Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, Bishop Emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and responsible for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), offers Exaudi readers his weekly article.

FACTS

The election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as the new Pope has been a most pleasant surprise and unexpected gift from the Holy Spirit to the Church and the world. Almost no one expected it. The media, the polls, the betting houses, and those who consider themselves Vatican experts didn’t take him seriously. This is how God acts, favoring us with a person whose experience, stories, and cultures equip him for the delicate service entrusted to him. American by birth, but Peruvian by heart, he also has this nationality, and with a universal dimension due to the positions he has held in his Augustinian Order and in the Vatican Curia. Blessed be God!

I don’t know him personally, but from what is becoming known, he was widely accepted during the Conclave and has generally been well received. The fears of those who feared a halt to what Pope Francis promoted are fading, although he has his own personality, his own nuances that characterize him. He wants to be a bridge that unites the different ways of living faith in the Church, embracing all the good of previous periods. However, there is no shortage of dissatisfied people, not only with Pope Francis, but with previous ones and even with the Second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict XVI also made several proposals to unite the dispersed, but many of them only accept their own criteria and lack an open mind and heart to accept that there is no single way to be the Church of Jesus, just as the twelve apostles are not identical. All different, but united in following Jesus and continuing his work.

Even in his first interventions, Pope Leo XIV gives signs of where he intends to go in the ministry entrusted to him. He specifies this in three dimensions: Christ, Church, World.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Regarding the centrality of Jesus Christ, he said: “We are disciples of Christ. Christ precedes us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as a bridge to be reached by God and by his love… An irrevocable commitment for anyone who exercises a ministry of authority in the Church: to disappear so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that He may be known and glorified, spending oneself to the end so that no one lacks the opportunity to know and love him.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). With these words, Peter, questioned by the Master along with the other disciples about their faith in him, summarizes the heritage that the Church, through apostolic succession, has guarded, deepened, and transmitted for two thousand years. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that is, the only Savior and the One who reveals to us the face of the Father. In him, God, in order to draw close to humanity, has revealed himself to us.

This is the world entrusted to us, and in which we are called to bear witness to the joyful faith in Jesus the Savior. Therefore, for us too, it is essential to repeat: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It is fundamental to do so first in our personal relationship with Him, in our commitment to a daily journey of conversion. But also, as a Church, in living together our belonging to the Lord and bringing the Good News to all. There is no better example than Jesus Christ himself, to whom we entrust our lives and on whom we depend. Jesus Christ, whom we follow, is the Good Shepherd, and it is he who gives us life: the way, the truth, and the life.”

Where he wants the Church to go, he expressed: “You have chosen me to be the successor of Peter and to walk alongside you, as a united Church, always seeking peace, justice, always trying to work as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear, to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries. We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to welcoming, like this square with open arms, everyone, all those who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, and love. We want to be a synodal Church, a Church that journeys, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close, especially to those who suffer.

God, in calling me to succeed the first of the Apostles, entrusts this treasure to me, so that, with his help, I may be its faithful steward for the entire Mystical Body of the Church; so that this may increasingly be the city set on a hill, an ark of salvation that navigates the tides of history, a beacon that lights up the nights of the world. And this not so much thanks to the magnificence of its structures and the grandeur of its buildings—like the monuments in which we find ourselves—but rather to the holiness of its members, of that people chosen to proclaim the wonderful deeds of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9).

Regarding the Church’s service to the world, he began by saying: “Peace be with you! This is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the flock of God. I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, all people, wherever they may be, all nations, the whole earth. Peace be with you! This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally. God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God’s hands. Therefore, without fear, hand in hand with God and with one another, let us move forward. Help us too, and help one another to build bridges, with dialogue, with encounter, uniting all of us to be one people always at peace.”

ACTIONS

Let us keep our minds and hearts open to discover where God is leading us, now through Pope Leo XIV. Let us not only be curious about what he says or does, but let us strive to follow his proposals and directions.