Impromptu remarks of the Holy Father outside the Cathedral

Address of the Holy Father

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Impromptu remarks outside the Cathedral

Good evening, everyone!
Thank you! Thank you all for being here.
A greeting to the Peruvians, to all Latin Americans.
A warm greeting to all of you!
Long live Pavia! Hooray!

A moment ago we heard about the importance of hope and peace. We all want to live in peace. It is very important that we never lose hope, because, as Saint Augustine told us: “If we want to change the times, if we want the world to live in peace, we must begin with ourselves.” This means: enough with words of hatred, enough with insults, with bullying, enough with all those things that make war among people, among communities, among countries. We must all learn to be builders of peace and promoters of reconciliation.

To all the animators and leaders who are here: thank you for your work, for your service!

And to all the young people: persevere, participate, seek to build authentic friendship, not friendship that only happen through a screen, through a cellphone. Authentic friendship, lived face to face! A friendship lived being present! With everyone being present! And in this way we will discover that Jesus truly lives among us. Jesus will be present.

So, thank you all. I give you my blessing and truly encourage you to live the faith, to live this joy of being disciples of Jesus.

Blessing

May you always be a living community of faith, hope, and love.

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Address of the Holy Father

Your Excellency,
Mr. Mayor,
Distinguished Authorities,
Dear brothers and sisters,

I thank you for your welcome, so festive, and for your courteous words of greeting. Through the Bishop and the Mayor, Pavia itself presents itself, giving voice to the beauty of your city. It is a demanding beauty, because it represents the precious legacy of a past that becomes a commitment for the present. The city is in fact both a gift and a task for those who live in it: from this square we all realize this, seeing how the life of the citizens is reflected in the surrounding buildings and stones.

We stand among monuments that speak about you, and therefore speak to you. I refer not only to the ancient ones, but to houses, schools, the university, to the hospital, to parish centers. All of these are meaningful places, they are structures endowed with their own purpose, they are witnesses to welcome, education, and culture. In different forms they bear witness to the same care that you have for the person-within-the-community, with his or her dignity and values, the values uniting you as one people and which are also the foundation of the Italian Constitutional Charter.

Walking through the historic center of Pavia, one can breathe in a beauty full of history in its streets and squares, a beauty that is not superficial. This is a characteristic of European cities: while we recognize in them the ingenuity and civic sense of those who built them, we realize how the value of the urban fabric sustains their daily life and the specific role each of them plays nationally and internationally.

The word “city,” from the Latin word  civitas, refers not only to a place, but to a human condition: the city is one, and the same for all; it is the same word both in its singular and in its plural form. [1] The people who live in it form a society, that is, an organism that must be well ordered in its relationships and laws. To be social means to be supportive, behaving as true partners. It means being motivated by the common good and not by partisan interests. Citizens are always fellow citizens! Indeed, the democratic body that takes care of the city, promoting the well-being of those who live there, is called the “Comune” [municipality].

Since the people are responsible for the public space, let us ask ourselves what strengthens and what erodes our homes when we are confronted with today’s challenges. Let us ask ourselves what makes our society stable and what wounds it. Otherwise, what belongs to everyone risks becoming no one’s. When indifference seems to disintegrate our community, we must renew everyone’s active participation in civic life. Faced with forms of degradation and civic illiteracy, we are called to share languages of dedication and service, which preserve squares, parks, and streets as places of encounter par excellence. Good citizenship knows how to cultivate harmony through dialogue and constructive encounter among the people and cultures that enliven Pavia.

Today I invite each of you to repeat within yourselves: I care about our city! I care about the health of those beside me, I care about the beauty of the place where I live, I care about the quality of life in the environments where I work and spend my free time. I care about this fertile plain, where every field and every ditch bears the marks of the patient labor of those who have listened to the rhythm of creation for centuries, feeling they were in harmony with nature.

Cultivating land reflects the promotion of culture, which finds a particularly happy model in Pavia. Remembering your illustrious academic tradition, I think especially of the young people and students who attend the city’s University. In this cultural center, their experience is not that of merely accumulating knowledge, but instead, that of a system capable of forming the person without exploiting his or her work. To promote the sciences, indeed, means to promote the human person, who must always remain the protagonist of his or her own research.

In this perspective, every field of knowledge corresponds to a form of care. Just as medical sciences care for the human body, so jurisprudence is concerned with the social body, and philosophy considers thought, from which human beings develop all kinds of art. Everything we come to know about the world helps us know ourselves and leads us to question anew our existence, which thirsts for truth and justice. Saint Augustine’s soul was filled with this thirst, which is an example of the healthy restlessness that stirs in those who seek, study, and educate. His figure, while embodying the difficult and constant dialogue between faith and reason, testifies to their belonging one to the other.

Indeed, one cannot believe without thinking, nor is it possible to illuminate the highest questions of reason without faith. With this trusting openness, human reason asks and plans: it does not close itself in logics of profit or domination, but discovers new ways to care for itself and the world. Insofar as they believe, human beings do not resign themselves to the end, to a historical fragment that ends with death. Faith itself reminds us that we are not subject to an anonymous fate, but it supports the certainty that God is Creator and Savior of life, instead.

Furthermore, in regard to this, in the city of Pavia the Church acts as a womb that welcomes all, generating a new humanity. Even today, the city’s oldest institution is called to evangelize first of all as a hearth of faith and a home of charity at the service of those who are smallest, poorest, alone, or elderly, involving in this care for humanity all organizations of volunteers, to whom I express my esteem and gratitude. Thanks to your commitment, Pavia is prosperous not only in goods, but also in virtues. Always honor the dignity of every human life! The cross, which appears in your city’s coat of arms, is far more than a heraldic symbol; it is a cultural synthesis. It serves as a reminder that the history of Pavia is anchored in the universal value of Christian love. It is a history that you must write together, while exercising a creative memory in cooperation among citizens and associations, between the Church and public institutions, among generations and cultures.

Dear sisters and brothers, while I invite each one to give the best of himself or herself for the good of all, from my heart I impart my blessing upon you, upon your homes, and upon your families. Thank you!

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[1]Translator’s note: in Italian, the word for city, “città”, remains the same in both the singular and the plural form (sg. "la città", pl. "le città").

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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 20 June 2026