St. Paul and the martyred dioceses of North Africa are our models, Pope tells biblical scholars

June 22, 2015

Pope Francis received members of the Catholic Biblical Federation in audience on June 19 and spoke extemporaneously in response to remarks by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the federation’s new president.

The North African dioceses of St. Augustine’s time are not “dead churches,” said Pope Francis, for there are “two ways to die”: to die being closed in on oneself or “to die giving life in testimony.” A Church that “has the courage” to go forward with the Word of God, and is not ashamed of it, is “on the road to martyrdom.”

St. Paul, the Pope continued, “boasted” of his persecutions, his weaknesses, and the cross of Christ, and thus St. Paul is the model of a “martyrial” Church that goes forward with boldness and tenderness, even having “accidents” as it does so, as opposed to a “sick” Church closed in on itself.

“The Word of God is not something that makes our lives easier,” the Pope added, for it always brings trouble and “many times” brings embarrassment. Bishops, priests, and deacons, he concluded, should preach the Word of God in homilies, rather than offer “a beautiful dissertation, a beautiful school of theology.”

The Pope also consigned to the Catholic Biblical Federation the written text he had planned to deliver. In it, he emphasized the centrality of the Word of God in the life of the Church and noted the importance of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation and the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God.

 

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Further information:

• Udienza ai partecipanti alla X Assemblea plenaria della Federazione Biblica Cattolica (FEBIC) (Holy See Press Office)
• Pope Francis receives Catholic Biblical Federation (Vatican Radio)