Let us begin with the Sign of the Cross: in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you!

Welcome to you all, and I hope the sun is not too strong… But God is great, and he will accompany us. Thank you for your presence!

[Greeting from the Undersecretary of State at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Alfredo Mantovani, and testimony from Paola Clericuzio, of the San Patrignano Community]

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!

I thank those who have made this meeting possible, which in many ways brings us to the heart of the Jubilee, a year of grace in which dignity, too often diminished or denied, is recognized to everyone. Hope is a word rich in history for you: it is not a slogan, but light rediscovered through great work. I would like to repeat to you, then, that greeting that changes the heart: peace be with all of you! On Easter evening, Jesus greeted the disciples closed in the Upper Room in this way. They had abandoned him, they believed they had lost him for ever, they were fearful and disappointed, and some had already gone. It is Jesus, however, who finds them, who comes looking for them again. He enters behind closed doors into the place where they are as if buried alive. He brings peace, he recreates them with forgiveness, he breathes on them: that is, he infuses the Holy Spirit, who is the breath of God in us. When there is no air, when there is no horizon, our dignity withers. Let us not forget that the risen Jesus still comes and brings his breath! He often does so through the people who go beyond our closed doors and who, despite all that may have happened, see the dignity we have forgotten, or that has been denied to us.

Dear friends, your presence here is a testimony of freedom. I remember that when Pope Francis used to enter a prison, even on his last Holy Thursday, he always asked himself that question: “Why them and not me?” Drugs and addiction are an invisible prison that you, in different ways, have known and fought, but we are all called to freedom. As I meet you, I think of the abyss of my heart and of every human heart. It is a Psalm, that is, the Bible, that calls the mystery that dwells in us an “abyss” (cf. Ps 63:7). Saint Augustine confessed that only in Christ did the restlessness of his heart find peace. We seek peace and joy, we thirst for them. And many deceptions can delude and even imprison us in this quest.

Let us look around us, though. And let us read in each other’s faces a word that never betrays: together. We conquer evil together. Joy is found together. Injustice is fought together. The God who created and knows each one of us – and is more intimate to me than I am to myself – made us to be together. Of course, there are also bonds that hurt and human groups where freedom is lacking. But these, too, can only be overcome together, trusting those who do not profit from our suffering, those whom we can meet and who meet us with selfless attention.

Today, brothers and sisters, we are engaged in a battle that cannot be abandoned as long as, around us, anyone is still imprisoned in the various forms of addiction. Our fight is against those who make their immense business out of drugs and every other addiction – think of alcohol or gambling. There are huge concentrations of interest and extensive criminal organizations that states have a duty to dismantle. It is easier to fight against their victims. Too often, in the name of security, war is waged against the poor, filling prisons with those who are merely the final link in a chain of death. Those who hold the chain in their hands instead manage to gain influence and impunity. Our cities must not be freed of the marginalized, but of marginalization; they must be cleared not of the desperate, but of desperation. “How beautiful are those cities which overcome paralysing mistrust, integrate those who are different and make this very integration a new factor of development! How attractive are those cities which, even in their architectural design, are full of spaces which connect, relate and favour the recognition of others!” (Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 210).

The Jubilee indicates the culture of encounter as the way to safety; it asks of us the restitution and redistribution of unjustly accumulated wealth, as the way to personal and civil reconciliation. “As in heaven, so on earth”: the city of God commits us to prophecy in the city of men. And this - we know - can also lead to martyrdom today. The fight against drug trafficking, educational commitment among the poor, the defence of indigenous communities and migrants, and fidelity to the social doctrine of the Church are in many places considered subversive.

Dear young people, you are not spectators of the renewal our earth so badly needs: you are protagonists. God does great things with those he frees from evil. Another Psalm, beloved of the early Christians, says: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (118:22). Jesus was denied and crucified outside the gates of his city. Upon him, the cornerstone on which God rebuilds the world, you too are stones of great value in building a new humanity. Jesus, who was denied, invites all of you, and if you have felt rejected and spent, you are now no more. Your mistakes, your sufferings, but above all your desire for life, make you witnesses that change is possible.

The Church needs you. Humanity needs you. Education and politics need you. Together, we will make the infinite dignity imprinted on each person prevail over every degrading addiction. Unfortunately, such dignity sometimes only shines through when it is almost completely lost. Then a shock occurs and it becomes clear that getting back up is a matter of life and death. Well, today the whole of society needs that jolt, it needs your witness and the great work you are doing. Indeed, we all have the vocation to be freer and to be human, the vocation to peace. This is the most divine vocation. Let us go forward together, then, multiplying the places of healing, encounter and education: pastoral paths and social policies that start from the street and never give anyone up for lost. And you, pray too, that my ministry may be at the service of the hope of persons and peoples, at the service of all.

I entrust you to the maternal guidance of Mary Most Holy. And I bless you from my heart. Thank you!

[Blessing]

Many thanks to you all! Always be courageous, and keep going forward!
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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 26 June 2025