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Pope Francis’ address to the plenary session
of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith
Clementine Hall – Friday, 26 January 2024
“When a couple approaches spontaneously to ask for blessings,
one does not bless the union, but simply the people who have required it together”
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood,
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
I welcome you at the end of your Plenary Assembly. I greet the prefect and the other superiors, the officials and the members of the Dicastery: to all of you my gratitude for your valuable work.
As the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium stipulates, “The task of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is to help the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world by promoting and safeguarding the integrity of Catholic teaching on faith and morals. It does this by drawing upon the deposit of faith and seeking an ever deeper understanding of it in the face of new questions” (Art. 69).
Precisely in order to achieve these ends, already with the Motu proprio Fidem servare (11 February 2022), two distinct Sections were created within the Dicastery The Doctrinal Section and The Disciplinary Section..
In the letter I sent to the prefect on 1 July 2023, on the occasion of his appointment, I referred to this matter to better define his appointment and the current mission of the Dicastery.
On the one hand, I stressed the importance of the presence of competent professionals within the Disciplinary Section, to ensure care and rigor in the application of current canon law, particularly in the handling of cases of child abuse by clerics, and to promote canonical training initiatives for Ordinaries and legal practitioners.
On the other hand, I insisted on the urgency of giving more space and attention to the sphere proper to the Doctrinal Section, where there is no shortage of trained theologians and qualified personnel, including in the work in the Marriage Office and the Archive, whose 25th anniversary of opening to the public by Saint John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation, in the imminence of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, I recalled.
The Dicastery thus sees itself engaged in the area of the intelligence of faith, in the face of the changing epoch that characterizes our time. In this direction, I would like to share some thoughts, which I gather group around three words: Sacraments, dignity and faith.
Sacraments.
In these days you have reflected on the topic of the validity of the Sacraments.
The life of the Church is nourished and grows through them.
For this reason, special care is required of ministers in administered them and in disclosing to the faithful the treasures of grace they communicate.
Through the Sacraments, believers become capable of prophecy and witness.
And our time is in particular urgent need of prophets of new life, and witnesses of charity:
Let us therefore love and make loved the beauty and the savingpower of the Sacraments!
Dignity.
The second word: dignity.
As Christians, we must not tire of insisting “on the primacy of the human person and the defence of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance” (Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, 39).
I know that you are working on a document on this matter.
I hope it may help us, as a Church, to be always close “to all those who, without fanfare, in concrete daily life, fight and personally pay the price for defending the rights of those who do not count” , and to ensure that, “in the face of various current ways of eliminating or ignoring others, we are able to react with a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that will not be limited to words”.
Faith.
The third word is faith.
In this regard, I would like to remember two events: the tenth anniversary, a short while ago, of the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and the upcoming Jubilee, in which we will renew our faith in Jesus Christ, the true God and true man, the hope of history and the world.
We cannot, however, hide the fact that, in vast areas of the planet, faith, as Benedict XVI said, no longer constitutes a self-evident presupposition for life in society … In deep it is often openly denied, mocked, marginalized and ridiculed..
It is time, therefore, to reflect anew and with greater passion on a number of themes:
(1) the proclamation and communication of the faith in today’s world, especially to the younger generations;
(2) the missionary conversion of ecclesial structures and pastoral agents; the new urban cultures, with their burden of challenges but also of unprecedented questions of meaning;
(3) and finally and above all, the centrality of the kerygma in the life and mission of the Church.
Here help from the Dicastery is expected: “guarding the faith” today translates into a commitment to reflection and discernment, so that the entire community strives for a real pastoral and kerygmatic missionary conversion, which will also be able to help the ongoing synodal journey.
What for us is essential, most beautiful, most attractive and at the same time most necessary is faith in Christ Jesus.
All together, God willing, we will solemnly renew it during the coming Jubilee, and each of us is called to proclaim it to every man and woman on earth.
This is the fundamental task of the Church, to which I gave voice in Evangelii Gaudium.
In this context of evangelization, I also mention the recent Declaration Fiducia supplicans.
The intention of “pastoral and spontaneous blessings” is to show tangibly the closeness of the Lord and the Church to all those who, finding themselves in different situations, ask for help to carry on – sometimes to begin – a journey of faith.
I would like to briefly emphasise two things:
the first is that these blessings, outside of any liturgical context and form, do not demand moral perfection to be received;
the second, that when a couple approaches spontaneously to ask for them, one does not bless the union, but simply the people who have required it together. Not the union, but the people, naturally taking into account the context, the sensibilities, and the places where one lives and the most appropriate ways to do it.
Dear friends, I reiterate my gratitude for your service, and I encourage you to continue with the Lord’s help. And please, do not forget to pray for me.
