Pope Francis granted a interview to the Argentine journalist Bernarda Llorente, in which she referred to several current issues, with a special concern for wars. In addition, he analyzed the current situation of the Church, emphasized the importance of dialogue and called to live Jubilee 2025 “from within” and seeking God, who “does not tire of forgiving.”
The hypocrisy of talking about peace and waging war
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The interview was broadcast this Tuesday exclusively on Canal Orbe 21, the channel of the Archbishopric of Buenos Aires. In this context, when asked about the possibility of building a demand for peace that helps reduce conflicts, the Holy Father expressed: “I am concerned that the countless calls for peace from international organizations enter through one ear and leave through the other. There is also a basic hypocrisy: we talk about peace but we make war.”
In that sense, regarding his repeated warning of a Third World War in little pieces, Pope Francis analyzed: “I see a universal tendency towards self-destruction through war. In an era where scientific and mechanical progress is so great, and when one sees this tendency towards self-destruction and destroying others, it makes me think of the Tower of Babel.”
“A peace treaty is urgently needed,” he said.
Regarding leaders who propagate denialist speeches, using a sports metaphor, the Pope considered that “when one denies a reality, a history, a concrete situation, one is kicking oneself against oneself.”
“The conflict is not resolved with the destruction of one of the parties,” he said.
“In moments of tension there are four fundamental principles: unity is superior to conflict, the whole is superior to the part, reality is superior to the idea and time is superior to space. Human problems are resolved with these four parameters, which are not denialist, but rather they pull you up and that always helps,” he said.
Educate in forgiveness
“When an error is seen, there is dialogue and an apology is made, it is a good step towards peace, always, always,” said the Holy Father.
Taking it to the everyday level, he repeated the advice he usually gives to couples: “Fight all you want as long as you make peace before the day ends. Because the cold war of the next day is dangerous (…) Knowing how to recognize error is such a human act, so human,” he noted.
“It is difficult for all of us to ask for forgiveness. We are ashamed. We have to get used to it and educate our children to ask for forgiveness from a young age. But reason: look here you went too far, this was good, ask your little friend or friend to apologize. We have to start educating them on that, so they know what limit they have crossed. It is an education that we need. Asking for forgiveness is humility. Look truthfully at yourself, in the historical apologies, in the great personal apologies and in the small ones of every day,” he deepened.
The Church from below that expresses itself and creates community
In the interview, Francis also referred to the Synod on Synodality, held recently, where he considered dialogue and reflection essential.
“It is no longer the Church from the top down. It is no longer the bishops, the Pope, the priests, the nuns, but it is the Church from below that expresses itself and creates community,” he said.
“The synod is what causes that Church that walks, where everyone is united and that achieves harmony in the body. The key word of the synodal church is harmony. Now, who makes harmony in the Church? It is the Holy Spirit. Saint Basil has a book about the Holy Spirit and at one point he says: he is harmony, the one who harmonizes everything. Sometimes, in the middle of the depiole. Let’s think about what happened on the morning of Pentecost, a barbaric despiole, but in the midst of that despiole he created harmony, which would be saying, pardon the expression, that a good Church would be a Church that was a little despiolated, but that always seeks harmony. Who listens to everyone.”
“Everyone inside, and inside let it be discerned”
At that point, he stopped to specify who is admitted to the Church. “I say what Jesus said in the Gospel: everyone, everyone, everyone. And the sinners? Everyone is already fixing their situation inside, but everyone inside. Everyone inside, and inside let it be discerned, let everyone talk, and if someone sneaks in with bad will, with bad disposition, they are taken out. It is one thing not to let in and another thing is to take out someone who is already inside and does not have, as the Gospel says, the wedding garment on,” he reflected.
The Church, he specified, “condemns people’s morality, but welcomes them to help them walk.”
“Sometimes crude moralism, ‘habriaqueism’ denies you human reality, it denies you one of the things that is an attribute of God, it denies you tenderness. A life without tenderness is unlivable. Why do I say that it is an attribute of God? “God has three attributes that I like, but they are his: closeness, mercy and tenderness,” he summarized.
“God is always close, God is always merciful and has that tender, loving mercy. God caresses. Let’s not forget that. A rigid humanism does not know proximity or mercy. A clericalism squared away in the religious fact moves away from all that,” he warned.
He also recalled the recommendation he gives to priests: “Please guys, always forgive because God always forgives.”
“Forgive everything, because God forgives everything. Confession is not a psychoanalysis session. Listen without asking too much and forgive. Don’t torture people, confession is something to embrace, to receive.”
With young people: closeness, dialogue, listening
To reach young people, he advised proximity, closeness, dialogue and listening. And also give them creative alternatives. “If a young man is not creative in friendship, in social life, in love by dating, if he is not creative in all those things, he is a poor fool.”
Regarding those who question the Social Doctrine of the Church, the Holy Father clarified: “Christianity is not an ideology, it is an experience. It is an experience that one grows along the path that God gives each one. “The young people who go to work in solidarity share an experience that engages them in life.”
In that sense, he warned: “On the other hand, there are ideological positions that end up generating monsters. When you see young people who belong to these more ideological than Christian organizations—right-wing, left-wing, whatever—they are little monsters clinging to the idea, right? How does this young man treat his boyfriend, his girlfriend, his husband, his wife? With ideas. There you see that there is a deformation in the person’s love itself.
If not used well, money corrupts
He also emphasized the value given to money today. And remembering a phrase from his grandmother, he said: “The devil enters through the pocket.”
“Money corrupts you if you don’t know how to use it well, if you are not committed to something to use it well,” he warned. “If you earn it well and use it well, it makes you great. The generous person, who always seeks to help others, has a big heart,” he said.
“When I confess, and I can ask this, I generally do it: Do you give alms?” They usually tell me yes. The second question: And do you look the person who gives you alms in the eyes or touch their hand? Oh, I don’t know, they answer me and look the other way. You have to look at the person. He is asking. Give him a caress,” he urged.
Making an adjustment in education “is criminal”
Regarding the economy of adjustment in education and culture, the Pope considered: “Making adjustment in education is a planned suicide of a country. “You cannot make adjustments in the educational development of a country, it is criminal.”
For this reason, “I am happy when I see, in various situations, so many people who oppose the adjustment, even young people. They realize it and they oppose it, they make trouble, they complain. Because education is food. It’s the same as taking food away from people. “It is the food of the soul, of the mind, of the spirit,” he said.
“A country has to provide the resources for its university to create the new brains of the future. In Argentina we have a good reputation because how many of our professionals are wanted from abroad? “The school at everyone’s fingertips, a university at everyone’s fingertips, is one of our pride,” he stated.
Regarding artificial intelligence, he joked: “I am more concerned about natural intelligence because there is every donkey on the loose,” and summarized: “Artificial Intelligence is a challenge: either we take it on or the ants eat us.”
Jubilee 2025: The Lord forgives
Beginning the Jubilee 2025, which has the motto “Pilgrims of Hope,” the Pontiff assured that “jubilees are about total renewal, about forgiveness.”
To live it well, he stated, “it has to be from within and, in some way, fix personal stories a little. In that aspect it is a moment of forgiveness, of joy, of recomposition of so many personal and social things.”
“A jubilee that is reduced to tourism is useless, that scares me. That is why I am going to extend the jubilee to all dioceses, so that each person in their city can celebrate the jubilee without having to travel, although many will travel,” he clarified.
“The important thing is the ability to forgive, to fix so many inner stories that one has archived there and does not dare to dust off. A true conversion of life,” he encouraged.
“Jesus forgives everything. That would be the great motto of the jubilee, the Lord forgives. It is not coming to do tourism,” he stressed. And to be forgiven, the requirement is “to have the desire to be forgiven, nothing more,” he summarized.
“God never gets tired of forgiving, we are the ones who get tired of asking for forgiveness, don’t forget that.”
“A poor unfortunate man to whom God had great mercy”
Regarding his next two biographical works, “one is Life, an excellent work by Fabio Marchese, about how I lived certain historical moments. The other, by Carlos Musso, they planned to publish after my death. But since I’m not dying (laughs), they are afraid that it will lose relevance and they decided to do it now. “I don’t know what it will be like,” he acknowledged.
Asked how he would like to be remembered, Pope Francis confessed that in private, he says to himself: “I am a poor unfortunate person to whom God had a lot of mercy. I think that this way, with this truth, I can be remembered very well. If they remember me like that that’s fine. Yes, God’s mercy is great.”
“I feel very small,” admitted the Holy Father.
Regarding the changes he made during his papacy in the Church, he expressed: “The transformations are true, because they had to be made, but did you see how easy it was? Because everyone was waiting for them. Now what is coming is a woman prefect of the Dicastery and forward. Let the women come in.”
And as for the coming decades, he observed: “I believe the Church is already well designed, by the intuition of God, by the Holy Spirit who guides it and the decisions that the Church was making. Like decisions in the Dicasteries, in the Vatican organization. Afterwards, the diocesan Church – where the laity enters very deeply – is well designed, I imagine it growing like this because the spirit is carrying it.”
Finally, he left a message to the Argentines: “To the great Argentine people, greetings! “Let them continue fighting, let them defend themselves against ideologies and not let themselves be deceived, let them fight for their rights.”
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.