Pope Francis: In politics, Catholics cannot live a private faith

Today, Sunday, July 7, Pope Francis urged Catholics to share their faith in the public sphere and combat political polarization by supporting person-centered democracy.

“Let us not be fooled by easy solutions. Let us commit ourselves, instead, to the common good,” he said at a Catholic conference on democracy in the northern Italian city of Trieste on July 7.

Francis participated in the last morning of the 50th Social Week of Catholics, an annual meeting of the Catholic Church in Italy aimed at promoting the social doctrine of the Church. The theme of the congress from July 3 to 7 was “At the heart of democracy. Participate between history and the future.”

In his speech, the Pope spoke strongly about the importance of democracy, encouraging participation over partisanship and warning that ideologies are “seductive.”

“As Catholics, in this horizon, we cannot settle for a marginal, or private, faith,” the Pope told some 1,200 participants at the conference at the Generali Convention Center. “This means not so much demanding to be heard, but, above all, having the courage to raise proposals for justice and peace in public debate.”

“We have something to say, but not to defend privileges. We must be a voice that denounces and proposes in a society that is often voiceless and in which too many do not have a voice.”

“This is political love,” Francis stressed, adding that “it is a form of charity that allows politics to live up to its responsibilities and move away from polarizations, which impoverish and do not help to understand and confront challenges.” .

The Catholic Social Week congress was held in Trieste, a port city located in a narrow strip of Italian territory in the far northeast of the country, bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.

Pope Francis arrived in Trieste by helicopter from the Vatican in the early hours of July 7. After addressing event participants from across Italy, he briefly met with representatives of other Christian traditions and a group of immigrants and people with disabilities.

The Pope then celebrated Mass before some 8,500 Catholics gathered in Unità d’Italia Square in Trieste, before boarding a helicopter again to return to the Vatican.

Speaking of the Christian vision of democracy, the Pontiff cited a 1988 pastoral note from the Italian bishops, which said that democracy means “giving meaning to the commitment of all in the transformation of society; paying attention to the people who remain outside or outside the winning economic processes and mechanisms; give space to social solidarity in all its forms; support the return of a caring ethic of the common good (…); .) as a global improvement in the quality of life, collective coexistence, democratic participation, and authentic freedom.”

“This vision, rooted in the Social Doctrine of the Church,” said Pope Francis, is not only valid “for the Italian context, but represents an exhortation for all human society and the path of all peoples.”

“In fact, just as the crisis of democracy is transversal to different realities and nations, in the same way the attitude of responsibility towards social transformations is a call addressed to all Christians, wherever they are living and working, in all parts of the world,” he added.

The Pope also stressed the importance of combating the culture of throwaways, as demonstrated by a self-referential power “incapable of listening to and serving the people.”

He recalled the importance of the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity and condemned a certain attitude of “welfare” that does not recognize the dignity of people, calling it “social hypocrisy.”

“Everyone should feel part of a community project; no one should feel useless,” he said.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.