Vatican City – “We have all been taught to believe through the testimony of those who believed before us.” With these words, spoken during this morning’s homily in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV outlined the heart of the Jubilee of Catechists, celebrated on the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The Pope’s remark, simple on the surface, captures the very essence of the catechetical ministry: faith is never a private possession, but a gift, handed down from generation to generation, from a voice that has believed to an ear learning to believe.
The Gospel of Lazarus and the Nameless Rich Man
The Pope’s meditation drew from the Gospel of Luke (16:19–31), the parable of the poor Lazarus and the rich man without a name. Leo XIV observed: “Lazarus is forgotten by the one at his door, just beyond the threshold of his house, and yet God is near to him and remembers his name.” In a world scarred by social inequality and wars, he underlined the clash between blind wealth and ignored poverty: “How many Lazaruses die before the greed that forgets justice, before the profit that tramples charity, before the wealth that blinds itself to the suffering of the poor!” The true divide, he explained, does not lie in possessions but in God’s memory: the poor man carries a name preserved by God, while the rich man loses himself because he has forgotten the other. This is the conversion the Church must witness to—never ceasing to proclaim that “Christ is risen from the dead” and that this truth “is not only to be known and proclaimed, but to be loved.”
Catechetical Ministry as a Living Echo
To catechists, Leo XIV entrusted anew the meaning of their mission: “The very name of your ministry comes from the Greek verb katēchein, meaning to instruct aloud, to make resound. The catechist is a person of the word, but a word spoken with one’s own life.” Within this horizon, the first catechists remain parents—“those who taught us to speak and handed on to us the language of faith.” Catechesis, the Pope clarified, is not a cold instruction but a mark left on the heart: “When we educate in faith, we do not merely transmit knowledge, we place within the heart the word of life.” Here Leo XIV recalled St. Augustine: “Explain everything so that the one who listens may believe, believing may hope, and hoping may love.”
From Word to Witness
Had the rich man of the Gospel “shown charity toward Lazarus”, the Pope noted, he would have done good not only for the poor but for himself. The homily thus became an appeal to recognize in today’s “many Lazaruses” a living catechesis, capable of recalling the Church to justice and peace.
The Announcement: Newman as Doctor of the Church
At the end of the celebration, before the Angelus, Leo XIV turned his thoughts to catechists across the world and to the peoples struck by the recent typhoon in Asia, urging solidarity and trust in God. Yet the most awaited moment came with a historic declaration: “I am pleased to announce that on November 1st, in the context of the Jubilee of the Educational World, I will confer the title of Doctor of the Church upon St. John Henry Newman.”
With this decision, the Pope wished to acknowledge the decisive contribution of the English cardinal to the renewal of theology and to the understanding of Christian doctrine in its development. Newman, a 19th-century thinker, taught that faith grows through history, developing organically without betraying its roots. His legacy ties seamlessly into today’s homily: just as catechists are witnesses transmitting the faith, so Newman showed how the Church, across time, safeguards and deepens the deposit of faith, never breaking the living chain of tradition.
A Church that Remembers Names
From St. Peter’s Square, then, Leo XIV offered a twofold message: faith is handed on through the living flesh of relationships—from voice to voice, parent to child, teacher to disciple; and in declaring Newman a Doctor of the Church, the Church reaffirms that this path of witness is woven from memory, listening, and growth. The Gospel parable, today’s catechists, and Newman’s thought converge in a single truth: God does not forget names, but preserves each one in His promise. It is for the Church to ensure that those names continue to resound in the world.
f.R.A.
Silere non possum