Pope Francis proposes San Juan Diego as a source of inspiration for Latin America

This Thursday, June 27, Pope Francis received the members and advisors of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (CAL), whom he proposed to imitate the example of San Juan Diego to “build bridges of reconciliation, inclusion and fraternity.”

In his welcome speech, the Holy Father recalled that “the Second Vatican Council has called us to a profound renewal.”

The synodal style of the Church in Latin America

Citing Benedict XVI, he pointed out that the reform of the Church is always a ablation: “a removing, so that the noble formthe face of the Bride, and with it also that of the Bridegroom, the living Lord.”

Only in this way, the Holy Father continued, “does the Divine penetrate and only in this way does a congregationan assembly, a gathering, a purification, that pure community that we long for: a community in which one ‘I’ is no longer against another ‘I’.”

For this reason, the Holy Father specified that with the Constitution Preach the gospel has precisely wanted to collaborate with this “removal” to renew the Roman Curia and, among other things, make the CAL a “diakonia” that allows the Church in Latin America to experience the pastoral care and affection of the Successor of Peter.

Likewise, he pointed out that the CAL is currently called to be “an active subject that promotes the necessary transformation that we all need, that is, to help with discretion, prudence and effectiveness for us to live synodalityto walk together moved by the Spirit of the Lord in Latin America.”

In this way, he affirmed that they must promote with all their interlocutors, both in the Holy See and in the CELAM, the CEAMA, the CLAR, the Episcopal Conferences and all the ecclesial organizations that directly or indirectly serve the Church in Latin America , a synodal style of thinking, feeling and doing.”

San Juan Diego as a source of inspiration

To do this, he invited them to have San Juan Diego as a source of inspiration: “As we know, he was an extremely modest and simple indigenous person. The Virgin does not choose him because of his erudition, because of his organizational capacity, or because of his relationship with power.

“On the contrary, Santa María de Guadalupe is moved because he knows he is very small. The awareness of his inability, accompanied by the discovery of the great love and closeness that the Virgin Mary has for him, allows Saint Juan Diego to go look for the bishop and help him to speak to him with charity and clarity about what the Lady of heaven told him. asks”.

In this way, he remembered that the bishop, who also has a ministry to fulfill, requests a sign to be able to believe him. “Saint Juan Diego, obey and find the sign sought on the Tepeyac hill,” he recalled.

According to the Holy Father, in these scenes “we can see with simplicity and depth simultaneous synodality and communion.”

“The lay faithful announces the good news, trusting fundamentally in the ecclesial and supernatural dimension of his mission, and not so much in his strength. This is a beautiful experience of synodal conversion! This same trust also allows him to accept, without complications, the responsibility that the bishop has within the community.”

For Pope Francis, the result of this synodal and communion exercise ““It is not only the roses that appear in front of everyone, it is not only the miraculous image printed on the saint’s tilma, but the beginning of a process of fraternal reconciliation between feuding peoples.”

“This is the inspiring style that the CAL must promote throughout the Latin American region and, when required, even beyond it. Inspire, do not impose. Inspire, motivate and provoke the freedom for each ecclesial and social reality to discern its own path, also following the motions of the Spirit, in communion with the universal Church,” he expressed.

“The CAL must build bridges of reconciliation, of inclusion, of fraternity! Bridges that allow ‘walking together’ to be not a mere rhetorical expression but an authentic pastoral experience!” exclaimed the Pontiff.

Finally, facing Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis encouraged them to invite the people of God “to go on pilgrimage and announce the message of hope that the entire region is urged to hear and rediscover.”

“May Saint Mary of Guadalupe sustain us and encourage us to persevere in the joint effort to make the Church a community increasingly in the style of Jesus,” he concluded.