“As Catholics, on this horizon, we cannot be satisfied with a marginal or private faith,” the pope said before approximately 1,200 conference participants at the Generali Convention Center. “This means not so much to be heard, but above all to have the courage to make proposals for justice and peace in the public debate.”
“We have something to say, but not to defend privileges. No. We need to be a voice, a voice that denounces and proposes in a society that is often mute and where too many have no voice.”
“This is political love,” Francis underlined, adding that “it is a form of charity that allows politics to live up to its responsibilities and get out of polarizations, these polarizations that impoverish and do not help understand and address the challenges.”
The Social Week of Catholics congress was held in Trieste, a port city located on a narrow strip of Italian territory in the country’s far northeastern point, bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.
Pope Francis arrived in Trieste by helicopter from the Vatican in the early morning July 7. After addressing congress delegates from across Italy, he met briefly with representatives of other Christian traditions and with a group of immigrants and people with disabilities.
The pope then celebrated Mass for an estimated 8,500 Catholics in Trieste’s Unità d’Italia Square before again boarding a helicopter to return to the Vatican.
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