Leo XIV highlights community life, obedience, ‘signs of the times’ in address to religious institutes
September 19, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Pope Leo XIV received participants in the general chapters of four religious institutes—the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the Society of Mary, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and the Ursuline Sisters Daughters of Mary Immaculate—on September 18.
In his address, Pope Leo paid tribute to the institutes’ founders and reflected on community life, obedience, and reading the “signs of the times,” described as an “open and perceptive gaze towards the real demands of our brothers and sisters,” without which “none of your Congregations would have been founded.”
“Talking about obedience is not very fashionable today because it is considered a renunciation of freedom,” said the Pope. “But that is not the case. Obedience, in its deepest meaning of active and generous listening to others, is a great act of love by which we accept dying to ourselves so that our brothers and sisters may grow and live.”
One of the institutes, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, was governed by Vatican-appointed apostolic commissioners from 2013 to 2022.
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