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Address by Pope Francis to the participants in the 3rd Meeting of the Field Hospital Churches
Consistory Hall – Monday, 4 November 2024
Originating in Spain, the Field Hospital Church’s motivation stems from the Holy Father’s repeated call for the Church to be a ‘field hospital’ helping the suffering and marginalized with love, mercy and charity
Thank you for coming. Welcome to this meeting. I would like to say a few words to help you reflect on the work of the Church, the work that you do for the poorest and most marginalized.
I would like to share with you three aspects that I mentioned recently:
First, to proclaim Christ, second, to redress inequalities and third, to sow hope.
1. Proclaim Christ, redress inequalities and sow hope.
You, are working, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, to make the churches like a field hospital – we must not forget that – carrying forward these three principles.
Sometimes I feel very sad when I ask a priest: ‘How is the parish? How is it going? ‘
Fine, we have so many Masses’.
‘But how many people come on Sundays? ‘We estimate 1,000, 1,200’. ‘Ah, that’s nice.’ ‘
And your neighborhood, how many people are there?’
And he hesitates before saying: 200,000, 250,000.
In other words, we have to be aware that few people come to the Church.
We have to go and seek them out.
We must give witness that we welcome people, more with gestures than with words.
A first principle: welcome.
And also to go and visit, which is another form of welcome.
And to continue to see in each one of them – vulnerable people – and in this vulnerability, the face of Christ. In this way, they proclaim Christ as the one who always walks with them, even if anonymously, because it is he who first made himself poor.
I like the anecdotes of poor people, from Spain, from southern Italy, for example, who proclaim Christ as best they can in the midst of Muslim immigration.
And they proclaim him with gestures, with welcoming, with accompanying, with promoting the migrant. Welcoming Christ.
One way to welcome Christ is in the poor and in the migrants.
I stress the migrants because, whether in Italy or in Spain, it is a reality – I don’t mean a problem, but a reality.
And, on the other hand, we should be grateful that migrants come, because the age level of the nstives is a bit scandalous.
I think the average age in Italy is 46 years old. They don’t have children.
Oh yes, they all have a dog or a cat, but they don’t have children.
And the migrants come, and well, in a way, they are the children we don’t want to have.
Think about that.
Secondly, to redress inequalities.
In your apostolate, denounce to society the inequalities, that are sometimes so great, between the rich and the poor, between nationals and foreigners, this is not what God wants of humanity, and these things must be resolved to be resolved with justice.
The social fabric must be repaired by correcting inequalities; no one can remain indifferent to the suffering of others (cf. Gen 4:9 – the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He replied, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”).
Think of the two points in life: the inequalities that exist between the young and with the old.
When old people are discarded, sent to winter quarters as if they have nothing to contribute to society at the moment.
And think of the children, when they are used for certain jobs and then abandoned.
There are children who are used to go to rubbish dumps and pick up things that can be sold later.
In a country where there is a very delicate fruit called the blueberry, which requires a lot of delicacy to pick, they use hungry children to pick the blueberry and exploit them.
A question we must ask ourselves: what about children, what about the elderly?
The elderly are a source of wisdom, and we are witnessing the scandal of keeping them in the wardrobe of a nursing home. Children and the elderly.
Finally, it is necessary to sow hope.
In every person you welcome – whether because they are homeless, refugees, part of a vulnerable family, victims of war, or for any other reason excluded from society – sow hope.
And for all this I want to publicly thank you for your work.
It is true that you are courageous and fearless, not everyone has that courage, but what you do inspires others, it inspires them so much.
Let us think of the refugees – let us go and look for them, let us go and see them – of the Ukrainian soldiers wounded in the war.
Let us give hope in these people. War is a very hard reality. It is a reality that kills and destroys.
We have to take care of these people. One thing I see when groups of Ukrainian children who have been deported here come here, is that they don’t smile. The war has taken their smiles.
That’s why all the work you do with refugees is so important.
And it is also one of the three conditions that the Old Testament keep repeating: the widow, the orphan and the foreigner – the migrant, the refugee. It is a question we must always ask ourselves.
Please sow hope. In every person you welcome, in every person who is vulnerable, sow hope.
Even if these brothers and sisters are often overwhelmed by a panorama that could resemble a ‘dead end’ – how many ‘dead ends’ we find today, how many – remind them that Christian hope is greater than any situation.
It is not easy to say to a war wounded man, it is not easy, but it has to be said, because hope has its foundation in the Lord, not in man.
Optimism is one thing, which is good, but hope is another thing entirely.
I hope that in your work in the Church, you will never fail to discover that it is always a privilege to care for the most vulnerable, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
(cf. Mt 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven).
Caring for the most vulnerable is caring for the Lord himself.
‘What you did for one of these you did for me’.
Every time we have the opportunity to approach them, to offer them our help, it is the opportunity we have to touch the flesh of Christ, because proclaiming the Gospel is not an abstract thing, an ideology, which is reduced to indoctrination.
No, it is not like that, but it is there that the proclamation of the Gospel becomes concrete, in the Christian commitment to those who are most in need; that is where true evangelization lies.
Sisters and Brothers, I thank you for the witness of Christian life, for spreading hope, for spreading mercy, for spreading love to all these people, so that, convinced of this truth, they too may collaborate in the service of the poorest.
Father, do we have to baptize them before they come to work with the poorest of the poor, or do we have to send them to confession so that they can be in God’s grace? No.
Anyone, atheist, non-atheist, anyone, of this or any other religion. Serve and serve the poorest. Among the poorest is Jesus.
They serve Jesus even if they don’t believe in Him.
All are in the pocket of service all are in the pocket of commitment to others.
May Jesus bless you in your work and please pray for me, but pray for me, not against me.
