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Illustration: “John the Baptist pointed Jesus to his two disciples”
(from Bible Illustrations by Jim Padgett, Sweet Media, 1984).
Address of his Pope Francis to Seminarians of the calabria diocese
Consistory Hall – Monday, 27 March 2023
Dear brother Bishops,
Dear formators and seminarians,
1st Chapter of John’s Gospel
35John was standing with two of his disciples; 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they remained with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
I thank the Calabrian Episcopal Conference for having desired this pilgrimage to Rome with the seminarians, and I am happy to welcome you. Thank you to Bishop Fortunato Morrone for the words he addressed to me. I greet the rectors, spiritual fathers, and formators, and the bishops, of course: an important task is entrusted to you, that demands the daily effort of accompaniment and discernment; thank you for all the work, at times unseen and at times arduous, that you do for the seminarians! Thank you.
Although your land sometimes makes the headlines by bringing old and new wounds to light, I like to remind you that you are children of the ancient Greek civilization and still hold cultural and spiritual treasures that unite East and West. Homer, in the Odyssey, recounts that Ulysses, towards the end of his voyage, landed on a strip of land from which he could admire the beauty of two seas.
This brings to mind your land, a gem set between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas.
And it also shines as a place of spirituality, with important shrines, saints and hermits, as well as the presence of the Greek-Byzantine community.
However, this religious heritage would risk remaining only a beautiful past to be admired, if there were not still, on your part, a renewed common commitment to promote evangelization and priestly formation.
I would like to begin with a word taken from the Gospel of John:
“They remained with him” (Jn 1:39). It refers to the first disciples who followed Jesus and reminds us that this is the foundation of everything: staying with the Lord and making Him the foundation of our ministry, to remain with the Lord and to make Him the foundation of our ministry; otherwise, we will seek ourselves above all, and although we may engage in seemingly good things, it will be to fill the emptiness we have within.
This is how an illustrious figure of your country, the servant of God Cassiodorus, prayed: “Everything that turns away from the love of Your Majesty falls to ruin. To love you is to save oneself … To have lost you is to die” (CASSIODORUS, De anima, XVIII). And this is your vocation, to walk with the Lord, with the love of the Lord.
And beware of falling into the trap of careerism, which is a scourge: it is one of the worst forms of worldliness that we clerics can have, careerism.
But I want to stay with the first question that Jesus asks the two disciples when he notices that they are following him: “What do you seek?” (v. 38).
Sometimes we look for an easy “recipe”; instead, Jesus begins with a question that invites us to look inward, to examine the reasons for our journey.
And today I would like to ask you the same question.
First of all, to the seminarians: what are you looking for?
What is the desire that led you to come out towards the Lord and to follow him on the path of the priesthood?
What are you looking for in the Seminary?
And what do you looking for in the priesthood?
We must ask ourselves this, because it sometimes happens that “behind the appearance of piety and even love for the Church”, in reality we seek “human glory and personal well-being” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 93).
It is very sad when you find priests who are officials, who have forgotten that they are pastors of the people, and have become state clerics, like those of the French courts, Monsieur Abbé, they were State clerics.
It is bad to lose the priestly sense; perhaps we look for the priesthood as a refuge to hide behind, or as a role for prestige, instead of wanting to be pastors with the same compassionate and merciful heart of Christ. I ask you with the same words as one of your yearbooks: do you want to be clerical priests who do not know how to knead the clay of suffering humanity, or do you want to be like Jesus, a sign of the Father’s tenderness?
Let us remember: the seminary is the time to be true to ourselves, to take off the masks, the disguises, the appearances. And in this process of discernment, let the Lord work on you, who will make you pastors according to his heart, because masks, disguises, appearances are the opposite, they belong to functionaries, not to pastors of the people, but to clerics of the State.
But I would like to address Jesus’ question to you, brother Bishops, to you who are in the first line: what do you seek? What do you want for the future of your country, what kind of Church do you dream of? And what kind of priest do you envision for your people? Since you are responsible for the formation of these young men, with what figure are you forming them?
And this discernment is more necessary today than ever, because at a time when a certain Christianity of the past is fading, a new ecclesial season has opened before us, which has demanded and continues to demand reflection also on the figure and ministry of the priest.
We can no longer think of him as a solitary pastor, confined to the parish enclosure, or closed groups of pastors; it is necessary to join forces and pool our ideas, our hearts, to face certain pastoral challenges that are now transversal to all the diocesan Churches of a region.
I am thinking, for example, of the evangelization of young people, of the paths of Christian initiation, of popular devotion – you have a rich popular devotion – which needs unified decisions inspired by the Gospel; but I am also thinking of the demands of charity and the promotion of a culture of legality. I emphasize the latter: the culture of legality. How are your courts? How is the administration of justice in your diocese?
All this requires the formation of priests who, although coming from their own contexts, know how to cultivate a common vision of the territory and who have a unified human, spiritual and theological formation.
Therefore, I would like to ask you, Bishops, to make a clear choice regarding priestly formation: to channel all human, spiritual and theological energies into a single seminary.
I say single, there could be two, but to add them up: to be oriented towards unity with all the variables there can be, but there.
This does not mean eliminating the seminaries, no: see how you can make this unity.
It is not a logistical or a merely numerical choice, but is aimed at maturing together an ecclesial vision and a horizon of priestly life, instead of dispersing energies by multiplying the places of formation and supporting small bodies with few seminarians.
A seminary of four, five, ten, is not a seminary, it does not form seminarians; a seminary of one hundred, so anonymous, does not form seminarians.
It is necessary to have small communities, even within a large seminary or a seminary of medium size, which then reflect the presbyteral college.
It is a discernment that is not easy to make, not easy. But it has to be done and decisions have to be made..
It will not be that Rome tells you what to do, no: because you have the charism.
We have the ideas, the orientations, the advice, but you have the charism, you have the Holy Spirit for this.
If Rome were to start making decisions it would be a blow to the Holy Spirit, who works in the particular Churches.
This process is beginning in many parts of the world, and it is natural that there should be some resistance – it is natural – and some difficulty in taking this step.
But let us not forget that the attachment to our history and to the significant places of our tradition must not prevent the newness of the Spirit from breaking new ground, especially when the Church’s journey requires it.
The Lord requires of us an attitude of vigilance, lest it happen to us as in the days of Noah, when the people, all intent on business as usual, did not realize that the flood was coming (cf. Lk 17:26-27).
We need open eyes and attentive hearts to grasp the signs of the times and look ahead!
I recommend to everyone, not only the bishops, to discern what the Holy Spirit wants for your churches.
And this is what the bishops have to do, the decision, but you all have to do it to tell the bishops what you feel and how, the ideas…
It is the whole body of the diocese that must help the bishop in this discernment.
Then he takes responsibility for the decision.
I say this especially to you Bishops, who dream of the good of your country and who. have at heart the formation of future priests: do not allow yourselves to be paralysed by nostalgia and do not remain prisoners of the provincialism which does so much harm! And you, Bishops Emeritus, do not fail to support this process in silence and prayer.
I say in silence and prayer because, when a Pastor ends his mandate, his spiritual profile and the way in which he has served the Church are revealed: we can see whether he has learnt to take leave “stripping himself … of the claim of being indispensable” (Apostolic Letter Learn to take your leave), or if he continues to look for spaces and to shape the path of the diocese.
The retired Bishop is called to serve the Church with gratitude and in a way appropriate to his status. And it is not easy to say goodbye, we are all called to make an effort to say goodbye. I wrote a letter on this subject that began with these words: “Learn to say goodbye”, without going back to snoop around, learn to say goodbye and maintain that absent presence, that distant presence in which you know that the emeritus is there but you pray for the Church, he is close but he does not enter the game. It is not easy. It is a grace of the Spirit to learn to say goodbye.
Dear friends, today, March 27, 1416, was the birthday of your patron saint, Francesco di Paola: it is good that you are here on this very day! On his deathbed, he said to his brothers that he had no treasure to leave them and exhorted them: “Love one another and leave everything to charity”. This is what Calabria expects from you: that everything be done in charity, in unity, in fraternity. And I want to say one thing: beware of the courts, because sometimes a lot of corruption is born there. Beware, beware. Beware of the courts. And may there be a change in the courts as well.
Thank you for your visit. You are a beautiful community and I encourage you to be a leaven of the Gospel and a living sign of hope for your country.
Walk together: formation in one seminary or in two or three, but together, not isolated in small groups.
This word “together” is the message: you who are on this journey will see how to walk together; but not together in isolation, not as different tribes, no, together, together in the way you choose. Be brave in this choice, be courageous.
One thing that strikes me when I’m here in Rome, especially when I have to go to the airport, is that I pass by these houses of formation that at one time – I’m talking about the ’60s, maybe the ’70s, but before, the ’60s – the time when vocations flourished, the great houses of formation, today they’re all empty! It is difficult to find a style of formation that is always alive, that does not depend on externals, but on the power of the Holy Spirit, and to make decisions with courage, with courage.
The Lord will always be with you. I repeat: together, in fraternity. And go forward with confidence and joy! May the Blessed Mother accompany and protect you. Our Lady is a mother, and mothers know what to do, they know better than we do. I bless you all with all my heart. And please do not forget to pray for me, for me, not against me! Thank you very much.
