DO NOT BE SILENT !

 

“The prophetic legacy

 of Pope Francis:

 because 

peace is not a utopia”

- by Franco Vaccari

Do not be silent. Do not let it remain only a theme for Sunday homilies.

It is too late to be prudent and too early to be resigned...

The world's interest in who will be Pope Francis' successor is, ultimately, a good sign.

The silent prayers of the cloistered communities mix with the friendly bets in the bar, the curious murmuring of the people of God, the good expectations of the people of Rome and beyond.

But alongside this authentic spirit, there is also the chatter, the pressure, the coded messages intended for "those who must understand", the lobbies and worldly interests.

And so, the heart of the pontificate risks - but will not happen - being dismissed lightly, trivialized or reduced to slogans. Especially with regard to the commitment to peace.

We hear people say: “Francis had a weakness for peace” or: “What did you want him to say?

He simply acted like a Pope”. Statements that seem harmless, but which in reality defuse the revolutionary scope of a ministry.

No, the Pope did not have “a thing” for peace.

The Pope – every Pope, and therefore also Francis – embodies a word that comes from the Gospel, he does so as a man and as the leader of a human-divine community.

This is not a personal opinion or a pastoral idea that is a little too insistent: peace is the very heart of the Gospel.

It is a living memory of the history of the Church.

Pope Francis simply picked up a torch that others before him kept alight.

Saint John XXIII wrote it in Pacem in terris, addressing “all men of good will”. Saint Paul VI shouted at the UN: “Never again war!”.

Saint John Paul II walked through the rubble with the cross in his hand, and Benedict XVI recalled that there is no peace without truth and justice, starting with the Church.

Francis removed the exclamation point and put his feet in the mud: Ukraine, the Holy Land, Sudan, the Mediterranean.

And now he looks at us – yes, he looks at us – and asks us only one thing: do not shelve peace.

Do not be silent. Do not let it remain only a theme for Sunday homilies.

It is too late to be prudent and too early to be resigned.

On the one hand, there are those who dismiss this insistence as an ecclesial “obsession,” because “there is so much else to do.”

On the other, those who nullify it by saying, precisely: “Francis did nothing other than be Pope, he has no power, he is not a head of state, easy!”.

 

Being Pope: in certain misleading meanings it could seem like a job, so much so that even people with new CVs considered suitable are applying.

Two narratives that normalize prophecy and degrade it to utopia, while championing a “healthy realism” whose failure is now evident.

We live in a world that deals with peace only in function of war: when it is about to break out (to arm itself), when it has broken out (as a sterile invocation), when it is over (to forget it).

What would you do? And then he cynically asks us: “And you, what would you do?”.

The answer is disarming: we would do – or rather, we try to do – what that “obsession” of Pope Francis has repeated every day, and before him, those “obsessions” of his predecessors.

Relegating the words and gestures of the Popes on peace to a spiritual level, as a gentle truism, empties the disruptive force of the Gospel, reducing it to a civil religion. But the Gospel is something else: it is the soul of the human, in every aspect – civil, economic, political – and asks each person to account for being incarnated with coherence in their actions.

And this Gospel, precisely because it is alive, subverts.

Both inside and outside the Church. Jesus himself broke the patterns of “inside” and “outside”, eating with sinners, speaking with the Samaritans, healing on the Sabbath, recognizing “unauthorized” miracles.

But, despite everything, he did not give up on the apostles: he wanted them with him, as long as their power was service, not domination.

Messianic peace begins there: from the way in which relationships are lived within the Church, and then spread throughout the world.

And he questions everyone – from the youngest to the top of the institutions – with the simplest and most radical question: who are you on?

With Herod, with Pilate, with Barabbas? Or with Christ?

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