Pope Francis on Saturday greeted lawyers who participated in a training course organized by the Vatican court Rota Romana, highlighting that love, justice and truth are interconnected and are at the center of the 2025 Jubilee.
Vatican News
Vatican City, Saturday, November 23, 2024 (REI): “Love – charity – is an extraordinary power that moves people to commit themselves with boldness and generosity in the fields of justice and peace. It is a power that God arises from eternal and ultimate love. TRUE.”
Pope Francis addressing participants in a training course organized by the Tribunal of Roman Rota, from Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical, carisat in veritate He began his speech with the words.
The Pope said the mission of the Church’s supreme court, the Roman Rota, as well as each of the Church’s lower courts, can be described as “the apostolate of justice and charity in truth.”
He said that canonists are called to love justice, charity and truth, which are so closely linked that if any of them is missing, all three lose authenticity.
He said: “Neither justice is possible without generosity nor generosity is possible without justice.” “Generosity without justice is not true generosity.”
Justice involves seeking the well-being of the entire community and must be balanced with mercy, “because justice can only be understood in the light of love.” “Never forget that those who come to you seeking the exercise of your ecclesiastical office must always look at the face of our Mother, the Holy Church, who dearly loves all her children,” the Pope urged.
Love, he said, teaches lawyers to develop their “legal sensitivity” so they can recognize “what the true rights of the individual are within the church.” Pope Francis invited everyone to overcome the fear of justice, which can undermine love because it is rooted in a false conception of justice as a merely punitive exercise.
He said justice is “a clearly altruistic virtue that seeks the well-being of others,” linking it closely with love and mercy.
He said: “Love does not eliminate justice or relativize rights.” “In the name of love, we cannot neglect the duty of justice.”
For example, he said that existing norms on marriage matters cannot be compromised for the sake of speed, because “mercy does not replace justice.” The Pope said that love and justice, when they find their basis in truth, work together harmoniously.
Finally, Pope Francis invited canon lawyers to embrace hope as the Church looks ahead to the next Jubilee Year in 2025, which begins on December 24.
Citing the jubilee bull of convocation, he said: “Let us be inspired by hope and extend it to those who desire it.” “May our lives proclaim: ‘Wait in the Lord, be strong, take courage in your heart and wait in the Lord.’”
