True reform comes from within the Church, Pope tells audience
October 07, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI devoted his public audience of October 7 to St. John Leonardi (1541- 1609), noting that the Church will mark the 500th anniversary of the Italian saint's death on Friday, October 9. Trained as a pharmacist, St. John Leonardi chose instead to practice "God's medicine" by becoming a priest. He retained his interest in science, however, and the Pope remarked that his life now stands as a useful counterpoint to modern society with its "unwarranted fracture between faith and reason."
Pope Benedict went on to say that St. John Leonardi is a model for reformers who love the Church, but recognize that the Church is "holy but fragile, rooted in history and in its sometimes murky future where wheat and weeds grow together." The saint was aware of the corruption that plagued the Church in his time, but was not scandalized by it, the Pope said. "He understood that any reform must be accomplished within the Church and never against the Church."
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