The Cross is not a banner

Washington, DC. The Pope spoke for over half an hour, in Italian, to the United States Bishops gathered in the St. Matthews Cathedral. “I do not speak to you with my voice alone, but in continuity with the words of my predecessors”, he said, explaining right from the start that he was not there to “offer a plan or to devise a strategy”: “I have not come to judge you or to lecture you.” However, the scope of the speech shows a conversion of the pastoral strategies of the Church in America. Francis tells the bishops that “certainly it is helpful for a bishop to have the farsightedness of a leader and the shrewdness of an administrator, but we fall into hopeless decline whenever we confuse the power of strength with the strength of […] powerlessness.”

Francis continued, reminding the bishops that when entering the public arena, it is indeed important to be “lucidly aware of the battle between light and darkness being fought in this world”, but also to keep in mind a decisive warning: “Woe to us, however, if we make of the cross a banner of worldly struggles.” The Pope is well aware of the scope of the challenges faced by the Catholic Church in America, and he acknowledges that “the field in which you sow is unyielding.” The problem is that “there is always the temptation to give in to fear, to lick one’s wounds, to think back on bygone times and to devise harsh responses to fierce opposition.”

[**Video_box_2**]The message is clear to most of the local Church: the risk is to defend one’s own small, and ever narrowing backyard, based on the assumption that anything beyond the fence is somehow contaminated by sin, and therefore must be avoided. This is also why Francis calls for dialogue several times over, stating that dialogue “is our method.” Enough with pointless rants, then, since “harsh and divisive language does not befit the tongue of a pastor, it has no place in his heart”. Finally, Pope Francis is certainly aware that he finds himself before a Church that is not perfectly aligned with his agenda, and so he adds “the Church cannot allow herself to be rent, broken or fought over.”

Traduzione a cura di Chiara Salce

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• Matteo Matzuzzi

• Friulsardo, è nato nel 1986. Laureato in politica internazionale e diplomazia a Padova con tesi su turchi e americani, è stato arbitro di calcio. Al Foglio dal 2011, si occupa di Chiesa, Papi, religioni e libri. Scrittore prediletto: Joseph Roth (ma va bene qualunque cosa relativa alla finis Austriae). È caporedattore dal 2020.