Pope Leo With Encouraging Words for Us Priests!

 ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER TO THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF ROME 

Thursday, 12 June 2025

I want to ask for a big round of applause for all of you who are here, and for all the priests and deacons of Rome!

Dear Priests and Deacons who provide your service in the diocese of Rome, dear seminarians, I greet you all with affection and friendship!

I thank His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar, for the words of greeting and for his presentation, telling something of your presence in this city.

I wished to meet you to get to know you personally, and to begin walking with you. I thank you for your life given in the service of the Kingdom, for your daily labours, for your great generosity in the exercise of your ministry, for everything you live in silence and that is at times accompanied by suffering or misunderstanding. You carry out different services, but you are all precious in the eyes of God and in the fulfilment of his plan.

The diocese of Rome presides in charity and in communion, and can fulfil this mission thanks to each one of you, in the bond of grace with the Bishop and in the fruitful co-responsibility of all God’s people. Ours is a truly particular diocese, because many priests come from various parts of the world, especially in order to study; and this implies that pastoral care too – I am thinking above all of the parishes – is marked by this universality and the mutual acceptance it entails.

Starting precisely from this universal outlook that Rome offers, I would like to share cordially with you a few reflections.

The first note, that is particularly close to my heart, is that of unity and communion. In the so-called “priestly” prayer, as we know, Jesus asked the Father that his people may be one (cf. Jn 20-23). The Lord knows well that only by being joined to him and united among ourselves can we bear fruilt and give credible witness to the world. Presbyteral communion here in Rome is favoured by the fact that, by ancient tradition, it is it is customary to live together, in rectories as well as in colleges or other residences. The presbyter is called to be the man of communion, because he is the first to live it, and continually nurtures it. We know that this communion today is hindered by a cultural climate that favours isolation or self-absorption. None of us is exempt from these pitfalls that threaten the solidity of our spiritual life and the strength of our ministry.

But we must be vigilant because, in addition to the cultural context, communion and fraternity among us also encounter some obstacles that are, so to speak, “internal”, which relate to the ecclesial life of the diocese, interpersonal relationships, and also what resides in the heart, especially that feeling of weariness that arises because we have experienced particular hardships, because we do not feel we are understood and heard, or for other reasons. I would like to help you, to walk with you, so that each person may regain serenity in his own ministry; but it is precisely for this reason that I ask you for zeal in priestly fraternity, which has its roots in a solid spiritual life, in the encounter with the Lord and in listening to his Word. Nourished by this lymph, we are able to have relationships of friendship, outdoing one another in respect (cf. Rm 12:10); we feel the need for others in order to grow and to foster the same ecclesial drive.

Communion should also be translated into commitment in this diocese: with diverse charisms, with different paths of formation and even with different services, but the effort to sustain it must be one. I ask all of you to pay attention to the pastoral journey of this Chruch which is local but, because of who leads it, is also universal. Walking together is always a guarantee of fidelity to the Gospel; together and in harmony, striving to enrich the Church with one’s own charism but having at heart the single body of which Christ is the Head.

The second note I want to give you is that of exemplarity. On the occasion of the priestly ordinations on 31 May last, in the homily I recalled the importance of the transparency of life, on the basis of the words of Saint Paul who said to the elders of Ephesus: “You yourselves know how I lived among you” (Acts 20:18). I ask you, with the heart of a father and of a pastor, let us all undertake to be credible and exemplary priests! We are aware of the limits of our nature and the Lord knows us in depth; but we have received an extraordinary grace; we have been entrusted with a precious treasure of which we are the ministers, the servants. And fidelity is required of the servant. None of us is exempt from the suggestions of the world, and the city, with its thousands of offerings, could even draw us away from the desire for a holy life, inducing a levelling down in which the profound values of being a priest are lost. Let yourselves be drawn once again by the call of the Master, to feel and live the love of the first hour, that which drove you to make important choices and courageous sacrifices. If together we try to be exemplary in a humble life, then we will be able to express the renewing force of the Gospel for every man and for every woman.

A final note I wish to give you you is that of looking at the challenges of our time from a prophetic perspective. We are concerned and saddened by everything that happens every day in the world: we are hurt by the violence that generates death, we are challenged by inequalities, poverty, many forms of social marginalization, the widespread suffering that assumes the features of an unease that no longer spares anyone. And these are not distant realities, far from us, but rather they affect even our city of Rome, marked by multiple forms of poverty and grave emergencies such as the issue of housing. A city in which, as Pope Francis remarked, the “great beauty” and charm of art must also be matched by “simple decorum and the normal functioning of places and situations in ordinary, everyday life. Because a city that is more liveable for its citizens is also more welcoming to everyone” (Homily for Vespers with Te Deum, 31 December 2023).

The Lord wanted us in this time filled with challenges that, at times, seem to exceed our strength. We are called to embrace these challenges, to interpret them evangelically, to experience them as opportunities to bear witness. Let us not flee from them! Pastoral commitment, like that of study, become for us a school to learn how to build the Kingdom of God in today's complex and challenging history. In recent times we have had the example of holy priests who have been able to combine a passion for history with the proclamation of the Gospel, such as Don Primo Mazzolari and Don Lorenzo Milani, prophets of peace and justice. And here in Rome we have had Don Luigi Di Liegro who, faced with so much poverty, devoted his life to seeking ways of justice and human advancement. Let us draw on the strength of these examples to continue sowing seeds of holiness in our city.

Dear friends, I assure you of my closeness, my affection and my readiness to walk with you. Let us entrust our priestly life to the Lord, and let us ask him to be able to grow in unity, exemplarity and in prophetic commitment to serve our time. May we be accompanied by the heartfelt appeal of Saint Augustine, who said: “Love this Church, be ye in this holy Church, be ye this Church; love the Good Shepherd, the Spouse so fair, who deceiveth no one, who desireth no one to perish. Pray too for the scattered sheep; that they too may come, that they too may acknowledge Him, that they too may love Him; that there may be One Flock and One Shepherd” (Sermon 138, 10). Thank you.

My Ordination

16th Ordination Anniversary Homily

 

Righteous Anger?

 

“Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:22)

 

Is anger sinful?  There is a Church Father who said: “he who, on just cause, is not angry, is in sin; for an unreasonable patience invites the good as well as the bad to do evil.”

 

Of course the most famous incident in Jesus’ life of justified anger is when he flipped over the tables in the Temple.

 

In 2018, I preached a righteously angry homily against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.  If I had not preached that homily, then the hundreds of victims who I have been able to help in some small way would have not been helped.

 

Does anyone this morning here like the fact that children and vulnerable adults are sex-trafficked?  The pornography “industry” is the worst sex trafficker of children and vulnerable adults IN THE WORLD!  And they get money every time anyone clicks on an image or video.  You SHOULD allow your righteous anger to compel you to never click on a video or image of pornography moving forward.

 

Priests and religious brothers and sisters pray night prayer every night, and last night we had the reading that we have every Wednesday: “If you are angry, let it be without sin” (Ephesians 4:26) that means, of course, as we have been saying, that there ARE things that we should be angry about, and that “anger” is not sinful but rather there are situations where, if we are NOT angry, that is sinful.

 

Far from being the opposite of “love” there are many situations where “love” DEMANDS being angry.  What are we righteously angry about, and what are we doing this morning to be part of the solution to those situations?

Some of Paul's Letters are confusing

In our first reading this morning, St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ...was not “yes” and “no,” but “yes” has been in him.

This struck me as confusing, eventhough I have read it hundreds of times.

Jesus Christ clearly says in the Gospels "no" to lots of different sins; so what does St. Paul mean that there was not “yes” and “no,” but “yes” has been in him"?

In praying over today's first reading for the last 24 hours or so, I am reminded of what St. Peter said at the end of his 2nd letter: 

"Our beloved brother Paul, also wrote to you, speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures" (2 Peter 3:15-16).

In reading various commentaries, I found little help from them.  But I would like to recommend the USCCB website.  When you go to the "Daily Reading" link, it takes you to a wonderful page where all the readings for the day are on one page.  

The only downside is that the page with the readings does not have any footnotes.  But if you click on "2 Corinthians 1:18-22" at the top right of the page, it takes you to that chapter of the Bible on the USCCB website with the footnotes.

You can click HERE to go to 2 Corinthians 1:18-22.

And once you are there, there is a star right after "faithful" and when you click on it, the footnote says this: 

"Christ, Paul, and the Corinthians all participate in analogous ways in the constancy of God. A number of the terms here, which appear related only conceptually in Greek or English, would be variations of the same root, ’mn, in a Semitic language, and thus naturally associated in a Semitic mind, such as Paul’s. These include the words "yes", "faithful", "Amen", "gives us security", "faith", and "stand firm". 

The point of this homily is this: sometimes when you read the daily readings for Mass, they do not, on your first reading of them, make sense.  But the Church says that it ALWAYS bears fruit in our lives when we dive deeper on the questions that rise in our hearts on our first reading of any passage in the Bible.

Homily for the Ascension: Waiting in Trust for Christ's Return

Spy Wednesday 2025

 

Today we remember Spy Wednesday, the day that Judas betrayed Jesus and handed Jesus over to the Jewish leaders.

Judas’s betrayal on a Wednesday is why the early Church (and many still today) fast almost every Wednesday throughout the year.

There is a really problematic and wrong understanding of why Judas betrayed Jesus, and I would like to preach about why that wrong understanding has so many harmful implications.

The general wrong position is “Judas HAD to betray Jesus?”  so God had Judas do something evil so that something even better could come out of Judas’s betrayal…. And so Judas may have just been performing a needed role for God.

 

But the Gospels discredit all this.  Jesus says in today’s Gospel “woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

 

So what is the right way to understand these events? 

First of all, we need to know that God NEVER forces nor commands someone to do wrong.  God is incapable of having anything to do with evil or sin. 

And Here’s the problem with thinking God CAN have someone do a wrong act – if God can have people do a wrong act for good outcomes, then WE can start doing wrong acts for “Good outcomes that we think will happen”

God ALLOWS evil, but only ever because God desires to bring something GREATER out of the allowed evil.

LITERALLY ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE THE MOMENT A PERCEIVED FUTURE CONSEQUENCE CAN BE USED TO JUSTIFY AN ACTION

And so it has become fashionable to say such things, even in the Church today, that apparently wrong acts might not actually BE wrong, as the circumstances or intentions of an act might make a wrong act actually good.  

But the Chruch says that there are 3 things that make any human act according to the Catechism paragraph 1750

1)      Act itself

2)     Circumstances surrounding the act

3)     Intentions of the person doing the act

 

And so if the act itself is wrong, no circumstances nor our intentions can make that act a good act

Catechism paragraph 1753 provides us with an example

It says “A good intention, for example, that of helping one's neighbor, does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means.

 

The Catechism in paragraph 1755 says there are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely wrong; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery.

One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

 

That is a distinctly Catholic phrase that the Catechism repeats over and over again, the perceived ends, which we can never actually know, never justify the means to get to those ends

Jesus’ words about Judas need to be with us always – Woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.

So what, then, is the best way for each of us to proceed?  First of all we need to pray for the Lord to always be purifying our intentions. 

Secondly, there is SO MUCH SUFFERING in our world.  I think we can all look around and find one person who is carrying a cross of suffering, and our offering to help that person carry their cross is probably a big part of what God is hoping to bring out of whatever evil was done to that person.

 

My Mission Talks from New Hampshire

 

Kevin Wells article about me

 I am super grateful to author Kevin Wells for writing an amazing article about my journey that you can read by clicking HERE

Holy Week Hype Video!

Created with the "New Evangelization Ninjas" at Annunciation several years ago!

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Homily on Pornography and "Covenant Eyes"

Pornography and the temptations of Jesus 

The Devil tempts Jesus in the desert, and we first of all need to understand that Jesus was in fact TEMPTED.

It can be a temptation for us to think of Jesus as a robot, or that Jesus is God pretending to be a human being, but he is a human being like us.  In the book of Hebrews, we find in chapter 4 that Christ was tempted in every way we are, but did not sin.

 

And so I would like to briefly preach about one of the greatest temptations to sin that our world has ever known.  And that is the temptation to view explicit material, particularly on our phones and computers.

 

When I was 7, despite being homeschooled, I was exposed to explicit material at a friend’s house when my friend found his dad’s magazines.  It is not a matter of IF your child or teen will be exposed to explicit material, but WHEN.

 

“The use of pornography by anyone in the home deprives the home of its role as a safe haven and has negative effects throughout the family’s life and across generations”

“Create in me a clean heart” a pastoral response to Pornography” by the USCCB (2015)

Pope Francis also questioned social media for the first time in 2015…why 2015 for both the USCCB and Pope Francis…because 2015 was the first time the majority of U.S. teens had a smart phone.

A recent study found that 82% of teens and 72% of preteens sleep with their phone in the bedroom

            This places kids at greater risk to exposure to explicit content, encourages isolation, and makes it more difficult to have accountability

I also counsel every person who struggles with viewing explicit material that the pornography industry is the greatest human trafficker of children and vulnerable adults in the world so even if the video or image you click on does not involve a child the pornography industry gets money from that view and so any time you view any explicit material you are helping to fund human trafficking.  NO one here wants to see their child or a niece or nephew or friend or relative human trafficked. 

The 4 parishes of Dearborn County have been asked by the Archdiocese to pilot a totally free program called “Covenant Eyes”.  It works!  My parents have used it for 20 years.

As you leave Mass today, there is an ebook on how to create a safe environment for your family

 

Jesus was tempted, and you and your family certainly face graves temptations and guaranteed exposure to explicit material.  Please take advantage of the resources we are offering as you leave Mass this morning!

 

Many of our homes have glass TV screens that we stare at, glass smart phone screens that we stare at, glass tablet screens that we stare at, and glass laptop screens that we stare at… but at the end of this Mass we have a few minutes to stare at the only glass screen that will bring us any lasting peace.  At the end of this Mass we will have a few minutes to stare at the glass screen of a monstrance with Jesus’ Real Presence right behind it.  Let us gaze on Him, and allow Him to heal all our ills and grant us His peace!

My Two Favorite Evangelists

Video on All Saints Parish

Does Jesus Contradict Himself?

 

What does Jesus mean by “Whoever is not against us is for us”?

 

Jesus says in Mark 9: 39-40: “There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.  For whoever is not against us is for us." 

But we have to weigh this quote from Jesus with this other quotation of His that we find in Luke’s Gospel (11:23) “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

 

Saint Augustine actually demonstrates how both of these statements of Jesus are in harmony. 

“A person who worked miracles in the name of Christ, and yet did not join himself to the body of his disciples, [the Catholic Church], in so far as this person worked miracles in the name of Christ, that person is with them.  But the Disciples should have tried to persuade this person of the unity of the Church”

“The Catholic Church does disprove the sacraments that heretics share in common with the Catholic Church, but the Catholic Church blames them for their division and opinions of theirs, for in this they are against us.”

 

So what St. Augustine was teaching 1700 years ago is STILL what the Catholic Church teaches.  How?  We consider the Orthodox, who are not in full Communion with us, the Catholic Church says the Orthodox still have a valid priesthood and thus also a valid Eucharist.  We recognize their baptisms and confirmations as well.

 

The non-Catholic Christians (“protestants”), if they baptize “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, the Catholic Church recognizes their baptisms as valid.  We consider their weddings to be a Sacramental marriage.  They have most of the Bible…

 

But again, as St. Augustine says, we have to do EVERYTHING we can to help non-Catholics become Catholic.

What is "Christian Forgivenss"???

 

Forgive and you will be forgiven

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German theologian who was a great friend of Pope Benedict.  I read a book by Dietrich von Hildebrand several years ago, and what he wrote about forgiveness brought me great clarity about what forgiveness is, and also clarity about what forgiveness is not.

 

He wrote that we must forgive everyone interiorly, and so he first points out obstacles to us forgiving a person interiorly.  Those 2 things are 1) Hatred for the offender (which most Americans recognize as not being forgiveness).  But the 2^nd obstacle to interior forgiveness is something that most Americans do NOT recognize, and about this obstacle Von Hildebrand writes: “Another attitude opposed to a Christian spirit of forgiveness is ignoring the wrong inflicted upon us as though nothing has happened.”  Von Hildebrand says “Not saying something harms the offender” and “Pointing it out to the offender is necessary for their own good.”

 

He makes a further distinction that is necessary when a person is a CLOSE friend, a family member; part of our “inner circle”.  He says for those who are close to us “it is essential that the person recognize and repent of the wrong not just for their own good but the sake of the relationship between us.”

And Von Hildebrand also gives suggestions for how best to let the person close to us know that they have committed a serious breach of our friendship…he writes: “we must detach ourselves from the situation of the moment and answer all gestures of irritation and all moral blows with kindness and charity only.”  But he continues: “Yet here we can on no account content ourselves with an act of INWARD forgiveness.  At the proper moment we must in love draw our friend’s attention to their wrong and maintain our desire for the friend to redress the wrong.  We also cannot do this unless we have first inwardly forgiven our friend.”

Why do we first need to INWARDLY forgive our friend?  If we do not INWARDLY forgive our friend, it haunts us…resentment just continues to build and we become bitter….we must INWARDLY forgive any person who harms us in any way so that WE can have PEACE! 

 

Von Hildebrand continues: “It remains true that the full harmony implied by the relationship is not reestablished before our friend has understood and admitted their wrong against us, and asked our pardon for it”

 

Some examples where Jesus clearly points this out:

Luke 17:3 and 4 If your brother [here “brother” means someone in our “inner circle”] sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.”

Matthew 18:15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you and if he still does not listen bring it to the Church.”

 

Jesus, who is desires to forgive us with all of His heart, and who, if we let Him, is our BEST and closest friend, still requires that we say we are sorry before He can forgive us.  When any person goes to the Sacrament of Confession, after saying one’s sins, it is necessary, before the priest prays the words of absolution over you, that you say an Act of Contrition, and contrition means SORROW…a priest cannot pray the words of Absolution over you unless you first tell Jesus “I am sorry!”

 

If you have a friend who has wronged you, a spouse that has wronged you, etc. don’t do the American thing and bury it…let this person know that the relationship can’t be fully restored until the person asks you to forgive him or her. 

 

And what do we do in the mean time?  Jesus tells us at the beginning of this morning’s Gospel – “pray for those who mistreat you”.  We can pray that the person who has wronged us in a serious way asks us to forgive him or her.  And the Mass is the greatest prayer.

 

And so I invite each of us here this morning to ask a question: “who is it that is close to me and still has not asked me to forgive them of something serious?”  Let us pray for them during this Mass and pray for them often. May they one day ask us to forgive them, and until that day, may we never tire of praying for them. 

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