Pope Francis told Slovakia’s Catholics on September 13 that the Church should respond to secularization with the “creativity of the Gospel,” not “a defensive Catholicism.”
Speaking to clergy and lay people in St. Martin’s Cathedral in the capital, Bratislava, on Sept. 13, the Pope encouraged Catholics to draw inspiration from Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who translated the Bible into the Slavonic language.
“Isn’t this what Slovakia also needs today? I wonder. Isn’t this perhaps the most urgent task facing the Church before the peoples of Europe: finding new ‘alphabets’ to proclaim the faith?” he asked.
“We are heirs to a rich Christian tradition, yet for many people today, that tradition is a relic from the past; it no longer speaks to them or affects the way they live their lives.”
“Faced with the loss of the sense of God and of the joy of faith, it is useless to complain, to hide behind a defensive Catho-licism, to judge and blame the bad world. No, we need the creativity of the Gospel.”
The 84-year-old Pope, who is making his first international trip since undergoing surgery in July, looked at ease as he deli-vered his live-streamed address in the capital’s largest church, located beneath the imposing Bratislava Castle.