Pope Leo XIV in Assisi urges Italian bishops to embrace synodality, Gospel poverty, and peace-building amid divisions, digital challenges, and abuse prevention
Newsroom (20/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Pope Leo XIV urged Italy’s bishops to deepen synodality, foster effective communion, and place Jesus Christ at the center of ecclesial life during a landmark address Thursday, closing the 81st General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) in the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels.
Speaking in the spiritual heartland of St. Francis, the Pope made Assisi the destination of his first pastoral visit since his election, underscoring the city’s enduring message of “faith, fraternity and peace” at a time when the world is scarred by hostility, technological alienation, and widespread loneliness.
“Thank you for the invitation to be with you,” Pope Leo XIV began, acknowledging CEI President Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s welcome. “I am happy to make my first stop, albeit a very brief one, in Assisi.”
Drawing from the Poverello’s radical call to “live according to the Holy Gospel,” the Pontiff reiterated the primacy of Christ crucified and risen as the foundation of all ministry. Quoting his own June 2025 address to the bishops, he stressed the urgent need to return to the kerygma — the core proclamation of salvation — amid “great fragmentation.”
“Keeping our gaze fixed on the face of Jesus enables us to look at the faces of our brothers and sisters,” he said, invoking the Risen Lord’s greeting, “Peace be with you,” as both gift and mission.
The Pope linked these priorities to the fruits of Italy’s multi-year synodal journey, tasking the bishops with drafting new pastoral guidelines for the decade ahead. He outlined several concrete challenges:
- Effective collegial communion: Encouraging careful discernment on diocesan mergers where demographic decline and evangelization needs demand greater collaboration, while respecting local identities and avoiding rushed decisions for small dioceses with limited resources.
- Bishop appointments and transitions: Calling for broader consultation of clergy and laity through improved coordination between the Dicastery for Bishops and the Apostolic Nunciature, and reaffirming the canonical retirement age of 75 for diocesan ordinaries, with limited exceptions for cardinals.
- Memory and continuity: Urging communities to preserve the legacy of post-Vatican II national ecclesial conferences and the “journey through the desert” guided by the Holy Spirit.
- Integral humanism in public life: Defending life, legality, solidarity, and prophetic engagement in societal debates.
- Human presence in the digital continent: Moving beyond merely “using” media to inhabiting the online world responsibly, making the internet a space of authentic freedom and fraternity.
- Pastoral closeness: Commending the Church’s extensive network of Caritas and volunteer services, and renewing attention to families, youth, the elderly, the poor, and the lonely.
In a particularly poignant section, Pope Leo XIV addressed the prevention of abuse, praising steps already taken and insisting on a culture of listening to victims: “Where pain is deep, the hope that comes from communion must be even stronger.”
Evoking the early Franciscan community’s collaborative drafting of their Rule — “mainly of expressions from the Gospel” — as a model of lived synodality, the Pope concluded by entrusting the bishops to St. Francis’s example of minority, fraternity, and “intrepid and persistent faith.”
“May the example of Saint Francis give you too the strength to make choices inspired by an authentic faith and to be, as a Church, a sign and witness of the Kingdom of God in the world,” he said.
The assembly, held November 17-20 under the theme of ongoing synodal implementation, marks a pivotal moment for the Church in Italy as it translates global synodal insights into national pastoral planning. Bishops are expected to present concrete guidelines at their next plenary session.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican.va
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