Thank you! Thank you!
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Peace be with you.
Truly we can begin with “peace and good”!

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome!

I joyfully meet you, members of the Opera San Francesco for the Poor. For almost seventy years your institution has been committed to “providing assistance and shelter to people in need and [...] promoting the overall human development of the person in the tradition of Christianity, especially Franciscanism, the doctrine of the Church and her Magisterium” (Fondazione Opera San Franceso per i Poveri, Statute, 3).

The Opera was born from the kind heart of a humble friar doorkeeper, the Venerable Brother Cecilio Maria Cortinovis, sensitive to the needs of the poor who used to knock on the door of the Capuchin Convent in Viale Piave, in Milan. The good religious brother had asked the Lord to help him give better assistance to these friends, and Providence answered him, putting another generous person by his side: Dr. Emilio Grignani. Thus began the beautiful adventure of which all of you today are witnesses and protagonists.

What you do is in keeping with the Franciscan tradition, and it is good to remember some of Saint Francis’ words regarding the poor: “When thou seest a poor man”, said the Saint of Assisi, “a mirror is set before thee of the Lord, and of His Mother in her poverty. In the infirm, do thou in like manner thinik upon the infirmities that He took upon Him” (Saint Bonaventure, Legenda Major, 8, 5: Franciscan Sources, 1142). And one day, wishing to give his cloak to a man in need, and reflecting on the fraternal sharing of the gifts of God, he affirmed: “It behoveth us … to restore the cloak unto [the] poor man, for his own it is. For we received it but as a loan, until it should be our hap to find another poorer than ourselves” (ivi, 1143).

Dear friends, today we recall a history of charity that, born of the faith of a man, flourished and brought to life a large community promoting peace and justice. We celebrate a history made up not of benefactors and beneficiaries, but of brothers and sisters who recognize each other as gifts from God, his presence, mutual help on a journey of holiness. We honour the Body of Christ, wounded and at the same time in continual healing, whose members help one another, joined to the Head in the same love (cf. Saint Augustine, Sermon 53/A, 6); and precisely for this reason we see a living body, which grows day by day towards its full maturity.

The Statute of the Opera San Francesco for the Poor highlights three dimensions of your work, which constitute complementary and fundamental aspects of charity: assisting, welcoming and promoting.

To assist means to be present to the needs of others. In this regard, the quantity and variety of services that you have managed to organize and offer to those who turn to you over the years is impressive: from soup kitchens to clothing banks, from showers to clinics, from psychological support services to job counselling, to name a few examples, supporting more than 30,000 people a year in various ways.

This is accompanied by welcoming, that is, making space for the other in one’s own heart, in one’s own life, giving time, listening, support and prayer. It is the attitude of looking in someone’s eyes, holding their hand, stooping to them, so dear to Pope Francis (cf. Jubilee Audience, 9 April 2016), which urges us to nurture, in our environments, a family atmosphere, and which helps us to overcome the loneliness of “I” through the luminous communion of “we” (cf. Prayer vigil with young Italians, 11 August 2018). How great a need there is to spread this sensibility in our society, where at times isolation is dramatic!

And so, we come to the third point: promoting. Here, the selflessness of giving and respect for human dignity come into play, whereby we care for those we meet simply for their own good, so that they may grow to their full potential and follow their own path, without expecting anything in return and without imposing conditions. Just as God does with each of us, showing us the way, offering us all the help we need to follow it, but then leaving us free. In this regard, Saint John Paul II wrote that it is a question “of concretely enhancing every individual’s dignity and creativity, as well as his capacity to respond to his personal vocation, and thus to God’s call” (Encyclical Letter Centesimus annus, 1 May 1991, 29).

This, dear friends, is the task that the Church entrusts to you, for the benefit of the people who gravitate around the structures you manage and also for society as a whole. To live charity in attention to the integral good of our neighbour is indeed “a great opportunity for the moral, cultural and even economic growth of all humanity” (ivi, 28). Thank you for what you do, and for the witness you bear by walking together! I accompany you with my prayers, and I bless you from my heart.

Thank you!

After the Blessing

Peace and good! Best wishes, and thank you, thank you all.

____________________________

Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 1 September 2025