“They were no longer introverted and quarrelling with one another, but outgoing and radiant with joy. Saint Peter’s Square, with its wide-open and welcoming embrace, magnificently expresses the communion of the Church that each of you has experienced in your various associations and communities, many of which are the fruit of the Second Vatican Council.”
” The First Ecumenical Council is foundational for the common journey that Catholics and Orthodox have undertaken together since the Second Vatican Council.”
“The lay apostolate was strongly encouraged by the Second Vatican Council, particularly in its Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity. There we read that apostolic associations “are very important also because the apostolate often calls for concerted action, either in ecclesial communities or in various spheres. Associations established for carrying on a common apostolate support their members, train them for the apostolate, and carefully assign and direct their apostolic activities. As a result, a much richer harvest can be hoped for from them than if each member were to act on his or her own” (No. 18).”
“In recalling this, I would like to reaffirm, following my Predecessors and in accordance with the Church’s Magisterium, especially since the Second Vatican Council, that hierarchical gifts and charismatic gifts “are co-essential to the divine constitution of the Church founded by Jesus” (SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Message for the World Congress of Ecclesial Movements, 27 May 1998). Thanks to the charisms that gave rise to your movements and communities, many people have drawn closer to Christ and have found hope in life. They have discovered the motherhood of the Church and they want to be helped to grow in faith, in community life and works of charity, and, through evangelization, to bring to others the gift they have received.”
“We are God’s people. The Second Vatican Council made this awareness more alive, almost anticipating a time when the belongings would become weaker and the sense of God more rarefied. You are testimony to the fact that God did not tire of gathering his children, albeit different, and to constitute them in a dynamic unity. It is not an impetuous action, but a matter of that light breeze that gives hope to the prophet Elijah at the hour of discouragement (cf. 1 Kings 19:12). The joy of God is not noisy, but it really changes history and brings us closer to each other. The mystery of the Visitation is an icon of this, which the Church contemplates on the last day of May. From the encounter between the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth we see the Magnificat, the song of a people visited by grace.”
“The promotion of apostolic zeal among the People of God remains an essential aspect of the Church’s renewal as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, and is all the more urgent in our own day. Our world, wounded by war, violence and injustice, needs to hear the Gospel message of God’s love and to experience the reconciling power of Christ’s grace. In this sense, the Church herself, in all her members, is increasingly called to be “a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word … and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity” (Homily, Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate, 18 May 2025). We are to bring to all peoples, indeed to all creatures, the Gospel promise of true and lasting peace, which is possible because, in the words of Pope Francis, “the Lord has overcome the world and its constant conflict ‘by making peace through the blood of his cross’” (Evangelii Gaudium, 229).”
“As the Second Vatican Council states, “in every age, the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if she is to carry out her task. In language intelligible to every generation, she should be able to answer the ever-recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other” (Gaudium et Spes, 4).
I invite you, then, to participate actively and creatively in this discernment process, and thus contribute, with all of God’s people, to the development of the Church’s social doctrine in this age of significant social changes, listening to everyone and engaging in dialogue with all. In our day, there is a widespread thirst for justice, a desire for authentic fatherhood and motherhood, a profound longing for spirituality, especially among young people and the marginalized, who do not always find effective means of making their needs known. There is a growing demand for the Church’s social doctrine, to which we need to respond.”
“In this way the charism of the school, which you embrace with the fourth vow of teaching, besides being a service to society and a valuable work of charity, still appears today as one of the most beautiful and eloquent expressions of that priestly, prophetic and kingly munus we have all received in Baptism, as highlighted in the documents of the Vatican Council II. Thus, in your educational entities, religious brothers make prophetically visible, through their consecration, the baptismal ministry that spurs everyone (cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 44), each according to his or her status and duties, without differences, “as living members, to expend all their energy for the growth of the Church and its continuous sanctification” (ivi., 33).”
“In this regard, I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set it forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, from which I would like to highlight several fundamental points: the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11); the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community (cf. No. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33); attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123); loving care for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53); courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities (cf. No. 84; Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1-2).”
“In Him, God—so as to draw near and be accessible to mankind—revealed Himself to us in the trusting eyes of a child, in the vibrant mind of a young man, in the mature features of a grown man (cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, 22)…”
“But also as the Church, living together our belonging to the Lord and bringing to all the Good News (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 1).”