Pope Francis' invitation: 'It is necessary to speak of the heart again'

"Seeing how new wars follow one another, with the complicity, tolerance or indifference of other countries, or with mere power struggles around partisan interests, it comes to mind that world society is losing its heart," writes Francis in Dilexit nos (He loved us), his fourth encyclical, counting also the Lumen fidei four-hander with Benedict XVI. "In this liquid world it is necessary to speak again of the heart; to aim there where every person, of every category and condition, makes his synthesis; there where concrete persons have the source and the root of all their other strengths, convictions, passions, choices," adds the Pope in the document released two days before the conclusion of the Synod at the Vatican: "But we move in a society of serial consumers who live day to day and dominated by the rhythms and noises of technology, without much patience for the processes that interiority requires. In today's society, the human being 'risks losing the centre, the centre of himself'". The encyclical, in Francis' will, presents itself to believers and also to non-believers as an interpretative model of Christianity in the light of the reality of our times.

"Children as we are of Greek rationalism, of post-Christian idealism, of materialism, and today in the liquid culture of individualism, we struggle to fully understand that Christianity is not reducible to a theory, to a philosophy, to a set of moral norms, or even to a sequence of sentimentalistic emotions. It is, instead, an encounter with a living Person,' writes Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Holy See, on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano. The sense of bewilderment that threatens human beings is the theme that recurs in the forty pages of the document, presented by Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto. "The Dilexit nos stems from the spiritual experience of Pope Francis, who senses the drama of the enormous suffering produced by wars and the many ongoing acts of violence and wants to be close to those who suffer by proposing the message of divine love that comes to save us. This is precisely how the Encyclical offers the key to interpreting the entire magisterium of this Pope," says Forte, who adds: "Far from being a magisterium 'crushed' on the social sphere, as has sometimes been clumsily understood, the message that this Pope has given and gives to the Church and to the entire human family stems from a single source, presented here in the most explicit manner: Christ the Lord and His love for all humanity.

The sufferings of the world are present and in particular the Pope recalls those of elderly women - and this leads back to his personal experience with his grandmother in Argentina, a central figure in his life - "who are prisoners of these devastating conflicts. It is heartbreaking to see them weeping for their grandchildren who have been killed, or to hear them wishing for death for losing the home where they have always lived. They, who have so many times been models of strength and resilience throughout difficult and sacrificed lives, now as they reach the last stage of their existence receive not deserved peace, but anguish, fear and indignation. Placing the blame on others does not solve this shameful drama. To see grandmothers weeping without this being intolerable is a sign of a heartless world'.

A document, therefore, different from the others - focused on ecology and brotherhood, themes that hold together his entire social pastoral - that also has its roots in his experience as a Jesuit and in the devotion to the Sacred Heart of the followers of St Ignatius of Loyola, which "places the affectus, which is at the origin of the new order to be given to life starting from the heart, at the basis of the Spiritual Exercises". The concept of "devotion" is continually repeated and placed at the centre as an integral part of the faith of Catholics, and on this Bergoglio is also clear about how this faith is manifested, also thinking of its places of origin: "I ask that no one mock the expressions of believing fervour of God's faithful people, who in their popular piety seek to console Christ. And I invite everyone to ask themselves whether there is not more rationality, more truth and more wisdom in certain manifestations of this love that seeks to console the Lord than in the cold, distant, calculated and minimal acts of love of which we who claim to possess a more reflective, cultivated and mature faith are capable'. Then a chapter on a very topical issue, on which the Holy See has placed great emphasis: 'In the age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are needed to save the human. What no algorithm will ever be able to accommodate will be, for example, that moment of childhood that is remembered with tenderness and that, despite the passing of the years, continues to happen in every corner of the planet'.