Leaders of the Curia gathered in the Apostolic Palace to exchange Christmas greetings with the pope.
Dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, spoke on everyone's behalf.
The cardinal, 86, summarized the main steps Pope Francis took this past year, so heavily impacted by the pandemic.
CARD. GIOVANNI BATTISTA RE
Dean of the College of Cardinals
“This year that's coming to an end will go down in history because of the drama a small virus caused around the whole world. It will go down in history also because of the image of the pope, who, alone in a suggestive and majestic but empty St. Peter's Square, prayed for and spoke to the world.”
Unlike in previous years, the cardinal and other participants had to greet the pope from a distance.
We'll greet each other like they do in Japan.
Pope Francis wished them well with a positive speech full of hope. He noted that the word crisis isn't completely negative. The real evil, he underlined, is conflict and reducing the reality of the Church into conflict.
POPE FRANCIS
“The first evil that conflict leads us to, and which we must try to avoid, is gossip. Let's pay attention to this. It's not an obsession of mine to speak against gossip. It's the denunciation of a form of evil that enters into the Curia. Here in the Apostolic Palace, we have many doors and windows. It enters, and we grow accustomed to it.”
The pope highlighted the idea that crisis is a time of change that allows people to free themselves from excess and things that tie them down.
POPE FRANCIS
“However, if we can recover the courage and humility to admit out loud that a time of crisis is a time of the Spirit, then even when we are faced with the experience of darkness, weakness, vulnerability, contradiction and loss, we will no longer feel overwhelmed. Instead, we will keep maintain a steady trust that things are about to take a new shape.”
To conclude, the pope reminded those present that the true reform of the Church is personal change, which must come before a structural reform.
Javier Romero
Translation: CT
