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Pope Francis’ Address to the plenary assembly of the dicastery for culture and education
Clementine Hall – Thursday, 21 November 2024
“Sometimes I feel the need to cry out to the people of our time: ‘Don’t forget about hope!’”
Dear Cardinal Prefect,
Dear Superiors of the Dicastery,
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,
Dear brothers and sisters!
Our meeting takes place on the occasion of the first Plenary Assembly of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. I take this opportunity to reiterate the importance of the risk involved in bringing together the spheres of culture and education.
When, in the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, I decided to merge the offices of the Holy See dealing with education and with culture, it was not so much for the sake of achieving greater economic efficiency as much as to exploit the potential for dialogue, interaction and innovation in such a way as to increase the effectiveness of both.
Our world does not need sleepwalking repeaters of what is already there.
It needs new choreographers, new interpreters of our rich human resources human beings carry within, new social poets.
Indeed, there is no need for models of education that are mere “results factories,” without a cultural project that enables the formation of people capable of helping the world turn over a new leaf, eradicating inequality, endemic poverty and exclusion
The pathologies of today’s world cannot be accepted as inevitable with resignation, let alone complacency.
Instead, schools, universities and cultural centers should be places that teach us to desire, to remain thirsty, to have dreams, because, (as the Second Letter of Peter 3.13 reminds us), “we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”.
What “we await” should be the primary guide to our discernment in developing our cultural and educational programs.
The key question for our institutions is this:
What are we really “awaiting”?
Perhaps, if we are honest, our answer may prove disappointing: success in the eyes of the world, the prestige of a higher ranking or simply self-preservation.
If those are our goals, they are surely not enough!
Brothers and sisters, the experience that God allows us to realize is a different one. I recall what Emily Dickinson writes in one of her poems:
As if I asked a common Alms,
And in my wondering hand
A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
And I, bewildered, stand –
As if I asked the Orient
Had it for me a Morn –
And it should lift its purple Dikes,
And shatter Me with Dawn!
“Shatter me with Dawn”: an eloquent image to describe what I am saying.
In this sense, I would urge you to see your mission in the areas of education and culture as calling upon others to broaden their horizons, to overflow with inner vitality, to make space for new possibilities and, in sharing the gifts they have received, to make them abound all the more.
Our task as educators and artists is to tell others: “Be fruitful! Take risks!”
We have no reason for fear.
First, because Christ is our guide and travelling companion.
Secondly, because we are custodians of a cultural and educational heritage greater than ourselves.
We are heirs to the profound thought of Augustine.
We are heirs to the poetry of Ephraim the Syrian.
We are heirs to the medieval cathedral schools and the founders of the first universities.
We are heirs to Thomas Aquinas and Edith Stein, and to those who commissioned the works of Fra Angelico and Mozart, and more recently of Mark Rothko and Olivier Messiaen.
We are heirs to the countless artists who have been inspired by the mysteries of Christ.
We are heirs of great scientists and thinkers like Blaise Pascal.
In short, we are heirs to the passion for education and culture of countless saints and holy men and women.
Surrounded by this multitude of witnesses, let us cast off the burden of pessimism – which is not the mark of a Christian – and work together to free humanity from the encircling darkness of nihilism, which is perhaps the most dangerous scourge of contemporary culture, because it threatens to “extinguish” hope. Let us not forget that hope does not disappoint.
It is a source of strength. Think of its image, the anchor. Hope does not disappoint.
If I may reveal a secret, sometimes I feel the need to cry out to the people of our time:
“Don’t forget about hope!”
Not as in the story of Turandot: thinking that hope always disappoints.
I count on you to spread this plea during the Jubilee Year that is about to begin.
There is so much to do! It is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Today the world has the largest number of students in history.
The figures are encouraging, with some 110 million children completing primary school.
But worrying inequalities remain.
In fact, some 250 million children and adolescents do not attend school.
We have a moral obligation to change this situation.
Because cultural genocide is not just about the destruction of a people’s heritage.
Cultural genocide also occurs when children are robbed of their future by our failure to create the conditions for them to become all that they can be.
Like when we see children in so many places rummaging through rubbish for things to sell in order to have something to eat. Let us think of the future of humanity when we look at these children.
In his book Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry walks through the third class carriages of a train full of refugee families. He stops to look at them. And he wrote that he was tormented by an open wound: “It is the sight, a little bit in all these people, of Mozart murdered”.
We have a huge, huge responsibility! To educate is to dare to encourage the growth of others, as if to say, with Augustine: Volo ut sis, “I want you to be”. That is education.
A particularly important element in this period of epochal change is that of scientific development and technological innovation.
We can hardly ignore the rapid advances made in such areas such as the digital transition and artificial intelligence, with all their implications and the crucial questions they raise.
I would ask the research centers of our universities to study the current “technological revolution” to shed light on its benefits and dangers.
Having said this, I repeat: instead of giving in to fear, let us remember that complex cultural transitions often prove to be highly fruitful and creative moments for the advancement of knowledge.
Our contemplation of the risen Christ gives us the courage to face the future with confidence, trusting in his challenging invitation: “Let us go across to the farther shore” (Mk 4:35).
Please, do not be retired teachers!
Teachers always go on, always.
I thank you for your commitment and I ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you in all that you do.
May Mary, the Seat of Wisdom, accompany you, always
I bless you and I ask you, please, to continue to pray for me. Thank you very much!
