By Deborah Castellano Lubov
We are first called to look to Jesus, and, more than ever, we need to place Christ at the center.
Pope Leo XIV insisted on this point in his address to Italy’s Bishops during his day trip to Assisi to close the 81st General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) on Thursday, Nov 20, in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
The four-day gathering, Nov 17-20. 2025, brought together Bishops from across Italy to reflect on pastoral priorities, safeguarding, and Catholic education. Their discussions have been drawing on insights from the recently completed Synodal Path in Italy, with resulting pastoral guidelines to be finalized at the May 2026 General Assembly.
Addressing the Italian Bishops, Pope Leo XIV expressed his delight to be in Assisi, even if “very briefly,” being a “highly significant place for the message of faith, fraternity, and peace that it conveys, of which the world has urgent need.”
The Pope recalled St Francis of Assisi’s bold and persevering faith, and prayed his example likewise will offer the Italian Bishops the “strength to make choices inspired by an authentic faith…”
Called to look to Jesus
Pope Leo’s primary recommendation for the Bishops was to follow and be led by Christ.
“To look to Jesus,” he underscored, “is the first thing to which we also are called.” “The reason for our being here, in fact, is faith in Him, crucified and risen.”
The Pope reiterated his words to them in June, stressing, “in this time we have more than ever the need to place Jesus Christ at the center and, on the road indicated by Evangelii gaudium, to help people to live a personal relationship with Him, to discover the joy of the Gospel.”
In a time of “great fragmentation,” the Holy Father insisted, it is necessary to return to the foundations of our faith, to the kerygma.” “This,” he continued, “applies before all to us: to start again from the act of faith that makes us recognize in Christ the Savior and that is expressed in all the areas of daily life.”
Keeping their gaze on the Face of Jesus, he said, makes us capable of looking at the faces of our brothers and sisters.
“It is His love that drives us toward them. And faith in Him, our peace,” Pope Leo observed, “asks us to offer all the gift of His peace.”
We are to transmit the Lord’s peace
The Pope decried that we live in a time “marked by fractures,” in national and international contexts. “Messages and languages tuned to hostility and violence often spread; the race to efficiency leaves behind the most fragile; technological omnipotence compresses freedom; solitude consumes hope, while numerous uncertainties weigh like unknowns upon our future.”
“And yet,” he marveled, “the Word and the Spirit exhort us still to be artisans of friendship, of fraternity, of authentic relationships in our communities, where, without reticence and fears, we must listen to and harmonize tensions, developing a culture of encounter and becoming, thus, prophecy of peace for the world.”
The Pope reminded them that when the Risen One appears to His disciples, His first words are, “Peace be with you,” and how this is meant for all.
Recommendations to care for the faithful
The Pope recalled that addressing the Bishops in June, he had “indicated some coordinates for being a Church that embodies the Gospel and is a sign of the Kingdom of God,” namely “proclaiming the message of salvation, building peace, promoting human dignity, the culture of dialogue, and the Christian anthropological vision.”
Thus, the Pope said he wished to underline that these demands “correspond to the perspectives that emerged” in the Synodal Path of the Church in Italy.
“You Bishops,” he said, are “to trace the pastoral lines for the coming years,” and for this reason he said he wished to offer some suggestions “to help a truly synodal spirit grow and mature” in the Church in Italy.
Synodality embodies Christians walking with Christ toward God’s Kingdom
“First of all,” Pope Leo reaffirmed, “let us not forget that synodality indicates the “walking together of Christians with Christ and toward the Kingdom of God, in union with all humanity.” ”
From the Lord, he said, we receive the grace of communion that animates and gives form to our human and ecclesial relationships. “On the challenge of an effective communion I desire that there be the commitment of all, so that the face of a collegial Church may take shape, one that shares common steps and choices.”
“What counts is that, in this synodal style,” the Holy Father stated, “we learn to work together and that in the particular Churches we all commit ourselves to building Christian communities that are open, hospitable, and welcoming, in which relationships translate into mutual co-responsibility in favor of the proclamation of the Gospel.”
Stay close to families, the elderly, the poor
The Pope spoke of the need for effective pastoral care, noting that “walking together, to walk with all, also means to be a Church that lives among the people, welcomes their questions, soothes their sufferings, shares their hopes.”
“Continue to stay close to families, to young people, to the elderly, to those who live in solitude. Continue to commit yourselves in the care of the poor.”
He also called on Bishops to stay close to the smallest and most vulnerable, so that a culture of prevention of every form of abuse may also develop.
“The welcoming and listening of victims are the authentic trait of a Church that, in community conversion, knows how to recognize wounds and commits itself to soothe them,” the Pope said as the thanked them for their efforts thus far in this regard and encouraged them to carry forward their commitment to protect minors and vulnerable adults.
The Holy Father concluded by encouraging the Bishops to move forward with faith and empowered, as was St Francis of Assisi, by Christ.
At the end of the meeting with the Bishops of the CEI, Pope Leo XIV reached the stadium of Santa Maria degli Angeli, from which he took off for Montefalco, where he will celebrate Holy Mass in the Monastery of the Augustinian nuns. The Pope will remain for lunch, then return, by helicopter, to the Vatican. – Vatican News
