Pope Francis tells Religious Orders to "Wake up the World"
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has told those in Religious Life to “wake up the world”,
according to an article appearing in La Civiltà Cattolica, the Rome-based Jesuit weekly.
Editor
Antonio Spadaro, SJ, has written an article recounting the private meeting last November
between Pope Francis and the Union of Superiors General of religious men at the end
of their 82nd General Assembly.
The 15-page article (available in English at
the La Civiltà Cattolica website) documents the views of Pope Francis on religious
life.
“Wake up the world! Be witnesses of a different way of doing things,
of acting, of living! It is possible to live differently in this world,” Pope Francis
said.
“We are speaking of an eschatological outlook, of the values of the
Kingdom incarnated here, on this earth. It is a question of leaving everything to
follow the Lord. No, I do not want to say “radical.” Evangelical radicalness is not
only for religious: it is demanded of all. But religious follow the Lord in a special
was, in a prophetic way. It is this witness that I expect of you. Religious should
be men and women who are able to wake the world up.”
The article also revealed
he has asked the Congregation for Religious to revise, Mutuae Relationes, the 1978
instruction issued by the Congregation for Religious and by the Congregation for Bishops
(concerning the relations between bishops and religious in the Church, which he called
“outdated.”