Pope Francis To Polish Bishops: The Church In Poland Must Reach Out To The Peripheries

As the canonisation of Blessed John Paul II approaches, Pope Francis today received in audience the bishops of the Polish Episcopal Conference at the end of their five-yearly “ad limina” visit, Vatican Information Service informs. He referred to the future saint as “a great Pastor who … guides us from Heaven, and reminds us of the importance of spiritual and pastoral communion between bishops”, and invited the former Pope's compatriots to ensure that nothing and no-one may bring divisions between them, as they are “called to build communion and peace, rooted in fraternal love, and to offer an encouraging example to all”, bringing “the strength of hope” to the Polish people.

The conversations that the Bishop of Rome has held in these days with the Polish prelates have confirmed that the Church in Poland “has great potential for faith, prayer, charity and Christian practice”, and that this “favours the Christian formation of the people, motivated and convinced practice, and the availability of laypeople and religious to collaborate actively in ecclesial and social structures”. However, there has been a certain decline in various aspects of Christian life, and this requires “discernment, and a search for underlying reasons and methods for facing new challenges, such as, for example, the idea of freedom without limits, hostile tolerance or indeed distrust of the truth, or resistance to the Church's legitimate opposition to dominant relativism”.

Family, World Youth Day, which will be held in Krakow in 2016, vocation to the priesthood and to consecrated life and poverty were other topics Pope addressed in his speech.