Catholics cannot be ‘unengaged spectators’ amid current events, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The faithful are called to leave behind “all passivity and indifference” toward current events and the lives of others, especially amid the “rapid and profound changes we are experiencing today,” Pope Leo XIV said at his weekly general audience.

“We cannot remain as unengaged spectators; rather, we must listen with our hearts, allow ourselves to be challenged, and become involved,” the pope said Sept. 2 in St. Peter’s Square.

“With Christ and sustained by the power of His Spirit, believers are called to take on the burdens of their brothers and sisters, especially those who are crushed by injustice, discrimination and violence,” he said.

Pope Leo began a new series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” which examines the relationship between the Church and the modern world.

Recalling St. John XXIII’s warning against the “prophets of doom,” who regarded their own times as worse than the past, Pope Leo said Christians are instead called to share in the life of humanity as Christ did.

Such closeness to humanity, the pope said, also opens the way to a deeper understanding of events and of Revelation itself.

“This is not, in fact, merely a moral imperative,” he said.

Addressing English-speaking pilgrims, Pope Leo said it is the Church’s pastoral responsibility to engage with the contemporary world, share in its joys and sorrows and advocate for the poor and marginalized.

The Church, he said, also must remain “attentive to the signs of the times,” confronting “pressing issues such as the technological progress that benefits only some and the persistence of widespread poverty.”

His remarks came months after the publication of his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” which detailed his account of the global implications of artificial intelligence and warned against allowing technological development to proceed without prioritizing human dignity.

“In our own day, marked by profound change and much injustice, each of us, then, is called to play our part in welcoming and listening to the deepest questions and longings of the human heart, making present to all the merciful love of Christ our Savior,” the pope told English speakers.

During a period of profound change that is producing “worrying imbalances,” Pope Leo said the Church is called to serve the human person by listening to “the deepest questions of their heart and the longings that dwell within them.”

The Church must point people toward Christ, he said, as “the key, the focal point and the goal of all human history.”

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