Pope Leo XIV warned this Sunday, during the canonization of the first Venezuelan saints – the doctor José Gregorio Hernández and the nun Carmen Rendiles – that in a world without faith freedom “would be defeated by death.”
“If it disappeared from the world, what would happen? Heaven and earth would remain as they are, but our hearts would lack hope; everyone’s freedom would be defeated by death; our desire for life would precipitate into nothingness. Without faith in God, we cannot hope for salvation,” the Holy Father stated in his homily.
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Leo the Armenian bishop and martyr, Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, murdered in 1915 by Ottoman forces for refusing to convert to Islam; the missionary, María Troncatti, who dedicated her life to helping the indigenous Shuar population in Ecuador; and the Italian lawyer, Bartolo Longo, who after being a Satanist embraced the Catholic faith and founded the pontifical sanctuary of the Holy Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii.
The new saints “are not heroes”, but “authentic” men and women
Leo XIV highlighted the seven new saints as examples of authentic Christian life: “They are not heroes, or champions of any ideal, but authentic men and women,” he stressed.
The canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square began with the intervention of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, who presented to Pope Leo XIV the stories of the next seven saints.
The biographies of the two Venezuelans José Gregorio Hernández and Carmen Rendiles and that of the Italian Bartolo Longo drew great applause from the faithful present.
After pronouncing the Latin formula with which he officially proclaimed the seven saints, the Pope delivered his homily addressing the thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
The Holy Father commented on the passage from the Gospel according to Saint Luke in which Jesus wonders if when the Son of Man comes he will find faith on Earth, to confirm that “an earth without faith would be populated by children who live without a Father, that is, creatures without salvation.”
“God saves the world out of love, freeing us from fatalism”
Faith, the Pontiff explained, “saves from nothingness everything that ends in time” and sustains the commitment to justice because “we believe that God saves the world out of love, freeing us from fatalism.”
The Pope assured that faith, compared to the great material goods and the cultural, scientific and artistic achievements of humanity, “stands out” not because these achievements are negligible, but because without faith they lose their “meaning.”
“Prayer sustains the life of the soul”
Leo
Inspired by the passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke, he commented on the parable of the unjust judge and the widow. The Holy Father explained that the woman’s attitude “is presented to us as a great example of hope, especially in the time of trial and tribulation.”
Instead, the judge, who reluctantly gives in, serves as a foil to underline the justice and goodness of God, the Pope said. The Lord “is asking us if we believe that God is a just judge for all,” he stated. “The Son asks us if we believe that the Father always wants our good and the salvation of each person,” he added.
Leo XIV warned of two temptations that can weaken faith. The first takes strength in the scandal of evil, “leading us to think that God does not listen to the cry of the oppressed nor has mercy on innocent pain,” he maintained.
The second temptation is the claim that God “must act as we want,” I continue. Thus, he warned that in that case prayer ceases to be such and becomes “an order, with which we teach God how to be fair and effective.”
Faced with these two attitudes, Leo
He also recalled that those same words are at the heart of the Christian prayer par excellence: “They are the same words that the Master gives us in the Lord’s Prayer. Whatever happens, Jesus entrusts himself as the Son to the Father.”
In this way, he assured that the cross of Christ “reveals the justice of God. And the justice of God is forgiveness. He sees evil and redeems it, taking it upon himself,” stated the Pontiff. “When we are crucified by pain and violence, by hatred and war, Christ is already there, on the cross for us and with us,” he insisted.
“There is no cry that God does not console”
The Holy Father also emphasized the consolation that God offers believers: “There is no cry that God does not console, there is no tear that is far from his heart. The Lord listens to us, embraces us as we are, to make us as He is.”
Likewise, he warned that the lack of acceptance of divine mercy also affects our relationship with others: “Whoever rejects God’s mercy remains incapable of mercy towards his neighbor. He who does not accept peace as a gift will not know how to give peace.”
The Pontiff pointed out that authentic faith is reflected in helping those in need. “When we hear the call of those who are in difficulty, are we witnesses of the Father’s love, as Christ has been for all?”
The Pope asked to follow the example of the new saints and called for “martyrs” like Bishop Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan and catechist Pedro To Rot; “evangelizers and missionaries” like Sister María Troncatti; “charismatic founders”, such as Sister Vicenta María Poloni and Sister Carmen Rendiles Martínez; and “benefactors of humanity” with their hearts burning with devotion, like Bartolo Longo and José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros.
From early in the morning, pilgrims filled St. Peter’s Square with their songs, prayers and flags to witness the canonization ceremony of the seven new saints, witnesses of the faith in different corners of the world.
In St. Peter’s Square, the cultures of the countries of origin of the new saints mixed. There were groups in traditional costumes from Papua New Guinea, and delegations from Armenia, Italy and Venezuela with banners and images of the new saints. The Venezuelan faithful, especially numerous, carried images of the “doctor of the poor” along with flags of the country.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all Vatican news for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa y Omega.