Saturday, Pope Francis exhorted participants of an international Catholic organization to foster unity and affection for the Church, particularly during times of adversity.
Always cherish the Church. Respect and maintain the cohesion of your “fellowship.” “Do not allow your brotherhood to be harmed by differences and oppositions, which play into the hands of the devil,” the pope warned in a meeting with Communion and Liberation on Saturday at the Vatican.
“Even tough times can be times of grace and regeneration,” he emphasized to more than 50,000 members of the religious movement in his address.
On October 15, adherents of Communion and Liberation traveled from over 60 nations to meet Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square.
Father Luigi Giussani, a theologian and public intellectual who created Communion and Liberation, was commemorated on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Giussani died in 2005, and in 2012, his cause for beatification was begun.
The meeting on Saturday began with a welcome from Communion and Liberation’s president, Davide Prosperi, and two member testimonies.
Prosperi succeeded Father Julián Carrón, who resigned as president of Communion and Liberation in November 2021 in response to Vatican rules limiting the terms of heads of international religious organizations.
Since 2005, when the international fraternity’s founder passed away, the 72-year-old priest had served as its president.
Following the death of the movement’s founder, Father Giussani, Pope Francis stated in his speech that the movement has been in a “very difficult” transitional time.
He also mentioned a “crisis” within the movement. Francis stated, “We must honor Father Julian Carrón for his contribution in directing the movement throughout this period and for keeping the communion’s rudder firm during his papacy.”
“However,” he continued, “there has been no lack of major challenges, disagreements, and certainly even impoverishment in the presence of such a significant ecclesiastical movement as Communion and Liberation, from which the Church and I aspire for more, much more.”
In response to governance issues, the Holy See designated a special delegate to manage Memores Domini, the lay consecrated branch of Communion and Liberation, in September 2021.
“Crisis times are moments of recapitulation of your magnificent history of charity, culture, and mission; they are times of critical evaluation of what has hindered the fruitful potential of Father Giussani’s charism,” said the pope. In view of the current ecclesiastical moment and the needs, sorrows, and aspirations of contemporary humanity, these are times of regeneration and missionary relaunch.
“Crisis,” he emphasized, “promotes development. It should not be reduced to destructive strife.”
He urged the movement to develop unity in the face of difference and to avoid “gossip, mistrust, and hostility” Please do not squander time, he added.
In addition, the pope pondered on three characteristics of the movement’s founder: his charism, his vocation as an educator, and his love for the Church.
At Father Giussani’s funeral, Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, said that he “always maintained his life and heart focused on Christ. Thus, he realized that Christianity is not an academic system, a collection of dogmas, or a morality, but rather an encounter; a love story; an event.”
Francis stated, “You are well aware that the finding of a charism is always the result of a contact with concrete persons. These individuals are witnesses who help us to approach the Christian community, the Church.
“In the Church, the contact with Christ continues to exist. It is the Church that preserves, cultivates, and develops all charisms, he remarked. “We are all called to this: to facilitate the encounter with Christ for others, and then to let them go their own path, untethered to us.”