Of Kristina Miller

Vatican City, November 21, 2024 / 14:50

Addressing participants in the first plenary assembly of the Dicastery for Culture and Education on November 21, Pope Francis said desire, fearlessness and Christian hope are the remedies needed to overcome the “shadow of nihilism” that prevails in society.

Describing nihilism as “perhaps the most dangerous scourge in today’s culture” because of its attempt to “exterminate hope” in the world, the pope told members of the diocese that their institution should work to inspire humanity.

“Schools, universities, cultural centers should teach us to desire, to remain thirsty, to dream, because, as the second letter of Peter reminds us, we ‘wait for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells’.” said the Pope.

“Understand your mission in the field of education and culture as a call to widen horizons, to overflow with inner vitality, to make room for unseen possibilities, to bestow paths of gift that only widen when shared,” he continued.

Reminding his listeners of the expansive cultural and educational heritage of the Catholic Church, the Pope said there is no reason to be overwhelmed by fear.

“In a word, we are heirs to the educational and cultural passion of so many saints,” he said after citing the examples of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Edith Stein, and the Catholic scientist Blaise Pascal.

“Surrounded by such a multitude of witnesses, let us shed every burden of pessimism; pessimism is not Christian, he added.

The Pope also drew on the cultural works of musical and literary greats, including Mozart and the American poet Emily Dickinson, insisting that they can also be a source of inspiration for the foundation’s various cultural and educational projects.

“Let’s think about the future of humanity”

Identifying poverty, inequality and exclusion as “the pathologies of the present world”, the Holy Father insisted that it is a “moral imperative” for the Church to ensure that people – especially children and young people – have access to a comprehensive education.

“About 250 million children and young people are not in school,” he said. “Brothers and sisters, it is cultural genocide when we steal the future from children, when we do not offer them the opportunities to become what they could be.”

The Pope said that the French writer felt hurt after seeing the children, to share Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s experiences of the difficulties of refugee families to the members of the diocese.

“It pains me that in each of these men there is a little Mozart, murdered,” writes de Saint-Exupéry in his autobiographical work “Land of Men.”

Towards the end of the private audience, Pope Francis referred to the foundation’s plenary assembly theme, “Let us pass on to the other shore” (cf. Mark 4:35), and encouraged his audience to take courage and carry out their work with a sense of hope.

“I repeat: We must not let the feeling of fear win. Remember that complex cultural passages often prove to be the most fruitful and creative for the development of human thought,” he said.

“Contemplating the living Christ enables us to have the courage to enter the future,” the Pope added.

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Kristina Millare is a freelance journalist with a professional communications background in the humanitarian aid and development sector, news journalism, entertainment marketing, politics and government, business and entrepreneurship.