Pope Francis: to French Catholic Action, “young people in Europe more sceptical and vulnerable, make them grow in commitment”

“The Gospel teaches us that action – which is in the very name of your movement – should always have God’s initiative”, Pope Francis said this morning during the audience with a delegation of the French Catholic Action movement, whose members were received in the Vatican Apostolic Palace on the occasion of their pilgrimage to Rome. “Our role is to support and encourage God’s action in hearts, adapting to a reality that is constantly changing”, the Pontiff remarked. Then he went on to note that “the people your movements reach – I am thinking in particular of young people – are not the same as they were a few years ago”. “Today, especially in Europe, those who attend Christian movements are more sceptical of institutions, they seek less demanding and more ephemeral relationships. They are more sensitive to affectivity, and therefore more vulnerable, more fragile than previous generations, less rooted in faith, but nevertheless in search of meaning and truth, and no less generous”. Francis thus went on to entrust a mission to the French Catholic Action: “To reach out to them as they are, to make them grow in the love of Christ and their neighbour, and to lead them to a greater concrete commitment, so that they may be protagonists in their own lives and in the life of the Church, so that the world may change”.
Valentina Bombelli