Catholics must not live their faith in opposition or “hostility” toward modern culture, Pope Leo XIV said yesterday, emphasising that integrating faith and culture is essential to living out the Christian vocation and sharing the Gospel with others. Source: OSV News.
“The authentic relationship between faith and culture is rooted in the Incarnation,” he said in his address to English speakers during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.
“Faith, therefore, enriches and brings to fulfillment every culture it encounters, and is itself called to become a culture that is shaped by Christ.”
Throughout history, the Church has played a significant role in creating educational opportunities, the Pope said, noting that many medieval universities arose from the Church and contributed to the development of Western civilisation.
The Church continues to promote access to education and culture, he said, citing the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes and its call to overcome illiteracy and to ensure that everyone has access to fundamental cultural opportunities.
Pope Leo also emphasised the importance of expanding access to higher education, especially for women, and encouraged Christians to deepen their scientific and cultural knowledge alongside their understanding of the faith.
“The Church promotes culture because it is a good in itself; it is a service to the human being and to the fulfilment of her vocation on earth,” the Pope said during his main catechesis in Italian.
Yet the development of human knowledge and culture also raises new and deeper questions, prompting believers to reflect more deeply on their faith, he said.
Faith itself is interwoven with culture through traditions, art, poetry, thought and science, Pope Leo said. Quoting St John Paul II, he said “a faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully embraced, not fully thought through, not faithfully lived.”
Faith is not limited to any one culture, but can take root in all cultures, shaping them according to the example of Jesus Christ through charity, service and recognition of God as Father, he said.
“In this way, the Church draws from the various cultures all that is good, beautiful and true, in order to embody and transmit the message of the Gospel,” the Pope said.
Catholics, he said, must strive to understand the cultures they live in, rather than approach the modern world with opposition.
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Catholics must engage with modern culture, not reject it, Pope says (By Josephine Peterson, OSV News)
