabitation instead of Christian marriage in reality need someone to show them in a concrete and clear way, especially by the example of their lives, what the gift of sacramental grace is and what strength derives from it. Someone to help them understand “the beauty and grandeur of the vocation to love and the service of life” that God gives to married couples (Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 1).

Similarly, many parents, in raising their children in the faith, feel the need for communities that can support them in creating the right conditions for their children to encounter Jesus, “places where the communion of love, which finds its ultimate source in God, takes place” (FRANCIS, General Audience, 9 September 2015).

Faith is primarily a response to God’s love, and the greatest mistake we can make as Christians is, in the words of Saint Augustine, “to claim that Christ’s grace consists in his example and not in the gift of his person” (Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, II, 146). How often, even in the not too distant past, have we forgotten this truth and presented Christian life mostly as a set of rules to be kept, replacing the marvelous experience of encountering Jesus — God who gives himself to us — with a moralistic, burdensome and unappealing religion that, in some ways, is impossible to live in concrete daily life.

In this situation, it is the responsibility of the Bishops, as successors of the apostles and shepherds of Christ’s flock, to be the first to cast their nets into the sea and become “fishers of families.” Yet the laity are also called to participate in this mission, and to become, alongside ordained ministers, “fishers” of couples, young people, children, women and men of all ages and circumstances, so that all may encounter the one Saviour. Through Baptism, each one of us has been made a priest, king, and prophet for our brothers and sisters, and a “living stone” (cf. 1 Pet 2:4) for the building up of God’s house “in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity” (LEO XIV, Homily, 18 May 2025).

I ask you, then, to join in the work of the whole Church in seeking out those families who no longer come to us, in learning how to walk with them and to help them embrace the faith and become in turn “fishers” of other families.

Do not be discouraged by the difficult situations you face. It is true that families today have many problems, but “the Gospel of the family also nourishes seeds that are still waiting to grow, and serves as the basis for caring for those plants that are wilting and must not be neglected” (FRANCIS, Amoris Laetitia, 76).

What great need there is to promote an encounter with God, whose tender love values and loves the story of every person! It is not a matter of giving hasty answers to difficult questions, but of drawing close to people, listening to them, and trying to understand together with them how to face their difficulties. And this requires a readiness to be open, when necessary, to new ways of seeing things and different ways of acting, for each generation is different and has its own challenges, dreams and questions. Yet amid all these changes, Jesus Christ remains “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). Consequently, if we want to help families experience joyful paths of communion and be seeds of faith for one another, we must first cultivate and renew our own identity as believers.

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for what you do! May the Holy Spirit guide you in discerning criteria and methods that support and promote the Church’s efforts to minister to families. Let us help families to listen courageously to Christ’s proposal and the Church’s words of encouragement! I will remember you in my prayers, and I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 28 May 2025

Homily for the Jubilee of the Holy See

Monday, 9 June 2025

The fruitfulness of the Church depends on the Cross of Christ

Let us begin with the fundamental account, which is the story of Jesus’ death. John, the only one of the Twelve present at Calvary, saw and testified that beneath the cross stood Jesus’ mother together with the other women (cf. Jn 19:25). And he heard with his own ears the last words of the Master, among which were these: “Woman, here is your son!” and then, turning to him, “Here is your mother!” (Jn 19:26-27).

Mary’s motherhood through the mystery of the Cross took an unimaginable leap: the mother of Jesus became the new Eve, the source of new and eternal life for every person who comes into the world, because her Son associated her with his redemptive death. The theme of fruitfulness is clearly present in this liturgy. The opening prayer immediately highlighted this by asking the Father that the Church, sustained by the love of Christ, “may be more fruitful day by day.” (Collect)

Video Message to the young people of Chicago and the entire world

Saturday, 14 June 2025

Beacons of hope

My dear friends,

It’s a pleasure for me to greet all of you gathered together at White Sox Park on this great celebration as a community of faith in the Archdiocese of Chicago. A special greeting to Cardinal Cupich, to the auxiliary bishops, to all my friends who are gathered today on this: the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

And I begin with that because the Trinity is a model of God’s love for us. God: Father, Son and Spirit. Three persons in one God live united in the depth of love, in community, sharing that communion with all of us.

So, as you gather today in this great celebration, I want to both express my gratitude to you and also an encouragement to continue to build up community, friendship, as brothers and sisters in your daily lives, in your families, in your parishes, in the Archdiocese and throughout our world.

I’d like to send a special word of greeting to all the young people — those of you gathered together today, and many of you who are perhaps watching this greeting through technological means, on the internet. As you grow up together, you may realise, especially having lived through the time of the pandemic — times of isolation, great difficulty, sometimes even difficulties in your families, or in our world today. Sometimes it may be that the context of your life has not given you the opportunity to live the faith, to live as participants in a faith community, and I’d like to take this opportunity to invite each one of you to look into your own hearts, to recognise that God is present and that, perhaps in many different ways, God is reaching out to you, calling you, inviting you to know his Son Jesus Christ, through the Scriptures, perhaps through a friend or a relative… a grandparent, who might be a person of faith. But to discover how important it is for each one of us to pay attention to the presence of God in our own hearts, to that longing for love in our lives, for … searching, a true searching, for finding the ways that we may be able to do something with our own lives to serve others.

And in that service to others we may find that coming together in friendship, building up community, we too can find true meaning in our lives. Moments of anxiety, of loneliness. So many people who suffer from different experiences of depression or sadness — they can discover that the love of God is truly healing, that it brings hope, and that actually, coming together as friends, as brothers and sisters, in community, in a parish, in an experience of living our faith together, we can find that the Lord’s grace, that the love of God can truly heal us, can give us the strength that we need, can be the source of that hope that we all need in our lives.

To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world.

To, once again, the young people who are gathered here, I’d like to say that you are the promise of hope for so many of us. The world looks to you as you look around yourselves and say: we need you, we want you to come together to share with us in this common mission, as Church and in society, of announcing a message of true hope and of promoting peace, promoting harmony, among all peoples.

We have to look beyond our own — if you will — egotistical ways. We have to look for ways of coming together and promoting a message of hope. Saint Augustine says to us that if we want the world to be a better place, we have to begin with ourselves, we have to begin with our own lives, our own hearts (cfr Speech 311; Comment on St John’s Gospel, Homily 77).

And so, in this sense, as you gather together as a faith community, as you celebrate in the Archdiocese of Chicago, as you offer your own experience of joy and of hope, you can find out, you can discover that you, too, are indeed beacons of hope. That light, that perhaps on the horizon is not very easy to see, and yet, as we grow in our unity, as we come together in communion, we can discover that that light will grow brighter and brighter. That light which is indeed our faith in Jesus Christ. And we can become that message of hope, to promote peace and unity throughout our world.

We all live with many questions in our hearts. Saint Augustine speaks so often of our “restless” hearts and says: “our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God” (Confessions 1,1,1). That restlessness is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t look for ways to put out the fire, to eliminate or even numb ourselves to the tensions that we feel, the difficulties that we experience. We should rather get in touch with our own hearts and recognise that God can work in our lives, through our lives, and through us reach out to other people.

And so I’d like to conclude this brief message to all of you with an invitation to be, indeed, that light of hope. “Hope does not disappoint”, Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans (5,5). When I see each and every one of you, when I see how people gather together to celebrate their faith, I discover myself how much hope there is in the world.

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Christ, who is our hope, indeed calls all of us to come together, that we might be that true living example: the light of hope in the world today.

So I would like to invite all of you to take a moment, to open up your own hearts to God, to God’s love, to that peace which only the Lord can give us. To feel how deeply beautiful, how strong, how meaningful the love of God is in our lives. And to recognise that while we do nothing to earn God’s love, God in his own generosity continues to pour out his love upon us. And as he gives us his love, he only asks us to be generous and to share what he has given us with others.

May you indeed be blessed as you gather together for this celebration. May the Lord’s love and peace come upon each and every one of you, upon your families, and may God bless all of you, so that you might always be beacons of hope, a sign of hope and peace throughout our world.

And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

Homily Of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV For ‘Corpus Christi’

Sunday, 22 June 2025

Our hungry nature satisfied by the grace of the Eucharist

Dear brothers and sisters, it is wonderful to be in the presence of Jesus. The Gospel passage we just heard attests to this; it recounts how the crowds spent long hours listening to him speak about the Kingdom of God and seeing him heal the sick (cf. Lk 9:11). Jesus’ compassion for the suffering shows us the loving closeness of God, who comes into our world to save us. Where God reigns, we are set free from all evil. Yet even for those who accept the good news brought by Jesus, the hour of trial comes. In that deserted place, where the crowds were listening to the Master, evening fell and there was nothing to eat (cf. v. 12). The hunger of the people and the setting of the sun speak to us of a limit that looms over the world and every creature: the day ends, as does the life of every human being. At that hour of need and of gathering shadows, Jesus remains present in our midst.

Precisely when the day is ending and hunger sets in, as the Apostles themselves ask him to dismiss the crowds, Christ surprises us with his mercy. He feels compassion for those who are hungry and he invites his disciples to provide for them. Hunger is not foreign to the preaching of the Kingdom and the message of salvation. On the contrary, it speaks to us of our relationship with God. At the same time, five loaves and two fish seem completely inadequate to feed the people. The disciples’ calculations, apparently so reasonable, reveal their lack of faith. For where the Lord is present, we find all that we need to give strength and meaning to our lives.

Jesus responds to the appeal of hunger with the sign of sharing: he raises his eyes, recites the blessing, breaks the bread, and feeds all present (cf. v. 16). The Lord’s actions are not some complicated magical rite; they simply show his gratitude to the Father, his filial prayer and the fraternal communion sustained by the Holy Spirit. Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish by sharing what is available. As a result, there is enough for everyone. In fact, more than enough. After all had eaten their fill, twelve baskets-full were gathered up (cf. v. 17).

That is how Jesus satisfies the hunger of the crowd: he does what God does, and he teaches us to do the same. Today, in place of the crowds mentioned in the Gospel, entire peoples are suffering more as a result of the greed of others than from their own hunger. In stark contrast to the dire poverty of many, the amassing of wealth by a few is the sign of an arrogant indifference that produces pain and injustice. Rather than sharing, it squanders the fruits of the earth and human labour. Especially in this Jubilee Year, the Lord’s example is a yardstick that should guide our actions and our service: we are called to share our bread, to multiply hope and to proclaim the coming of God’s Kingdom.

In saving the crowds from hunger, Jesus proclaims that he will save everyone from death. That is the mystery of faith, which we celebrate in the sacrament of the Eucharist. For just as hunger is a sign of our radical needs in this life, so breaking bread is a sign of God’s gift of salvation.

Dear friends, Christ is God’s answer to our human hunger, because his Body is the bread of eternal life: Take this and eat of it, all of you! Jesus’ invitation reflects our daily experience: in order to remain alive, we need to nourish ourselves with life, drawing it from plants and animals. Yet eating something dead reminds us that we too, no matter how much we eat, will one day die. On the other hand, when we partake of Jesus, the living and true Bread, we live for him. By offering himself completely, the crucified and risen Lord delivers himself into our hands, and we realize that we were made to partake of God. Our hungry nature bears the mark of a need that is satisfied by the grace of the Eucharist. As Saint Augustine writes, Christ is truly “panis qui reficit, et non deficit; panis qui sumi potest, consumi non potest” (Serm. 130, 2): he is bread that restores and does not run short; bread that can be eaten but not exhausted. The Eucharist, in fact, is the true, real, and substantial presence of the Saviour (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1413), who transforms bread into himself in order to transform us into himself. Living and life-giving, the Corpus Domini makes us, the Church herself, the Body of the Lord.

For this reason, echoing the Apostle Paul (cf. 1 Cor 10:17), the Second Vatican Council teaches that “in the sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, the unity of believers, who form one body in Christ, is both expressed and achieved. All are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we come, through whom we live, and towards whom we direct our lives” (Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 3). The procession that we are about to undertake is a sign of that journey. Together, as shepherds and flock, we will feed on the Blessed Sacrament, adore him and carry him through the streets. In doing so, we will present him before the eyes, the consciences and the hearts of the people. To the hearts of those who believe, so that they may believe more firmly; to the hearts of those who do not believe, so that they may reflect on the hunger present within them and the bread that alone can satisfy it.

Strengthened by the food that God gives us, let us bring Jesus to the hearts of all, because Jesus involves everyone in his work of salvation by calling each of us to sit at his table. Blessed are those who are called, for they become witnesses of this love!

Address Of His Holiness Pope Leo Xiv To The Representatives Of Certain Women’s Religious Institutes

Monday, 30 June 2025

Undertaking new paths of self-giving

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you!

Dear Sisters, good morning and welcome!

I am pleased to meet with you. For some of you it is the occasion of your General Chapter, others are here for your Jubilee pilgrimage. In both cases, you have come to the tomb of Peter in order to renew your love for the Lord and your fidelity to the Church.

You belong to Congregations that were founded at different times and in distinct circumstances: Sisters of the Order of Saint Basil the Great; Daughters of Divine Charity; Augustinian Sisters of Amparo; Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts. Yet your histories share a common thread that can be seen in the light of such great historical witnesses to the spiritual life as Augustine, Basil and Francis, whose asceticism, courage and holiness of life inspired your founders to foster new ways of serving others. This is evident especially in your care for the weakest: children, poor girls and boys, orphans, migrants, and more recently for the elderly and the sick as well as many other ministries of charity.

Your response to the challenges of the past and the vitality of your present make clear that fidelity to the ancient wisdom of the Gospel is the best way forward for those who, led by the Holy Spirit, undertake new paths of self-giving, dedicated to loving God and neighbor and listening attentively to the signs of the times (cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 4; 11).

With this in mind, the Second Vatican Council, referring to religious institutes dedicated to works of charity, emphasized how important it is that in them “the entire religious life of the members should be imbued with an apostolic spirit, and all their apostolic activity with a religious spirit,” so that they “may first answer their call to follow Christ and to serve Christ himself in his members... in intimate union with him” (Decree Perfectae Caritatis, 8).

Saint Augustine, speaking of the primacy of God in the Christian life, affirms that, “God is your everything. If you are hungry, God is your bread; if you are thirsty, God is your water; if you are in darkness, God is your light that never fades; if you are naked, God is your everlasting garment” (In Ioannis Evangelium, 13, 5). Indeed, we would do well to ask ourselves: to what extent are these words true for me? How much does the Lord satisfy my thirst for life, love or light? These are important questions. Moreover, this rootedness in Christ is what led those who went before us — men and women like us, with gifts and limitations like ours — to do things they perhaps never thought they could achieve. This rootedness enabled them to sow seeds of goodness that, enduring throughout the centuries and across continents, have now reached practically the entire world, as your presence here demonstrates.

As I mentioned, some of you are engaged in your General Chapters, others are here for the Jubilee. In any case, you are faced with important choices that will determine your future, that of your sisters and of the Church herself. For this reason, it seems most appropriate to conclude by reiterating, for all of us, the beautiful hope expressed by Saint Paul in addressing the Christians of Ephesus: I pray that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:17-19). Thank you for your work and your fidelity. May the Blessed Virgin Mary accompany you. And I give you my blessing.

Testi Pontifici