Catholics must build a more humble Church, seeking truth together, Pope says

- Carol Glatz (Vatican City, CNS).

The supreme rule in the Catholic Church is love, which impels all the faithful to serve, not to judge, exclude or dominate others, Pope Leo XIV affirmed. «No one must impose his own ideas; we must all listen to one another. No one is excluded; we are all called to participate,» he said in his homily during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Oct. 26. «No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and search for it together,» he said.

A Church that listens and walks together

The Mass marked the closing of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participation Bodies, held October 24-26. Nearly 2,000 members of synodal teams and bodies, such as presbyteral councils, pastoral councils and finance councils at diocesan, eparchial, national and regional levels, registered for the Jubilee events.

The Jubilee included workshops and other meetings to further strengthen the implementation phase of the final document of the Synod of Bishops 2021-2024 on synodality. «We must dream and build a more humble Church,» Pope Leo stated in his homily.

It must be a Church that does not rise up «triumphant and inflated with pride, but bends down to wash the feet of humanity,» he said. It must be a Church that does not judge, he said, «but becomes a place of welcome for all; a Church that does not close in on itself, but remains attentive to God so that it can listen equally to all.».

By «clothing ourselves with the sentiments of Christ, we expand the ecclesial space to be collegial and welcoming,» he said. This will enable us to live with confidence and a renewed spirit in the midst of the tensions that permeate the life of the Church.

«We must let the Spirit transform» the current tensions in the Church «between unity and diversity, tradition and newness, authority and participation,» he said. «It is not a matter of resolving them by reducing one to the other, but of letting them be purified by the Spirit, so that they can be harmonized and oriented toward a common discernment,» he said.

Humility as the path of love

“Being a synodal Church means recognizing that truth is not possessed, but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with love,” he said. Synodal teams and participatory bodies, he said, must «express what happens within the Church, where relationships do not respond to the logic of power but to that of love.».

Instead of following a «worldly» logic, the Christian community focuses on «the spiritual life, which reveals to us that we are all children of God, brothers and sisters, called to serve one another,» he said.

«The supreme rule in the Church is love. No one is called to dominate; all are called to serve,» he said.

He said that Jesus showed how he belongs “to the humble” and condemns the moralists in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, which was the Gospel reading of the day (Lk 18:9-14).

The Pharisee and the publican enter the temple to pray, the Pope said, but they are divided above all by the attitude of the Pharisee, who is «obsessed with his own ego and, in this way, ends up centered on himself without having a relationship with either God or others.» «This can also happen in the Christian community,» he said. «It happens when the ego prevails over the collective, causing an individualism that prevents authentic and fraternal relationships.».

“It also happens when the claim to be better than others... creates division and turns the community into a place of judgment and exclusion; and when one uses one's role to exercise power, rather than to serve,” the Pope said. The publican, on the other hand, recognized his sin, asked God for mercy and «returned home justified,» that is, forgiven and renewed by the encounter with God, according to the reading.

Called to conversion and forgiveness

All in the Church must show the same humility, he said, recognizing that «we all need God and one another, which leads us to practice reciprocal love, listen to one another and enjoy walking together.» This is the nature and praxis of synodal teams and participatory bodies, he said, calling them «an image of this Church that lives in communion.».

“Let us commit ourselves to building a Church that is totally synodal, ministerial and attracted to Christ and, therefore, committed to serving the world,” he said.

Pope Leo quoted the words of the late Italian Bishop Antonio Bello, who prayed for Mary's intercession to help the Church «overcome internal divisions. Intervene when the demon of discord infiltrates its bosom. Extinguish the fire of factionalism. Reconcile mutual disputes. Calm their rivalries. To stop them when they decide to go their own way, neglecting the convergence in common projects».

The Church catholic , It is the visible sign of the union between God and humanity,« he said, »where God wants to gather us all into a single family of brothers and sisters and make us his people: a people made up of beloved children, all united in the one embrace of his love.

Later, before praying the Angelus At noon with those gathered in St. Peter's Square, Pope Leo continued his reflection on the Gospel of the day, saying: «It is not by boasting of our merits that we save ourselves, nor by hiding our errors, but by presenting ourselves honestly, just as we are, before God, before ourselves and before others, asking forgiveness and entrusting ourselves to the grace of the Lord».

Just as a sick person does not try to hide - out of shame or pride - his wounds from the doctor, neither should a Christian try to hide his pain if he wants to be healed, he said.

«Let us not be afraid to recognize our mistakes, to expose them, to take responsibility and entrust them to God's mercy,» he said. «In this way, his kingdom - which does not belong to the proud, but to the humble, and is built through prayer and action, practicing honesty, forgiveness and gratitude - will be able to grow in us and around us.».