‘We don’t already have the answers to all the questions,’ Pope says in tribute to Nicholas of Cusa
October 29, 2025
In the seventh special jubilee audience of 2025, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), a Renaissance cardinal and scholar whose works included De docta ignorantia [On learned ignorance].
The theme of the series of jubilee audiences is hope. In “Sperare è non sapere—Nicola Cusano“ [To hope is not to know—Nicholas of Cusa, video], Pope Leo told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on October 25 that Nicholas lived during “an equally troubled era.”
“Nicholas of Cusa could not see the unity of the Church, shaken by opposing currents and divided between East and West,” Pope Leo told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on October 25. “He could not see peace in the world and between religions, at a time when Christianity felt threatened from without. While traveling, however, as a diplomat of the Pope, he prayed and thought. This is why his writings are full of light.”
“Many of his contemporaries lived in fear; others armed themselves preparing new crusades,” the Pope continued. “Nicholas, on the other hand, chose from a young age to spend time with those who had hope, those who deepened new disciplines, those who reread the classics and returned to the sources. He believed in humanity. He understood that there are opposites to be held together, that God is a mystery in which what is in tension finds unity. Nicholas knew he didn’t know and so he understood reality better and better.”
“The protagonist of some of his writings is a curious character: the idiot,” the Pope added. “He is a simple person, who has not studied and asks the learned elementary questions, which challenge their certainties.”
Pope Leo concluded:
This is also the case in the Church today. How many questions challenge our teaching! Questions from young people, questions from the poor, questions from women, questions from those who have been silenced or condemned, because they are different from the majority. We are in a blessed time: so many questions! The Church becomes an expert in humanity if she walks with humanity and has the echo of its questions in her heart.
Dear brothers and sisters, to hope is not to know. We don’t already have the answers to all the questions. But we have Jesus. Let us follow Jesus. And then we hope for what we do not yet see. We become a people in which opposites are composed in unity. We enter as explorers into the new world of the Risen One. Jesus precedes us. We learn, advancing step by step. It is a journey not only of the Church, but of all humanity. A path of hope.
Previous audiences in series:
- Pope Francis, To hope is to begin again—John the Baptist (11 January 2025)
- Pope Francis, To hope is to turn around. Mary Magdalene (1 February 2025)
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to connect. Irenaeus of Lyon (14 June 2025)
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to dig. Empress Helena (6 September 2025) The Vatican has not published an English translation of this audience, though it has published an English summary.
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to intuit. Ambrose of Milan (27 September 2025) The Vatican has not published an English translation of this audience, though it has published an English summary.
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to choose: Clare of Assisi (4 October 2025) The Vatican has not published an English translation of this audience, though it has published an English summary.
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