Pope Leo XIV: We must ‘train others in critical thinking’ and ‘encounter and listen to the poor’

In the current digital age, Pope Leo XIV said, “we must rediscover, emphasize and cultivate our duty to train others in critical thinking, countering temptations to the contrary, which can also be found in ecclesial circles.” He also stated we must commit ourselves “to encounter and listen to the poor, who are a treasure for the church and for humanity.”

Observing that “there is so little dialogue around us; shouting often replaces it, not infrequently in the form of fake news and irrational arguments proposed by a few loud voices,” Pope Leo said, “deeper reflection and study are essential.” He added that the poor are “a treasure for the church and for humanity. Their viewpoints, though often disregarded, are vital if we are to see the world through God’s eyes.”

He made these remarks on May 17 in his address to the members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, which was founded by John Paul II in 1993 to study and make known the church’s social doctrine. The foundation is holding its annual international conference in Rome and is focusing on the theme “Overcoming Polarizations and Rebuilding Global Governance: The Ethical Foundations.”

A concept paper for the conference notes that the international order, built since the end of World War II, risks collapsing, in part because “the ethical principles that have underpinned the international order of the last 80 years are today under attack,” principles that “largely reflect the universal values of Catholic Social Thought, from common good to solidarity, from integral human development to integral ecology, from subsidiarity and poverty eradication to human rights, freedom and supranationalism.” The paper says the conference seeks to show that the abandonment of these values causes “growing polarization and conflicts threatening peace and development.” 

Pope Leo XIV said the conference’s theme “speaks to us of the deepest purpose of the church’s social doctrine as a contribution to peace and dialogue in the service of building bridges of universal fraternity.” During this Easter season, he said, “we realize that the Risen Lord always goes before us, even at times when injustice and death seem to prevail.”

Repeating what he said in his first address to the world from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after his election on May 8, he called on believers “to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, joining together as one people, always at peace.”

He recalled that Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), at a time of “momentous and disruptive change” sought “to promote peace by encouraging social dialogue between capital and labour, technology and human intelligence, and different political cultures and nations.”

More recently he said, Pope Francis, in a message to the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Life this past March, “spoke of a ‘polycrisis’ in describing the dramatic nature of our own age, marked by wars, climate change, growing inequalities, forced and contested migration, stigmatized poverty, disruptive technological innovations, job insecurity and precarious labour rights.”

On such important issues, Leo XIV said, “the church’s social doctrine is called to provide insights that facilitate dialogue between science and conscience, and thus make an essential contribution to better understanding, hope and peace.” It helps us understand that “more important than our problems or eventual solutions is the way we approach them, guided by criteria of discernment, sound ethical principles and openness to God’s grace.”

He said the church’s social doctrine, “with its specific anthropological approach, seeks to encourage genuine engagement with social issues.” He explained, “it does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth, either in its analysis of problems or its proposal of concrete solutions.” Where social questions are concerned, “knowing how best to approach them is more important than providing immediate responses to why things happen or how to deal with them. The aim is to learn how to confront problems, for these are always different, since every generation is new, and faces new challenges, dreams and questions.” He added, “This is a fundamental aspect of our attempts to build a ‘culture of encounter’ through dialogue and social friendship.”

The Augustinian pope noted that for many people today the words “dialogue” and “doctrine” can seem incompatible, because they think of doctrine as “a set of ideas belonging to a religion.” He explained, however, that the word doctrine can be a synonym of science, discipline and knowledge, and “can be seen as the product of research, and hence of hypotheses, discussions, progress and setbacks, all aimed at conveying a reliable, organized and systematic body of knowledge about a given issue.” The word should be understood as “a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth.”

Pope Leo denounced “indoctrination” as “immoral” because, he said, “it stifles critical judgement and undermines the sacred freedom of respect for conscience, even if erroneous. It resists new notions and rejects movement, change or the evolution of ideas in the face of new problems.”

On the other hand, he said doctrine, with regard to the church’s social teaching, “aims to teach us primarily how to approach problems and, even more importantly, how to approach people. It also helps us to make prudential judgments when confronted with challenges.”

The Chicago-born missionary pope, who worked for many years among poverty stricken people in Peru, said, “those born and raised far from the centers of power should not merely be taught the church’s social doctrine; they should also be recognized as carrying it forward and putting it into practice.” He explained that “individuals committed to the betterment of society, popular movements and the various Catholic workers’ groups are an expression of those existential peripheries where hope endures and springs anew.” He said, “I urge you to let the voice of the poor be heard.”

He reminded the conference participants that the Second Vatican Council states in its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” that “in every age, the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if she is to carry out her task. In language intelligible to every generation, she should be able to answer the ever-recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other” (“Gaudium et Spes,” No. 4).

Pope Leo concluded by encouraging Catholics “to participate actively and creatively in this discernment process and thus contribute, with all of God’s people, to the development of the church’s social doctrine in this age of significant social changes, listening to everyone and engaging in dialogue with all.”

Pope Leo said in today’s world, “there is a widespread thirst for justice, a desire for authentic fatherhood and motherhood, a profound longing for spirituality, especially among young people and the marginalized, who do not always find effective means of making their needs known” and, moreover, “there is a growing demand for the church’s social doctrine, to which we need to respond.”