During the General Audience held this Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Pope Francis delivered his ninth catechesis on the Holy Spirit in which he recalled that “it is present and acts in the Church.”
In his address, the Pontiff explained that “in the first three centuries, the Church did not feel the need to give an explicit formulation of its faith in the Holy Spirit,” but that “it was heresy that prompted the Church to specify this faith”.
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In this process “it was the experience lived by the Church of the sanctifying and divinizing action of the Holy Spirit that led it to the certainty of its full divinity”, which was reflected in the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 381 with the following formula : “I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son receives the same worship and glory, and who spoke through the prophets.”
Pope Francis highlighted that “the strongest affirmation is that he is owed the same glory and adoration as the Father and the Son” and that this definition “was not a point of arrival, but rather a point of departure.”
In his speech, the Pontiff considered the controversy known as and his son about the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son “which was the reason (or the pretext) of many disputes and divisions between the Church of the East and that of the West.”
In this sense, he highlighted that the differences between the Catholic Church of the East and the West over this issue “have lost the harshness of the past and allow us to hope for full mutual acceptance, as one of the main ‘reconciled differences’.”
“Once we have overcome this obstacle,” he said, “we can value the most important prerogative” of the Holy Spirit, which is his status as “life-giver.” Thus, Pope Francis has considered that “the great and consoling news for us” is that “the life that the Holy Spirit gives us is eternal life.”
Consequently, he noted that “the faith that frees us from the horror of having to admit that everything ends here, that there is no redemption for the suffering and injustice that reign supreme on earth.”
Finally, Pope Francis invited to cultivate faith in the third person of the Holy Trinity “for those who, often through no fault of their own, are deprived of it and cannot give meaning to life.”
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.