Just yesterday on February 23, the Pope made some off-the-cuff remarks that will really resonate with Institute followers, as reported by the Vatican Information Service.
One great problem
facing the Church today is the lack of knowledge of the faith, 'religious
illiteracy' . . . With such illiteracy
we cannot grow. ... Therefore we must reappropriate the contents of the faith,
not as a packet of dogmas and commandments, but as a unique reality revealed in
its all its profoundness and beauty. We must do everything possible for
catechetical renewal in order for the faith to be known, God to be known,
Christ to be known, the truth to be known, and for unity in the truth to grow. We cannot, Benedict XVI warned, live in ‘a childhood of faith.’ Many adults have never gone beyond the
first catechesis, meaning that ‘they
cannot - as adults, with competence and conviction - explain and elucidate the
philosophy of the faith, its great wisdom and rationality’ in order to illuminate the minds of others.
To do this they need an ‘adult faith.’ This does not mean, as has been understood
in recent decades, a faith detached from the Magisterium of the Church. When we
abandon the Magisterium, the result is dependency “on the opinions of the world, on the dictatorship of the
communications media.” By contrast, true emancipation consists in freeing
ourselves of these opinions, the freedom of the children of God. We must pray to the Lord intensely, that He
may help us emancipate ourselves in this sense, to be free in this sense, with
a truly adult faith ... capable of helping others achieve true perfection ...
in communion with Christ.
