Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV visited the 47th annual “Meeting For Friendship Among Peoples,” a weeklong cultural festival hosted by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation in Rimini, Italy. We were able to watch a livestream of his afternoon speech. It was a beautiful moment. It also brought back memories from 35 years ago, when I attended the 1991 “Meeting” during this same week in August. I have some things written about that experience in an old journal I kept in those days, which I should try to find.
Here is a selection from the words of Pope Leo yesterday afternoon:
“I invite you, both within the Communion and Liberation Movement and within the particular Churches to which each of you belongs, to undertake this experience of walking together. It involves each person listening, allowing himself or herself to be transformed by the faith of others, and together, discerning new insights, taking further steps and responding courageously in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Synodality is not the name of a process, but the very nature of a people who, through friendship and encounter with others, come to recognize that they belong to God alone. In this way, authority is transformed into service, one that honors differences and fosters their harmony. In these troubled times, such a way of life constitutes a true sign of the times. Let us bear witness to the fact that every charism is given for the common good, that every gift increases when it is shared, and that every fear can be overcome. We must make this tangible, credible and desirable. You will know how to do this, dear friends, by following in the footsteps of your founder: by cultivating unity among yourselves, with those called to guide the Movement, with the Apostolic See that has recognized you, and with the Successor of Peter. May the Holy Spirit teach us the practice of communion. May he grant us a love for it, an appreciation of its beauty and the hope that sustains it.”
