miniZibaldone

Apart from some visible walls, other invisible walls are being strengthened which tend to divide our continent. These walls are being built in people’s hearts. They are walls made of fear and aggression, a failure to understand people of different backgrounds or faith. They are walls of political and economic selfishness, without respect for the life and dignity of every person. From the video message Europe finds itself in a complex and highly mobile world, which is ever more globalised and therefore ever less Eurocentric.  If we are aware of these momentous issues, then we must have the courage to say: we need change! Europe is called to reflect and to ask itself whether its immense heritage, so permeated with Christianity, belongs in a museum or is still able to inspire culture and to offer its treasures to the whole of humankind.  You are meeting so as to look together at these challenges facing Europe and to highlight testimonies of life in society which enable netw...

We need to be reminded that food discarded is, in a certain sense stolen, from the table of poor and the starving. From the address We need to be reminded that food discarded is, in a certain sense stolen, from the table of poor and the starving.We live in an interconnected world marked by instant communications.  Geographical distances seem to be shrinking.  We can immediately know what is happening on the other side of the planet.  Communications technologies, by bringing us face to face with so many tragic situations, can help, and have helped, to mobilize responses of compassion and solidarity.  Paradoxically though, this apparent closeness created by the information highway seems daily to be breaking down.  An information overload is gradually leading to the “naturalization” of extreme poverty.  In other words, little by little we are growing immune to other people’s tragedies, seeing them as something “natural”.  We are bombarded by so man...

From an address It is true: work is a vocation, because it is born from a call that God has made to man from the beginning, to “till and keep” our common home (cf. Genesis 2:15). [...] How can we respond well to this vocation...? I would like to suggest three words to you, which can help you. The first is education. To educate means to “bring out.”... it is necessary to form a new “humanism of  work,” because we live in a time of exploitation of workers; in a time when work is not in fact at the service of the person’s dignity, but it is slave labor. We must  form, and educate to a new humanism of work, where man, not profit, is at the center; where the economy serves man and does not use man....To educate is a great  vocation: as Saint Joseph trained Jesus in the art of the carpenter, you are also called to help the young generations to discover the beauty of truly human work. [...] The second word that I would like to say to you is sharing. ....Work should unite pe...

From the message for World Day of Peace Indifference to our neighbour shows itself in different ways. Some people are well-informed; they listen to the radio, read the newspapers or watch television, but they do so mechanically and without engagement. They are vaguely aware of the tragedies afflicting humanity, but they have no sense of involvement or compassion. Theirs is the attitude of those who know, but keep their gaze, their thoughts and their actions focused on themselves. Sadly, it must be said that today’s information explosion does not of itself lead to an increased concern for other people’s problems, which demands openness and a sense of solidarity. Indeed, the information glut can numb people’s sensibilities and to some degree downplay the gravity of the problems. There are those who “simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poor countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an ‘educatio...