VATICAN (CNS): At a time when many governments seem unable to promote peace, justice and development for all, Christians must be prophetic, reaching out to others and daring to try something new, Pope Leo XIV told participants at the 46th Meeting of Friendship Among Peoples.
“Without the victims of history, without those who hunger and thirst for justice, without migrants and refugees, without the cry of all creation, we will not have new stones” necessary to build the kingdom of God, said the pope’s message to the gathering held every August at Rimini, the Italian seaside city.
Tens of thousands of young adults from attended the August 22-27 meeting, organised by the Communion and Liberation Movement.
This year’s theme was drawn from The Rock by T.S. Eliot: “In the vacant places we will build with new bricks.” Organisers said the theme is meant “to express the hope of a novelty within the drama of history, the desire to build together places in which to share the search and experience of what is true, good and just.”
Without the victims of history, without those who hunger and thirst for justice, without migrants and refugees, without the cry of all creation, we will not have new stones
Pope Leo XIV
Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, wrote to the participants on behalf of Pope Leo. One of the featured exhibits at the meeting focused on the martyrs of Algeria: Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran and 18 others, including the seven Trappist monks of Tibhirine, who were killed between 1993 and 1996 while Algeria was locked in a 10-year-long armed conflict between government forces and extremist Islamic rebel groups.
Cardinal Parolin said the pope was pleased with the choice because they are an example of “the Church’s vocation to dwell in the desert in deep communion with all humanity, overcoming the walls of indifference that set religions and cultures against one another, in full imitation of the movement of the incarnation and giving of the Son of God.”
The martyrs’ “way of presence and simplicity, of knowledge and of ‘dialogue of life’ is the true path of mission,” the message said. “Not self-exhibition, in the contraposition of identities, but self-giving to the point of martyrdom of those who, day and night, in joy and amid tribulations, worship Jesus alone as Lord.”
The pope’s message said, “Where those responsible for state and international institutions seem unable to enforce the rule of law, mediation and dialogue, religious communities and civil society must dare to be prophetic. This means allowing ourselves to be driven into the desert and seeing now what can be born from the rubble and from so much, too much, innocent suffering.”
Where those responsible for state and international institutions seem unable to enforce the rule of law, mediation and dialogue, religious communities and civil society must dare to be prophetic
Pope Leo
The Meeting of Friendship’s focus on dialogue—among Catholics of differing opinions, with other Christians and with members of other religions—is the only way to “prepare the ‘new stones’ with which to build the future that God already has in store for everyone, but which only unfolds when we welcome one another,” the message said.
“Unarmed and disarming, the presence of Christians in contemporary societies must translate, with skill and imagination, the gospel of the Kingdom into forms of development that provide alternatives to paths of growth without equity and sustainability,” thegroup said.
“In order to serve the living God, we must abandon the idolatry of profit, which has severely compromised justice, freedom of encounter and exchange, the participation of all in the common good and ultimately peace,” it said.
“A faith that is estranged from the desertification of the world or that indirectly contributes to tolerating it would no longer be following Jesus Christ,” it said.
